L.A. NOW
Southern California — this just in

July 28, 2010 | 5:31 pm

Three highly paid administrators in Bell will not be permitted to draw their state pensions until the attorney general determines whether the city broke the law in awarding the hefty paychecks, according to an official with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

“CalPERS is concerned about the situation, and our intention is to not [to] entertain applications for pensions from any of these people until the investigation is complete,” said Pat Macht, the agency’s external affairs director.

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Steve Cooley

Investigators are looking into allegations of voter fraud and conflicts of interest, as well as the $100,000 salaries paid to four council members. The D.A. says several elections are targeted.

By Richard Winton, Jeff Gottlieb and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

July 28, 2010

Los Angeles County prosecutors have launched a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of voter fraud and conflicts of interest involving municipal business in Bell, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Tuesday.

In an interview with The Times, Cooley described an investigation considerably larger in scope than previously acknowledged by prosecutors, saying that it was “multifaceted, rapidly expanding and full-fledged.” Investigators have been gathering evidence since March, he said.

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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, July 27, 2010

By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County’s November ballot is getting crowded.

Supervisors on Tuesday voted to place two competing pension measures before voters Nov. 2, as well as a proposal to increase the amount of money the county’s regional transportation commission can borrow.

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Posted on 26 July 2010
By Robert Cruickshank

As progressive activists across America organize to fight the looming “cat food commission” proposals to destroy the futures of working Americans by slashing Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age, Jerry Brown is now proposing to do the same here in California – in this case with cuts to public employee pensions:

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By Ed Mendel

As CalPERS publicly said a decade ago that a major pension increase, now targeted for rollbacks, could be paid for with investment earnings rather than higher state costs, its actuaries made a startlingly accurate forecast of the impact if earnings fell short.

The actuaries said the annual state payment to CalPERS, $159 million in 1999, could soar to $3.954 billion in fiscal 2010-11 — a long-range forecast that scored a near bull’s-eye on the $3.888 billion state payment for the fiscal year that began this month.

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L.A. NOW
Southern California — this just in

July 26, 2010 | 7:37 am

The embattled Bell City Council will meet Monday night to consider cutting council member pay, which is now considered significantly higher than that of other cities of the same size.

The move comes three days after the council announced the resignations of three top city administrators, including the city manager who was making nearly $800,000 a year.

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Brown

Today, Attorney General, oops! I mean democratic candidate for Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown was campaigning on the Bell pension fiasco vis press conference.

Yes indeed. Another “high-profile” issue has handed Brown a platform to campaign from for “free”.

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Under scrutiny, the public pension fund has hired a firm to examine its payments.

By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2010 | 9:56 p.m.

Reporting from Sacramento —

California taxpayers are on the hook when the state’s giant public pension system — lately plagued by corruption scandals and huge losses — makes a bad investment. Yet they are permitted to see little of what goes into its investment decisions.

Officials at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System have shrouded many of their multimillion-dollar transactions in secrecy, refusing to release analyses of potential investments, meeting materials and correspondence relating to venture capital, real estate and other private equity holdings.

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Bell officials step down
July 23, 2010 3:16 PM
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

BELL (AP) • The city manager, assistant city manager and police chief of this small, poverty-plagued suburb of Los Angeles stepped down following a public outcry over their salaries, which total more than $1.6 million a year.

Robert Rizzo, who served as Hesperia’s city manager from 1988 to 1992, was the highest paid Bell employee at $787,637 a year — nearly twice the pay of President Barack Obama. Census figures for 2008 showed about 17 percent of the city’s less than 40,000 residents live in poverty.

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Brown

By Jon Ortiz and David Siders
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Jul. 24, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, long a supporter of public employee retirement rights, is staking out territory in what is traditionally Republican ground: government pension reform.

On his campaign website and in recent comments to the media, California’s attorney general and former governor has advocated rolling back state retirement benefits. Many of his points mirror changes pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and tentatively accepted by some unions, but don’t cut into pensions as deeply as policies proposed by Brown’s Republican opponent, Meg Whitman.

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The Democrat would adopt some Schwarzenegger ideas, such as asking current employees to contribute more to their plans and raising the retirement age for new hires.

By Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times

July 23, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento —

Unveiling one of his few major policy proposals Thursday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown called for public-pension reform, embracing some of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ideas for curbing the soaring cost of the state worker retirement system.

If elected, Brown said, he would ask current employees to contribute more to their pension plans and would raise the retirement age for new hires. The measures are core components of tentative deals Schwarzenegger has negotiated with half a dozen state workers’ unions.

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By Ed Mendel

Although you may not find one in California, there is a place where officials get credit for handling public employee pensions, instead of a barrage of criticism about unaffordable debt.

It’s Wisconsin, a state with a tradition of good government and high taxes.

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Villalobos

By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B
Last Modified: Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 – 8:26 am

RENO – Alfred Villalobos, the former CalPERS board member accused of bribery, said Monday he plans to sue the pension fund for spreading lies about him.

Villalobos said he will sue the California Public Employees’ Retirement System for $10 million, though he didn’t say when. “You know that they lied publicly and said things that weren’t true,” he said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B
Last Modified: Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 – 8:29 am

CalPERS was sued Monday by the First Amendment Coalition over its refusal to turn over documents relating to a controversial real estate investment.

The nonprofit coalition sued in San Francisco Superior Court, seeking documents concerning the California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s ill-fated $100 million investment in Page Mill Properties, a collection of rental houses in East Palo Alto.

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Saddled with policies adopted when times were good, many face dire consequences now. San Diego is a case in point.

July 18, 2010|By Tony Perry and Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from San Diego and Sacramento — After losing billions of dollars in recession-wracked investments, public pension funds in California are seeking to pare back the historically generous retirement benefits they provide to government workers, but not without push-back from unions.

About 70 local governments, stretching from Redding to Long Beach, are coming up with new, stingier formulas for calculating pension benefits for future hires.

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A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
Money and Politics
California WatchBlog

July 15, 2010 | Lance Williams

To conceal the fearsome prospective impact of California’s pension bomb from the taxpayers, bureaucrats sometimes play hide the ball.

When they do, it’s up to open-government advocates to drag them into court and make them do the right thing.

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Posted: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 8:16 pm | Updated: 11:43 am, Tue Jul 6, 2010.

Charlie Walters, the assistant sheriff in charge of the jails on the 2006 night that John Chamberlain was killed by inmates, is now the county’s second highest paid pensioner after opting for retirement in 2008 in the wake of a criminal grand jury probe, prosecutions and firings in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

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Mike Carona

By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times

July 9, 2010

Orange County pension records show that convicted former Sheriff Michael S. Carona collected about $215,000 last year in retirement payments — and he was just one of more than 400 county pensioners who received more than $100,000 in retirement in 2009.

Carona, who was convicted last year of witness tampering, remains free on bail pending appeal. But his indictment in 2007 rocked the county and forced major changes to the county’s top law enforcement agency.

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Share
By Susan Ferriss
sferriss@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Jul. 9, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 4A

With former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown at his side, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a new demand Thursday that a specific change in state worker pensions be made before he signs off on a budget.

At a minimum, the governor said he wants legislators to roll back current pension terms to those that existed before 1999 legislation created more generous rules.

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By Joel Fox
Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee
Wed, July 7th, 2010

Despite Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success in negotiating some concessions from state unions on the pension front, heated action in the battle for pension reform is happening in California’s cities.

Yesterday, initiative petition signatures were filed in San Francisco to require thousands of city employees to contribute 9% of their salaries towards their pensions and health care plans. Currently, many (but not all) contribute nothing. The initiative would also boost public safety workers contributions to 10% of salaries. Police and firefighters just saw their contributions increased to 9% by voters in the June election.

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Greg Devereaux

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/03/2010 07:10:35 AM PDT

San Bernardino County’s nearly 19,000 employees have accrued $152 million in vacation and sick time, holiday pay and administrative leave – an unfunded liability that will need addressing to keep the budget on track in coming years, officials say.

The problem is not the accrual, considered a standard process in many counties and municipalities, but the fact that the county has not funded the accrued time in past years, County Administrative Officer Greg Devereaux said.

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July 1, 2010 | Chase Davis

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday voted to restrict campaign contributions from money managers seeking business from public pension funds and restrict the hiring of middlemen to solicit pension business, following several episodes of apparent corruption in California and elsewhere.

