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"The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely in their favor," Malanga writes. "The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California’s unsustainable government."

The Unbelievable Expectations of California's Pension System
FR posted Wednesday, May 19, 2010

California Bill SB 400 granted billions of dollars in retroactive pension boosts to state employees, allowing retirements as young as age 50 with lifetime pensions of up to 90% of final year salaries.....

What Calpers (California Public Employees' Retirement System) failed to disclose, however, was that (1) the state budget was on the hook for shortfalls should actual investment returns fall short of assumed investment returns, (2) those assumed investment returns implicitly projected the Dow Jones would reach roughly 25,000 by 2009 and 28,000,000 by 2099, unrealistic to say the least (3) shortfalls could turn out to be hundreds of billions of dollars, (4) Calpers’s own employees would benefit from the pension increases and (5) members of Calpers’s board had received contributions from the public employee unions who would benefit from the legislation.

Had such a flagrant case of non-disclosure occurred in the private sector, even a sleepy SEC and US Attorney would have noticed.

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Calpers Rocked by 'Pay to Play'
WSJ, 10/15/09, By CRAIG KARMIN AND PETER LATTMAN
EXCERPT America's largest public-pension fund, Calpers, revealed that a former board member had reaped more than $50 million in fees for arranging investments that could saddle state taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The disclosure deepens concerns that alleged conflicts of interest are undermining state retirement funds.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System said it is launching a "special review" into payments by money managers-- including billionaire Leon Black's Apollo Management LP -- to firms including Arvco Financial Ventures LLC. Arvco is headed by Al Villalobos, who served on Calpers's board from 1993 to 1995.

SOURCE http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125553138534384951.html

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Compare your salary w/ California govt employees' salaries (does not include pensions and benefits)

Special Nurse $350,000+
Municipal railway manager:$325,000+
Administrative services department head $280,000+

State college workers salaries:
JEFF TEDFORD UC BERKELEY HEAD COACH-INTERCOLG ATHLETICS $2,831,654
PHILIP E LEBOIT UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN___-MEDCOMP-A $1,979,362
TIMOTHY H MCCALMONT UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN___-MEDCOMP-A $1,945,717
RONALD W BUSUTTIL UC LOS ANGELES PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $1,570,897
RICHARD J SHEMIN UC LOS ANGELES PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $1,195,837
KHALIL M TABSH UC LOS ANGELES HS CLIN PROF-MEDCOMP-A $1,048,891
BEN BRAUN UC BERKELEY HEAD COACH-INTERCOLG ATHLETICS $998,569
http://www.sacbee.com/1098/story/1669273.html