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New legislation unveiled this morning aims to build a sort of CalPERS-for-all retirement savings system that the measure's author says could cover an estimated 7 million working Californians in the private sector. Senate Bill 1234 by Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Kevin de León would require businesses with five or more employees to enroll them in a new "Personal Pension" defined benefit program or offer an alternative employer-sponsored plan. De León, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and other political and labor leaders who touted the measure noted that public discourse has focused on public employee pensions. The press event came...

California taxpayers should ask themselves, in the words of Clint Eastwood's famous movie character, "Do I feel lucky?" We're not staring down the barrel of "Dirty Harry" Callahan's gun wondering whether there's a bullet in the chamber. Instead, we're gambling our financial future on whether public pension fund investments will surpass reasonable expectations. If state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, union leaders and the state's largest government employee retirement funds have their way, they'll continue betting against the odds. It's not surprising. It's not their money at risk. They won't have to cover the losses. Taxpayers will. Last week, a study led...

Wounded by the CalPERS bribery scandal and other problems, a New Jersey pharmaceutical-benefits company is being sold. Medco Health Solutions Inc., one of the giants of the drug-benefit industry, on Thursday agreed to a $29.1 billion takeover by rival Express Scripts Inc. Such a deal would have been unthinkable a few months ago, when Medco was flying high. But the New Jersey company ran into a series of problems that began with its entanglement in the CalPERS bribery case. "This year has been a head-spinner for this (Medco) management team, starting out with the CalPERS issues," said investment analyst Arthur...

When Gov. Jerry Brown and Republicans failed to reach agreement on closing the state budget deficit, they also failed to resolve several budget-related issues – most prominently what, if anything, should be done to rein in public employees' pensions. Pension costs are not yet a huge component of the state budget because the vast majority of its funds are given to others to spend. But they are huge in local governments, especially cities, which spend most of their money on personnel – especially high-wage police officers and firefighters – and face rapidly escalating pension costs. Republicans wanted to scale back...

Here's some fun facts. OK, maybe not so fun depending on your perspective. The average retiree from San Francisco city government earns an annual pension of $46,272, according to the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System. The average retiree who worked at least 30 years in city government earns an annual pension of $76,981. The average pension for a retiree from the fire department is $108,552. From the police department? $95,016. And everybody else? $41,136. The figures show most retirees aren't getting anywhere near the fat packages that outrage many city residents - like the $264,000 pension paid to former Police...

SANTA CLARITA -- Gov. Jerry Brown, joined on his budget tour this afternoon for the first time by a Republican lawmaker, put the assemblyman on a stage in his hometown and flanked him with administration and public safety officials supportive of Brown's tax plan. But the rhetoric was ratcheted down on both sides, and not even a panelist's mispronunciation of Assemblyman Cameron Smyth's name could provoke him. "Smyth," the legislator said after he was introduced at his alma mater, pronouncing the Y like the I in "rice." "It's just my old high school, but that's cool." The Democratic governor, who's...

Gov. Jerry Brown today issued a 12-point pension reform agenda his office says he will introduce in the Legislature "with or without Republican support." The first seven items seek to end abuses or tighten pension funding rules. The last five involve more systemic changes and are listed as "under development." PENSION REFORM PROPOSAL APPLIES TO STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 1. Eliminate Purchase of Airtime. Would eliminate the opportunity, for all current and future employee members of all state and local retirement systems, to purchase additional retirement service credit. (RN 14777) (Note Walters, SB 522, would eliminate Air Time) 2. Prohibit...

Brown's Countdown, Day 76: Budget talks deteriorate as GOP unveils big request list State budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers deteriorated Friday as Republicans released a long list of proposals to overhaul California government that Democrats said had further divided the parties. According to a document Senate Republicans provided to reporters, they asked Brown for pension cuts to current and future employees, as well as changes to teacher tenure that reward performance and a hard cap on future state spending, among dozens of ideas. ... The list provided by Republicans included notations of where Brown and Democratic...

California tax payers just took a huge punch in the nose from the same actuaries who provided the cover for state politicians to spike public employee retirement benefits. The latest shocker comes from California State Controller John Chiang who yesterday unveiled a new actuarial report that shows California faces another unfunded debt of $59.9 billion to pay for retiree health and dental benefits over the next 30 years. Controller Chiang highlighted that the unfunded liability grew during the 2010 fiscal year by $8.1 billion; an amount equal to almost 25% of this year’s entire California kindergarten through high school education...

The office recommended that lawmakers act not only on state employee pensions, but on retirement benefits for the University of California system, teachers and county government workers. "From our perspective, this seems unsustainable," Jason Sisney, director of state finance for the Legislative Analyst's Office, said in a phone interview. "We are headed to a place where government employees will be the only people in society who have these sorts of retirement benefits," Sisney added. "That is troubling." Republicans may ask Democrats for pension changes in exchange for placing tax hike extensions on the ballot as part of Gov. Jerry Brown's...