Under the new rules, which were approved unanimously, investment managers would be prohibited from working with a public pension fund for two years if they make a campaign contribution to an official with influence over the fund.

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L.A. County sees $200M shortfall
Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Created: 06/28/2010 08:28:10 PM PDT

Stung by an $8 billion pension fund loss last year, Los Angeles County supervisors will be asked today to spend an additional $200 million to shore up its wilting retirement system.

If the money is approved, the taxpayer tab for county employees’ pensions would soar in the fiscal year beginning Thursday from $787 million to $987 million.

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Sunday, June 27, 2010 – 11:27 a.m.

San Bernardino County is set to adopt its 2010-11 budget next year and the revenue assumption appears to be significantly better than originally thought.

Currently the county projects combined annual operating deficits totaling $222.1 million dollars through the 2014-15 fiscal years. A bright estimate considering current conditions.

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City is looking to trim benefit for future hires
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 06/26/2010 10:03:17 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – City Hall’s long-range plan to halt growing deficits includes negotiations aimed at whittling away at the retirement benefits that could be owed to future employees.

City employees’ contracts expire at or before the end of this year, and the city’s weakened financial position could be a premise for difficult bargaining sessions.

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Monday, June 21, 2010

The latest murmurings coming out the San Bernardino County Government Center say newly appointed county administrative officer Greg Devereaux has his hands full on multiple levels.

On the finance front, fires are burning everywhere, with new blazes erupting on a routine basis. Most due to the incompetence of his predecessor Mark Uffer.

If anyone can right this ship Devereaux can.

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Schwarzenegger

Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino, Staff Writer
Posted: 06/21/2010 08:14:45 PM PDT

Pension reform hinges on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s promise that he’ll veto any budget proposal that does not include “two-tier” retirement benefits, according to Republican lawmakers.

“There is a really good chance he will keep his promise,” said state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga. “He’s got nothing to lose.”

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June 21st, 2010, 3:39 pm · posted by Jennifer Muir

A new, hybrid pension plan for county employees is still tied up at the Internal Revenue Service, and county staff is asking for more money to resolve the issue.

Under the two-tiered plan, current employees were supposed to be able to choose whether to keep their old benefits, or select a hybrid plan that features a reduced pension but also a defined contribution component, similar to a 401(k).

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June 21st, 2010, 3:00 am · posted by Tony Saavedra, Register investigative reporter

Justice may be blind, but in the hands of the Orange County Employees Retirement System, it’s also gum-footed slow.

The Watchdog reported two weeks ago that an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled OCERS must provide the names of retirees, how much they collect and where they last worked. Judge Luis Rodriguez’ decision came in response to a lawsuit by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, with help from the Orange County Register.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Jun. 20, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

California’s fiscal pickle – state and local budgets that are many billions of dollars out of balance – may have just gotten worse by hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has dropped a bombshell with preliminary new rules that, if adopted, would force governments to increase projections of pension liabilities by using tighter “discount rates” – effectively, lower assumptions of pension fund earnings.

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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 15, 2010

By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County supervisors Tuesday voted to place a union-backed measure to protect public-safety pensions on the November ballot.

The initiative, supported by the Riverside Sheriff’s Association, qualified for the ballot last month after backers gathered enough signatures.

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Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below its low for the year signaling more turmoil ahead for public pension funds. Some analysts are starting to believe it’s all but likely to fall even further.

This market downturn is occurring just as the fiscal year of many public pension systems come to a close on June 30th.

Public pension funds across the country have lessened their risk exposure over the past year which may provide some level protection from falling equity prices.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Jun. 3, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 8B

A bill cracking down on placement agents, the middlemen enmeshed in an influence-peddling scandal at CalPERS, squeaked through the Assembly on Wednesday. It now goes to the Senate.

Assembly Bill 1743 would prohibit placement agents – who are hired by private equity firms to secure investments from CalPERS and other public pension funds – from collecting contingency fees from their clients. They would also have to register as lobbyists.

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Union money rules

Neil Nisperos, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/31/2010 09:58:24 PM PDT

Candidates know partnering with big labor can mean free and nearly unlimited manpower for grass-roots political campaigning during election time.

