Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio announced they will not be circulating for signatures the pension initiative they previously announced earlier this year while promising to announce two more pension initiatives. The decision reflects, again, that Reed and company can't "handle the truth" about their pension schemes. Impact of Reed/DeMaio Pension Measures on New Public Employees

The California State Retirees Health Benefits Committee is calling for CalPERS to extend open enrollment for retirees this year because changes in Medicare health plan offerings were not adequately explained in time for members to make informed decisions by the Oct. 9 enrollment deadline.

The following PDF is a list of bills that CSR is supporting, opposing or watching.

September 15, 2015 Legislative Report

CalPERS mailed out Health Plan Statements in August to help members review the increases or decreases in their providers’ 2016 rates and determine whether they want to make changes.

The biggest change for many state retirees in 2016 will be the new Medicare Advantage Plan, which was adopted by the CalPERS Board of Administration in an effort to improve member health and wellness, while lowering the costs of member health care.

More than 200 people participated in a webinar with CalPERS and UnitedHealthcare officials Aug. 19 in an effort to answer many of the questions surrounding the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage PPO plan, which becomes the single provider of health services for four of the CalPERS Medicare Advantage plans in 2016.

The plans that will no longer be available to CalPERS Medicare members are Blueshield, Anthem HMO, Health Net and Sharp.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has reached a tentative deal with a key employee union that would require state engineers to contribute toward their retirement health care benefits, likely establishing a template that will be applied to other state employee unions to help reduce a growing financial liability.

Under the three-year agreement, which still must be ratified by the union’s members and the Democratic-dominated Legislature, the Professional Engineers in California Government in mid-2017 would have to begin paying one-half of 1 percent of their pre-tax salaries into a fund to chip away at the fiscal millstone.

 The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) has named Doug McKeever the new Deputy Executive Officer (DEO) for Benefit Programs Policy and Planning.

McKeever, who has [Read More...]

This is a video from CalPERS detailing the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage PPO Plan. Read more to view the video at your leasure and learn more about the plan.

The following PDF is a list of bills that CSR is supporting, opposing or watching.

August 28, 2015 Legislative Report

Along with taxation and immigration, one political issue that never seems to go away is the cost of public employees, especially their pensions.

Public retirement plans are consistently blamed for local and state budget woes. Any time a community runs into fiscal trouble, its workers are among the first to be demonized, and often bear the brunt of the remedies. After all, pension obligations are typically among the largest liabilities any government entity must bear, so why not hack away?

In California, pension overhaul proposals have become a perennial feature of state and local ballot campaigns. Failed proposals were aimed at the statewide ballot twice in the last four years, and the proponents of the last effort, in 2014, have started the ball rolling for a new measure.

Proponents of a California ballot initiative requiring pension changes to go through a public vote on Tuesday rejected Attorney General Kamala Harris’ official description of the measure as an attempt “to try to mislead the public.”

For every ballot measure, the attorney general’s office issues a short name and description to appear on the petitions that backers use to get signatures. Because it is often the entry point for voters to understand what’s in a ballot initiative, the wording carries high stakes.

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By Dave Low, chair of Californians for Retirement Security

In their never-ending effort to force-feed warmed-over political ideas to a skeptical public, the pension attackers are back, using new poll-tested language and focus-grouped talking points to undermine retirement security for millions of working families.

Under the Orwellian moniker of the “Voter Empowerment Act,” former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, former San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio and their anti-pension cohorts are proposing nothing short of gutting the public employee pension system – one of the last bastions of middle-class economic security.

They are falsely selling their proposed ballot measure as a potential cut in pensions for new employees. In reality, it could cut or eliminate pensions earned by current employees for future work.

In an email to journalists and election officials, David Crane arrives at a false conclusion with his claim that CalPERS unfunded actuarial liability (UAL) will continue to grow unless the system achieves a return of at least 9.7%, not the 7.5% CalPERS currently assumes.

The following PDF is a list of bills that CSR is supporting, opposing or watching.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, projected to have negative cash flow for at least the next 15 years, is looking to recast investment priorities to slash the complexity and volatility embedded in its $301-billion portfolio, officials said on Tuesday.

Fund officials, recognizing that the wave of retiring baby boomers means it will pay out more in benefits than it takes in from contributions and investment income - a gap that could reach $10 billion by 2030 - are expecting to pivot more toward assets that deliver reliable income than in the past.

The following PDF is a list of Bills that CSR is supporting, opposing or watching.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today released its annual CalPERS for California Report, detailing the broad ancillary benefits the System’s investments generated in California for the 2013-14 Fiscal Year. Additionally, CalPERS released an updated version of the California Initiative Report, highlighting a program that encourages investments in companies located in traditionally underserved California markets.

CalPERS -- The California Public Employees' Retirement System's (CalPERS) Pension and Health Benefits Committee (PHBC)  recommended June 16 the Pension Fund's Board of Administration adopt health care premium rate and plan changes for 2016. The recommendations include adopting a Medicare plan alternative - UnitedHealthcare's (UHC) Medicare Advantage Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan - and eliminating Medicare Advantage plans currently offered by Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, Health Net and Sharp. Kaiser Permanente will continue to offer its Medicare Advantage plan and the CalPERS PPO Medicare Supplement plans will remain in place.

CalPERS' decision to adopt UHC's PPO could save a minimum of $24 million if at least 40,000 members move into this new Medicare plan option.

Sacramento Bee -- Thousands of calls to California’s Medi-Cal complaint lines don’t get through, and thousands more that manage to ring the call center go unanswered, according to a new state audit.

For the year that ended in January 2015, the phone system to the Medi-Cal Ombudsman Office rejected up to 45,000 calls in a month, State Auditor Elaine Howle said in her report to lawmakers.

The following PDF is a list of Bills that CSR is supporting, opposing or watching.