CalPERS has not and will never have a high rate of return. Taxpayers will have to bail out pensioners. You can take that to the bank.
IIRC there was a time, I think in the 90s, when CalPers had a rate of return around 30%. I seem to recall member agencies were given a contribution holiday, which made no sense to me. If I were contributing $100 a month to a retirement account and it started getting returns of 20% to 30% I’d start contributing as much as I could.