Articles for category CalPERS
Posted Oct 09, 2014 by
CalPERS
Retirees
State Economy
Retirement
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).
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Posted Oct 09, 2014 by
CalPERS
Retirees
A federal bankruptcy judge's decision that Stockton could toss out its contract with CalPERS, the state's giant pension fund, may lead to deep cuts in workers' and retirees' pensions, even though the city didn't ask for any cuts at all. It also could lead other cities to use the bankruptcy process to rewrite employee pensions over their workers' objections.
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Posted Oct 03, 2014 by
CalPERS
General News
The election results indicate CSUEU-endorsed candidate Taylor received 55 percent of the valid votes cast during the voting period, which took place from August 29 through September 29. Unofficial election results also indicate that Mathur received 56 percent of the valid votes cast. More than 40,000 active state and public agency CalPERS members voted in the election.
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Posted Sep 24, 2014 by
CalPERS
CSEA
Charles P. “Chuck” Valdes, who served three terms as president of the California State Employees Association (CSEA) and 20 years on the Board of Administration at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) Board of Administration, died Sept. 2. The man who lived with him is accused of battery, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant and elder abuse.
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Posted Sep 23, 2014 by
CalPERS
CalPERS health plan members will notice many new options available to them in the open enrollment package recently mailed by CalPERS.
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Posted May 06, 2014 by
CalPERS
Retirees
Health Care
State Employees
About 40,000 CalPERS state retiree members were asked in December 2013 to verify whether their dependents are eligible to receive CalPERS health care benefits, but about 3,400 dependents remained unverified by May 1 even after several notifications, CalPERS reported May 6.
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Posted Feb 07, 2014 by
CalPERS
Retirees
General News
State Employees
Proponents of a pension-change initiative want a judge to edit key language used to describe their measure, contending that it was written to bias voters against it.
The lawsuit filed this week by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and four other local government officials behind the proposal accuses Attorney General Kamala Harris of writing a title and summary that “uses false and misleading words and phrases which argue for the measure’s defeat, is argumentative, and creates prejudice against the measure, rather than merely informing voters of its chief purposes and points ...”
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Posted Jan 13, 2014 by
CalPERS
Retirees
General News
After California State Retirees (CSR) took the lead in calling for legislative hearings regarding pension privacy rights, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) announced Jan. 6 that it will rescind its plan to post on its website the names and pension amounts of 550,000 CalPERS retirees.
In July, CalPERS agreed to postpone the launching of its searchable pension data base when CSR and other retiree organizations argued that public information should only be released upon individual request under the Public Information Act. Posting the pension information of all CalPERS members on a data base would make it easier for solicitors and identity thieves to obtain information, the groups argued.
The Jan. 6 statement released by CalPERS Spokeswoman Rita Gallardo said: "After many discussions with our stakeholders and partners, we have come to better understand their concerns about posting this public information in a secure database on the CalPERS website. Next month CalPERS staff will report to the [CalPERS Board of Administration] that we no longer believe the intended benefits of posting the database on our website outweigh the risks and concerns to our members and that we should not move forward with our previous plans.
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Posted Dec 19, 2013 by
CalPERS
Retirees
Health Care
Ordinarily, when increases in employer and employee pension contributions are discussed, we would be the first to question the need for such increases. But the current reality shows it is prudent to adjust contributions in light of the updated actuarial assumptions. Members are living longer. Hence the long term stability of the fund outweighs knee jerk objections in our estimation.
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Posted Nov 14, 2013 by
CalPERS
Retirees
State Economy
Retirement
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.
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