Labor Day 2016 continues to show improving conditions within California’s economy. The Legislature has just concluded a session that is being described as one of the most progressive ever for environmental and labor union policies. And Governor Brown is looking at over 700 new laws on his desk. His signature or veto will directly impact...
The one thing some pension reformers say is needed to cut the cost of unaffordable public pensions: give current workers a less costly retirement benefit for work done in the future, while protecting pension amounts already earned. It’s allowed in the remaining private-sector pensions. But California is one of about a dozen states that have...
“‘What makes the ‘$100,000 Club’ some magic number denoting abuse other than the claims of anti-pension zealots?’ said Dave Low, chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition of 1.6 million public workers and retirees.” This quote from a government union spokesperson, and others, were dutifully collected as part of Orange County Register reporter Teri...
As a professor of public budgeting and someone who has worked their entire career analyzing public budgets, I can say that ballot box budgeting wreaks havoc on the California budget process and taxpayer interests. Yet it is something that voters are so accustomed to doing that most average voters don’t even know what “ballot box...
Why haven’t Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Herb Wesson followed up on the recommendation by the LA 2020 Commission to “establish a Commission on Retirement Security to review the City’s retirement obligations in order to promote an accurate understanding of the facts” and make “concrete recommendations on how to achieve equilibrium on retirement...
The California Teachers Association has just dropped $10 million into its campaign to extend the “temporary” income tax hike voters approved when they passed Proposition 30 in 2012. Proposition 55, which will appear on this November’s ballot, would extend the highest income tax rates in all 50 states for another dozen years. Four years ago,...
Several reporters have asked about the consequences of CalPERS’s weak investment earnings. Although CalPERS has not issued an actuarial report since June 30, 2014, one can draw an inference that its Unfunded Liability has grown about $50 billion since then, to $140 billion. Here is how you get there: Start from this chart on page...
Earlier this month the California Policy Center released a study that provided additional evidence that the U.S. stock indexes are overvalued by approximately 50%, along with calculations showing the impact of a major downward correction on the solvency of California’s state and local government pension systems. Stocks are now at unsustainable bubble valuations. Not covered...
In January 2015, the Manhattan Institute’s Steve Malanga, writing in the Wall Street Journal about public pension costs gulping down tax raises, quoted me saying that no matter what local politicians tell voters, when you see tax increases, think pensions. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Here I go again! Recent accounts indicated that the California Public Employees’...
Orange County Register reporter Teri Sforza quietly released a story that blows the whistle on another fiscal bombshell of bad news at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). The story states that according to unofficial preliminary numbers from CalPERS the fund lost about 2% of its market value in the 2015-16 fiscal year that just ended–which...
California pension funds take a bigger share of tax revenue than the national state average, a research website shows. Why the growing costs are outpacing the norm is not completely clear. A prime suspect for some would be overly generous pensions, particularly what critics say is an “unsustainable” increase for police and firefighters widely adopted...
In August, the Los Angeles Times awarded Mayor Eric Garcetti a C for his performance during his first two years in office. While Garcetti received a B+ on his Vision, his overall ranking was dinged by a C- on Leadership and D on Political Courage. Unfortunately for all Angelenos, the “smooth on the podium” Garcetti...
What started in Stanton, California as an anomaly is spreading quickly across North Orange County – the push to create local sales taxes in order to pay off the rising pay and benefits of public employees. Stanton voters passed a one-percent sales tax in 2014, giving residents in one of OC’s poorest cities the county’s...
I met Eulalio Gomez in Bakersfield earlier this year. The correctional officer from Fresno was part of an MLK Day gathering of public sector union reformers, and I was there to document. Each California employee present had spent time and resources challenging their unions in one form or another. They came to compare war wounds...