“As the result of California Courts refusing to uphold the language of the High Speed Rail bonds, the opponents of any bond proposal, at either the state or local level, need only point to High-Speed Rail to remind voters that promises in a voter approved bond proposal are meaningless and unenforceable.” –  Jon Coupal, October...

Summary:  The California State Teacher’s Retirement System (CalSTRS) is California’s 2nd largest public employee pension fund, serving roughly 2% of California’s population. At present, its unfunded liability is officially estimated at $71 billion. While much of the discussion over pension reform focuses on projected rates of investment returns, which greatly affects the required annual contributions...

Preface: Earlier this year the California Policy Center published a study evaluating the Orange County Employee Retirement System (OCERS) to explore this same question: Are Annual Contributions into OCERS Adequate? That study adopted a unique focus, evaluating contributions into OCERS not based on percent of payroll, but by looking at the actual amount of cash being contributed...