While Republican primary front- runner and billionaire Meg Whitman is spending millions on her gubernatorial campaign, Democratic candidate Jerry Brown is counting on union muscle in his campaign for the governor’s seat.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, May. 27, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B

Alfred Villalobos, the former CalPERS board member accused of bribing pension fund officials, has squandered $68 million of his fortune and owes more money to one casino than he has in cash, the state said Wednesday.

In a court filing, the state revealed fresh allegations about Villalobos’ spending habits in an effort to maintain a court-ordered freeze on his assets. It is suing Villalobos for $70 million, saying he lavished gifts on three CalPERS officials to influence investment decisions.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, May. 27, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B

The state’s teacher pension fund is about to reduce its official forecast of investment returns by half a percentage point, a move that could cost state and local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

CalSTRS’ staff, which has been wrestling with the issue for months, said Wednesday that the forecast of annual returns should be cut to 7.5 percent. The board of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System will vote on the recommendation next week.

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Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/24/2010 08:07:22 PM PDT

San Bernardino County’s attempt to negotiate pension concessions from sheriff’s deputies could signal a new trend: a rollback of the generous retirement packages public employees secured during the past decade.

The development is not universal – Rialto’s pension benefits are scheduled to increase in December.

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10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, May 20, 2010

DAN BERNSTEIN

In Greece, trombone players may retire at 50 because their work causes breathing problems. RivCo sheriff’s deputies may retire at 50. Some receive 90 percent of their salaries. For life! It’s a safe bet that Greek trombone players and the RivCo Sheriff’s Association believe their pension systems operate beautifully. They do. For them. But what about the rest of us? I figured I’d ask Bob Bowers.

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Villalobos

By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, May. 21, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Former CalPERS board member Alfred Villalobos defended himself against influence-peddling allegations Thursday and demanded that officials unfreeze his bank accounts and other assets.

Villalobos, accused in a lawsuit by Attorney General Jerry Brown of showering CalPERS officials with gifts to influence investment decisions, called the lawsuit “distorted and generally misleading.”

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10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 19, 2010

By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County supervisors Tuesday criticized a proposed ballot measure that would lock in the pension benefits for sheriff’s deputies and other public-safety workers.

The Riverside Sheriff’s Association-backed initiative would prohibit the Board of Supervisors from changing pension benefits without a vote of the electorate and require the county to keep the current retirement formula under CalPers.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, May. 20, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Wary of putting more pressure on the state budget, Cal-PERS stepped back from the brink of billing the state for an additional $600 million Wednesday – and signaled that it might postpone the rate hike for an entire year.

One day after a key committee urged passage of the rate hike, the pension fund’s governing board voted to put off the matter until next month. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a CalPERS board member, proposed the delay and suggested the pension fund might wait until mid-2011 to impose higher rates on the state.

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Canan Tasci, Staff Writer
Created: 05/17/2010 09:31:56 PM PDT

Hundreds of public school teachers in the Inland Valley will receive final layoff notices this week informing them they will not have a job after June 30.

While school boards scrambled to save as many jobs as possible, the current economic climate has forced many districts to lay off teachers and increase class sizes.

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Priya Mathur

By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

May 18, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento —

The board of the state’s biggest public employee pension fund might take one of its own members to task Wednesday for repeatedly failing to file required financial disclosure reports on time.

At a special meeting of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System board, fund President Rob Feckner will explain the recommendations on disciplinary action the 13-member board could take against Priya Mathur.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, May. 18, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 7B

CalPERS was told Monday to expect lower investment returns over the next 10 years, a development that could put more pressure on taxpayers and workers to increase contributions to the pension fund.

A host of consultants and CalPERS staff members said the fund will probably earn less than 7.75 percent a year – the forecast it has been using since 2003.

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COUNTY SUPERVISOR: Among the touchiest issues for the two candidates is pensions.

10:00 PM PDT on Sunday, May 16, 2010

By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

The race to succeed the late Roy Wilson on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors features two law-enforcement veterans who largely agree that job creation is the only long-term solution to the county’s budget woes.

Supervisor John Benoit, appointed to the post last year, is seeking a full four-year term representing the 4th District, which includes the Coachella Valley and stretches to the Arizona border.

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By Ed Mendel

It’s no surprise that eight of the nine investments worth $4.8 billion cited in a state lawsuit this month were in Leon Black’s Apollo funds, previously known to have paid a former CalPERS board member more than $40 million in “placement agent” fees.