"Hi, I’m California, And I’m Addicted to Spending…"What a magnificent confession this would be, if only we could hear it collectively from our 31st state. Imagine -California emerges from its’ state of denial, and admits that it is addicted to government spending. And then, after acknowledging its’ addiction, envision the government of California coming to believe that a power greater than itself (the private sector) could restore its’ sanity, and then turning itself over to the care of that greater power, and, in so doing, checking itself into “rehab.” Psychobabble and twelve-step metaphors can only go so far. But in...

Buried in Gov. Jerry Brown's new state budget proposal – one aimed at closing chronic operating deficits – is a decision to suspend sales of state bonds, at least for six months, this coming spring. It's an implicit, and long overdue, official recognition that California has built itself a mountain of debt over the last decade, much of it acquired to paper over its budget deficits, and needs a breather. Some of the debt is official – bonds issued by the state and local governments, with and without voter approval, to pay for public works, subsidize private development projects, refinance...

SACRAMENTO -- Republicans have yet to emerge with an official set of demands they'd want met before considering Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal, but pension reform will top the list once they do. Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Hills, is preparing a package of pension reform bills she said must be addressed before taking up taxes. Among her reforms is legislation requiring all new state employees to enter 401(k)-style benefit plans. "We want reforms in place before there's any discussion about tax increases," said Walters, the GOP's nominee last fall for state treasurer who was trounced by incumbent Bill Lockyer. "I...

San Francisco voters aren't the only ones who will take up an incredibly contentious pension measure on election day. From the beach towns of Carlsbad and Pacific Grove to agricultural Bakersfield, from Redding up north to Riverside down south, Californians will decide about a dozen local pension initiatives - more than the state's voters have ever faced at once.While San Francisco's Proposition B to require city employees to pay more for their pensions and health care benefits is getting the most attention, voters around the state are suddenly interested in what has long been considered an eye-glazing topic reserved for...

California NOW Chief: Calling Whitman a 'Whore' is Accurate Published October 15, 2010 | FoxNews.com The president of the National Organization for Women may have said it's wrong for anyone to call a woman a "whore," but the head of the California NOW affiliate says Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is one. California NOW President Parry Bellasalma told the TPM blog on Thursday that the description of the Republican candidate for governor of California is accurate. "Meg Whitman could be described as 'a political whore.' Yes, that's an accurate statement," Bellasalma said after a TPM blogger called to ask her...

Why would the union that represents LAPD officers even think of endorsing liberal Jerry Brown to reprise his disastrous turn as California's governor? Because politics is full of compromising positions. There is a story, probably apocryphal, often told about Winston Churchill. It’s the one in which he’s in conversation with an aristocratic woman, to whom he makes a proposal. “Madam,” he says, “would you sleep with me for five million pounds?” “I suppose I would,” says the woman. “We would have to discuss the terms, of course.” “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?” asks Churchill. The woman is...

By winning a deal last week to scale back pension benefits for public employees, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger beat one of his most formidable opponents: CalPERS. Schwarzenegger and his aides have hammered the California Public Employees' Retirement System over the past 18 months, citing its steep investment losses and its role in raising pension benefits a decade earlier. The administration painted a portrait of a pension fund that refused to look its problems squarely in the eye. The fact that CalPERS needed an extra $600 million from state taxpayers this year – to help it cope with its losses from 2008...

In the last few days Democrat Jerry Brown's gubernatorial campaign has been doing damage control after someone close to him was heard calling his Republican rival Meg Whitman a "whore." In the immediate aftermath, it was assumed that it was one of Brown's assistants who uttered the derogatory phrase. However, new sources reveal that it may have been someone much closer to Brown: his wife. According to anonymous sources close to Brown, it was his wife Anne who called Whitman a "whore." When asked about the quote, the source inadvertently said that it was Brown's wife when stating, "The person...

This much is clear: Someone in Jerry Brown's inner campaign circle suggested GOP rival Meg Whitman is a "whore."The list of things less clear is longer a day after a recording of the slur hit the Internet and rocked the governor's race.Who made the comment that was picked up on a police union official's answering machine? And will the fallout over the controversy boost Whitman's case against Brown? . . . The political damage of the slur scandal remains to be seen, but the greatest risk clearly lies with female voters, whom polls show Whitman has courted with more success...

Jerry Brown's campaign apologized Thursday for a private conversation captured on audiotape that has the California Democratic gubernatorial candidate agreeing to an aide's description of Republican rival Meg Whitman as a "whore." The exchange, inadvertently recorded by a voicemail, discussed Whitman cutting a deal to protect law enforcement pensions as the candidates competed for endorsements from police.