Articles for category Retirement
The investment house Franklin Templeton's effort to knock down the city of Stockton's proposal to emerge from bankruptcy portrays the case as one in which Franklin is defending itself against three big, faceless adversaries.
These are CalPERS, California's enormous public pension agency, and "the City and its organized labor allies." Franklin objects that they're angling to preserve their preferential position in the bankruptcy reorganization, while cramming down big losses on Franklin, which holds more than $36 million in city debt, of which some $32 million is unsecured. The city proposes to pay Franklin about 1 cent on the dollar for that unsecured portion.
[Read More...]
California’s eight-month streak of declining state-pension applications ended with a 24 percent jump in July, according to CalPERS data. August followed with a hefty 64 percent surge, the largest single-month percentage increase since July 2010. Retirement filings last month rose 23 percent compared with a year ago.
[Read More...]
The ruling last week by a federal bankruptcy judge in Stockton’s bankruptcy case has caused many to speculate about the future of pensions. Public employees, retirees, employers, lawyers, taxpayers and journalists have legitimate questions and concerns (“Bankruptcy case should be a loud warning to cities,” Editorials, Oct. 3).
[Read More...]
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's statewide pension reform initiative was dealt a major setback Thursday when a judge rejected a lawsuit that could have made it much easier for Reed get his measure on the ballot.
[Read More...]
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- Mayor Chuck Reed on Friday abandoned what was supposed to be his crowing achievement, saying he had admitted defeat in his bid to get a statewide pension reform measure on the November ballot.
The decision was expected after Reed struggled to attract the well-funded allies he needed to raise the millions of dollars to gather the roughly 800,000 signatures required for the initiative to reach the ballot. Meanwhile, organized union groups mounted a campaign to defeat it, and dozens of other California mayors lined up against it.
The San Jose mayor will be termed out of office at the end of this year and had spent months traveling the state and Washington D.C. in hopes of gathering support for his initiative, which was similar to a city pension measure he championed in 2012.
[Read More...]
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed has revised the public employee pension ballot measure, tweaking its language to fend off opponents’ criticisms that the proposed constitutional amendment circumvents collective bargaining and guarantees proponents a payday in state-subsidized legal fees to defend the measure if the state attorney general declined to fight lawsuits that would certainly follow the its approval.
“In the last two or three weeks we’ve talked to a lot of people,” Reed said this morning in a telephone interview, including the legislative analyst staff and the attorney general’s office. “Some parts of our measure weren’t clear. So we’re trying to make it clear what our intentions are.”
Union opponents seized on the revision -- and a switch in the lineup of the measure’s proponents -- as a sign that the proposal is in trouble. Among other things, Reed’s proposal would change California’s constitution to allow public employee pensions to be lowered prospectively for current workers. A body of case law appears to make that illegal without another form of compensation to offset that loss.
[Read More...]
For more than half a century, Yolanda Solari dedicated much of her life to fighting for the rights of state workers, state retirees and California citizens in general.
She passed away Oct. 30 at the age of 90.
She held several elected offices within CSEA, which currently has about 140,000 members in four affiliates, including California State Retirees.
She was first elected president of CSEA in 1990 – the third woman to hold the position, and the first to serve three two-year terms.
[Read More...]
Governor signs CSR-endorsed bills
Gov. Brown signed five bills in October that are beneficial to senior citizens and supported by California State Retirees (CSR).
Of the 896 bills the Legislature sent the governor this year before adjourning in September, the governor signed 800 and vetoed 96, according to Ted Toppin, legislative advocate for CSR. The approved bills go into effect Jan. 1, 2014.
[Read More...]
It has come to our attention that approximately 25,000 CalPERS members do not have a mailing address on file at CalPERS, and therefore did not receive a ballot for the CalPERS 2013 Board Member-At-Large-Election.
[Read More...]
The following PDF is a list of Bills that CSR is supporting, opposing, or watching.
[Read More...]