But the chairman of the other fund mentioned in the lawsuit is Gerald Parsky, a good government figure who has chaired commissions on pensions and tax reform for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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James Rufus Koren and Sandra Emerson, Staff Writers
Posted: 05/14/2010 06:42:17 PM PDT

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal calls for eliminating the state’s main welfare program, making other deep cuts and not raising taxes – ideas that will surely force a showdown between Democrats and Repubilicans over the state’s priorities.

After days of promising unpalatable cuts, Schwarzenegger on Friday called for eliminating CalWORKs, a program that provides money to poor families with children. Schwarzenegger said the program must be eliminated because federal judges have prevented the state from making incremental cuts.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, May. 14, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B

After losing $500 million on a controversial New York real estate deal, CalPERS is being asked to put more money into the same property.

A New York City councilman is urging the California pension fund to participate in a tenant-led buyout of a Manhattan apartment complex – the same complex that cost CalPERS $500 million and damaged its reputation as a socially responsible investor.

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By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

May 13, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, already under scrutiny for financial losses and allegations that its investment decisions were compromised by favoritism, may be getting another black eye — this one courtesy of board member Priya Mathur.

At its meeting Thursday, the state Fair Political Practices Commission will consider fining Mathur as much as $5,000 for failing to file her 2008 financial disclosure statement on time. Twice before in recent years she has been fined for not submitting the required statements.

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By Ed Mendel

The state contribution to CalPERS should increase to $3.9 billion in the new fiscal year beginning July 1, up $600 million from the current year, actuaries for the giant public pension fund calculate.

The recommendation to the CalPERS board next week comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to issue a revision Friday of the state budget he proposed in January, which assumed a $200 million CalPERS increase to $3.5 billion.

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PolitiCal
On politics in the Golden State

May 10, 2010 | 3:57 pm

A Senate committee heard testimony Monday on a measure that would dramatically change the state’s public pension system.

The bill, SB 919 by Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta, seeks a wide range of changes including increasing the retirement age from 55 to 65 for many state employees and demanding higher contributions from employees to their retirement accounts.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Monday, May. 10, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Self-evidently, the California Legislature isn’t balancing the state budget, nor is it doing anything noticeably positive about traffic congestion, poor school test scores, high dropout rates, the public pension crisis or any other real-world issues.

So how are the nation’s highest-paid state legislators occupying their – actually our – time in Sacramento these days, when they’re not throwing or attending campaign fundraisers?

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By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

May 7, 2010

A state lawsuit targeting two top former officials of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System could be the first in a series of state and federal actions focused on the nation’s largest public pension fund.

“This is not the end of this case or the end of the investigation,” Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said at a news conference Thursday. “Other things could follow.”

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May 6th, 2010, 5:14 pm · posted by Tony Saavedra, Register investigative reporter

The battle over whether taxpayers should be allowed to see Orange County public pension data finally landed today in Superior Court.

Faced with the prickly question of whether to release the names and pension amounts of retirees making more than $100,000–information that other Superior Court judges have said is clearly public–Judge Luis Rodriguez seemed to lean toward splitting the baby: perhaps giving out the information but replacing the names with a “unique identifier.”

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Thursday, May. 6, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 8B
Last Modified: Thursday, May. 6, 2010 – 8:07 am

CalPERS has won a key court ruling in its lawsuit against Wall Street’s leading credit-rating agencies over $1 billion worth of failed investments.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge has rejected the rating agencies’ bid to have the suit tossed out, said CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco. However, the judge dismissed one of CalPERS’ claims.

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By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

May 6, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento —

State authorities sued former top California pension fund officials Federico Buenrostro Jr. and Alfred R. Villalobos on Wednesday for their role in an alleged scheme to get business for investment firms by giving pension officials luxury trips and other gifts.

The civil suit alleges that Buenrostro — chief executive of the powerful California Public Employees’ Retirement System from 2002 to 2008 — took tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from Villalobos, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor who now works as a go-between for investment firms.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, May. 6, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Thursday, May. 6, 2010 – 6:38 am

MOUNTAIN HOUSE – Advertised as “The Town of Tomorrow,” this new bedroom community near the Altamont Pass windmills once seemed like an ideal investment for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Then the real estate bubble burst. Mountain House became the most “underwater” community in America – and much of CalPERS’ money sank along with it.

