Dan Walters

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Jan. 28, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System has reported – with no small elation – that it has recouped virtually all of the $95 billion in investment losses it sustained during the global financial crisis.

A steadfast investment strategy and a generally rising stock market are responsible for the recovery, CalPERS says.

The good news comes just a few months after Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature enacted a pension reform plan they say will shrink the long-term liabilities of CalPERS and local pension systems.

So the public pension crisis that was a political preoccupation over the last decade is history, right?

Not quite.

CalPERS and its smaller cousins – especially the California State Teachers’ Retirement System – still have multibillion-dollar unfunded liabilities, plus many billions more in retiree health care commitments that have remained unfunded.

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