San Bernardino’s bankruptcy plan favors CalPERS By Paloma Esquivel & Joe Mozingo, May 18, 2015, Los Angeles Times San Bernardino’s plan to exit bankruptcy has at least one winner, plenty of losers and could have repercussions for other California cities. The city will pay every penny of the almost $50 million it owes to the...
“If you say there is an elephant in the room, you mean that there is an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about.” – Cambridge Dictionaries Online If you study California’s legislature, it doesn’t take long to learn there’s an elephant in both chambers, bigger and badder than every...
There’s a joke about public sector union bosses making the rounds in Sacramento lately: What happens when the California Legislature hands over a blank check to the California Teachers Association (CTA)? It’s returned the next day marked “insufficient.” No matter that spending on schools is up 36 percent over the last four years, the state...
In bankruptcy, the federal courts have ruled that cities can reduce pension obligations. They can, but they don’t have to. In Detroit, bondholders were sacrificed to maintain police and fire pensions with minimal haircuts. On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury ruled against bondholders in favor of Calpers in the San Bernardino bankruptcy. She acknowledged...
Why CalPERS retirees flee California May 12, 2015, Sacramento News This city’s Spanish name recalls grassy, spring-fed meadows that nourished the first farms here and gave laborers relief from desert heat. Now Las Vegas draws a new generation of settlers epitomized by California transplant Joe Beck: CalPERS pensioners who have made Sin City their No....
Back in the early 2000’s, in the aftermath of the internet bubble’s collapse, California’s state and local governments endured a period of austerity that resulted in “furloughs,” where, typically, employees would take Friday’s off in exchange for a 20% cut in their pay. That is, they worked 20% less, and made 20% less in pay –...
Exposed: Audit of DWP Non-Profit Trusts Produces Surprise Roadblocks to Transparency By Paul Hatfield, May 5, 2015, CityWatchLA.com By now, most of you are familiar with the audit report of the controversial non-profit trusts issued by City Controller Ron Galperin. If not, take the time to read it – at least the Executive Summary. The...
Editor’s Note: As documented in two recent California Policy Center studies, “Examining Public Pay in California: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and “Alameda County Water District Rate Increase Driven by Labor Costs, Not Drought,” no crisis, including a drought, is missed when it comes to seizing opportunities to increase revenue in order to...
Labor unions take forced fees from 550,000 nonmembers By Jason Hart, April 27, 2015, Watchdog.org You make it, we’ll take it. To keep their jobs, 554,799 American workers were forced last year to pay union agency fees. In the 25 states without right-to-work laws, unions can take mandatory “fair share” or “agency” fees from workers...
Pension cost liability vexes Humboldt County By Daniel Mintz, April 21, 2015, Mad River Union With the county’s budget in a state of recovery, supervisors are considering ways to put a dent in a $220 million pension funding liability. The impacts and options for addressing the county’s unfunded California Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) liability...
California’s politics remain polarized, but not just via the traditional division of Republicans vs. Democrats. As reported here two months ago in the post “Issue of Government Unions Divide Candidates More Than Party Affiliation,” there were two California State Senate contests that remained unresolved after the November 2014 election. One of them, pitting Republican John Moorlach...
Summary: The National Labor Relations Board is poised to scrap the long-held legal definition of a joint employer, which has allowed business sectors—including the franchise industry—not only to thrive in recent decades but also to bounce back more quickly from the Great Recession than other segments of the economy. Given the employee turnover in many...
Steve Glazer, Blazing a Trail By Joel Fox, April 14, 2015, Fox&Hounds A Democrat will be elected in the Senate District 7 special election next month but depending on which Democrat is elected the result could change the course of California political history. Steve Glazer, the Orinda mayor and former Jerry Brown advisor is a...
“His idea of pension reform is, you sign up for one pension system, we’re going to change it now in mid career, and now you’re going to get something different.” Lou Paulson, President, California Professional Firefighters (ref. CPF Video, April 1, 2015) The biggest problem with Mr. Paulson’s comment is the double standard he applies. Changing pension...