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11:14 PM PDT on Monday, May 3, 2010

By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County’s annual pension costs are expected to jump $20 million by 2012, putting a further strain on a budget that over the next two years is expected to contain significant cuts.

A new report headed before the Board of Supervisors today found that the county’s pension plan has deteriorated due to recent investment losses.

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By Ed Mendel

State and local government workers earn less than comparable workers in the private sector, a new study by two economics professors finds, even when pension and other benefits are included.

The study commissioned by two public employee-connected research groups contradicts comparisons in the “popular press” that show government work pays more than the private sector.

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10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County needs to bring its lavish public pension system back in line with financial reality. The county faces growing costs for retirement benefits at a time when budget shortfalls threaten public services. Supervisors should make changes that create a more affordable system and ease the burden on taxpayers.

A new report from the county’s Pension Advisory Review Committee puts the county’s retirement plan in stark context. The county has to find an additional $800 million over the next 30 years to pay for its pension promises, including the $375 million the county still owes on a pension bond from 2005.

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The dispute over California public employee payouts is growing. Republicans blame Democrats, who see the problem but fear alienating labor.

By George Skelton Capitol Journal

April 29, 2010

No question: California public employee pensions are a big problem — especially for Democratic politicians.

Republicans pound them on the issue, claiming it’s emblematic of the majority party’s extravagant spending and subservience to patron labor unions.

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April 28th, 2010, 12:54 pm · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

We told you that membership in California’s $100,000-plus public pension club leaped by 50 percent over the last year.

But this heavy load will grow exponentially heavier, and the big picture is even more disturbing than that.

To illustrate, we do a little number crunching with Marcia Fritz, the CPA who is president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (and who regularly updates the $100,000 club database with numbers from the California Public Employees Retirement System — the largest such system in the nation).

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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, April 27, 2010

By IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise

San Bernardino County’s land use services department will see major structural changes in response to a dramatic decline in permit applications.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $12.8 million decrease to the agency’s budget as part of the county’s third-quarter financial review.

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By Ed Mendel

As if their rising cost to state and local governments weren’t trouble enough, public pensions also face legislation cracking down on pension boosting, improperly influenced investments and real estate schemes that displace the poor.

A whiff of anti-corruption cleanser, or the verbal equivalent, wafted through the Capitol this month. Bills moved to curb the “spiking” of final pay to boost pensions and regulate “placement agents” paid big fees for helping money managers get pension funds.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Apr. 25, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1D

CalPERS is throwing its weight around on Wall Street in order to slash investment management fees and rid itself of the controversial middlemen known as placement agents.

But despite a breakthrough last week with investment titan Apollo Global Management, it’s unclear whether the giant public employee pension fund will get others to play along.

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San Bernardino County retirement contribution rates will increase almost 10% effective June 19, 2010.

Board of Supervisors agenda item #29 for this Tuesday’s meeting shows the county’s employer contribution rate paid into the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association for its General Members will increase from 11.25% to 12.32% of earnable compensation.

The change represents a cost increase of 9.5%.

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By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Apr. 24, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 4A
Last Modified: Saturday, Apr. 24, 2010 – 12:15 am

Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth has rolled out a bill that would curb retirement benefits for new state workers, trimming an estimated $110 billion from the state’s retiree obligations over 30 years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has supported the idea but hasn’t commented on the bill’s specifics.

Here are some of the major changes in the measure and arguments for and against them.

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Meg Whitman

The Republican advocates raising the retirement age from 50 to 55 for public safety employees and from 55 to 65 for non-safety state workers. She takes a jab at Jerry Brown for the pension crisis.

Cathleen Decker

April 23, 2010

Republican candidate for governor Meg Whitman on Thursday proposed a major restructuring of state worker pensions that she said would dramatically lessen the billions of dollars that cash-strapped California would be required to pay out in future years.

Casting blame for the costs in part on the man she will face if she wins her party’s nomination in June — former governor and current presumptive Democratic nominee Jerry Brown — Whitman said that pension liabilities are “like a train coming through the tunnel at every single Californian.” She said liabilities amounted to almost $15,000 for every household in California.

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April 22nd, 2010, 3:18 pm · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

Last fall, when California Pension Reform wrested the database of state retirees earning more than $100,000 a year from the California Public Employees Retirement System, there were 6,133 people on the list.

And now – just shy of one year after the first database was released – an update shows that the new total of people in the $100,000-plus public pension club is 9,111 – a staggering 49 percent increase.

Read the rest of this entry »

By PE News
on April 21, 2010 11:08 PM

Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth introduced legislation Wednesday to change the retirement system for state workers as a way to reduce pension costs.

His proposal, SB 919, would raise the retirement age for non-safety employees from 55 to 65. It would increase the retirement age for CHP officers, firefighters and other safety employees from 50 to 57. In addition, it would cut the number of employee classifications that qualify for more lucrative public safety retirement benefits.

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By Ed Mendel

As CalPERS phases in a big rate hike for employers to cover historic investment losses, a second increase is likely to be added because a new study found that workers are living longer, earning more pay and retiring earlier.

A CalPERS committee voted yesterday to recommend that the full board use the new study of decade-long trends among CalPERS members, the first in nearly six years, when setting contribution rates next month.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Apr. 20, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

CalPERS’ largest investment partner made dramatic concessions to the pension fund Monday, agreeing to stop hiring placement agents and to cut its management fees by $125 million.

The deal with Wall Street powerhouse Apollo Global Management underscores CalPERS’ clout in the financial world – and cuts to the heart of its efforts to cope with a scandal over the marketing middlemen known as placement agents.

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CATHY BUSSEWITZ, Associated Press Writer

April 19, 2010 | 5:22 p.m.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The chief investment officer of California’s giant pension fund said Monday he is disturbed by the allegations of wrongdoing against investment firm Goldman Sachs.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, which manages assets totaling about $210 billion, owns 1.8 million shares in the embattled money-management firm.

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April 19th, 2010, 3:00 am · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

So we told you about the Stanford University study concluding that California’s public pension systems are massively underfunded.

And then we told you that the California Public Employees Retirement System – the nation’s largest public pension fund – attacked the Stanford study as deeply flawed.

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April 19th, 2010, 9:54 pm · posted by Jennifer Muir

A new, hybrid pension plan for county employees — touted as groundbreaking pension reform — won’t save the county cash as quickly as officials had hoped thanks to a hiccup at the good ole’ Internal Revenue Service.

Under the two-tiered plan current employees were supposed to be able to choose whether to keep their old benefits, or select a hybrid plan that features a reduced pension but also a defined contribution component, similar to a 401K. New employees also would get to pick which plan works best for them.

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By Ed Mendel

Retirees in CalPERS and CalSTRS will get a 2 percent increase in their monthly checks this year, even though a rare drop in the cost of living means that Social Security recipients get no increase.

So, they are at it again, those public pensions under fire for being unaffordably generous, a threat to state and local government budgets, and a potentially crushing burden for future taxpayers?

Not exactly.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 8B

Stung by controversy and heavy losses, California’s two public pension funds are about to restrict themselves from investing in real estate deals that rely on driving tenants out of rent-controlled housing.

CalPERS and CalSTRS are set to revise their investing policies after two such deals – one in East Palo Alto, one in New York – blew up in their faces last year.

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April 13th, 2010, 10:00 am
Posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

We told you last week about the Stanford University analysis saying that the amount of money California will owe its public retirees – but won’t have – is nearly eight times the official number – or more than $425 billion.

“Why should Californians care?” asked David Crane, special advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the Los Angeles Times. “Because this year’s unfunded pension liability is next year’s budget cut to important programs.”

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By Ed Mendel

CalSTRS is unveiling a new website, just in time to rebut a Stanford study last week that says California’s three big public pension funds have a shocking shortfall of more than $500 billion.

A group of graduate students used “risk-free” bonds, rather than stocks and other potentially higher-yielding investments, to calculate what a New York Times story called a “hidden shortfall” in CalPERS, CalSTRS and the UC Retirement System.

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By Craig Gustafson, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

SAN DIEGO — San Diego taxpayers have paid at least $1.75 million in legal fees for the five former city and pension officials who had their federal criminal charges dismissed last week, according to city and pension system records.

The total represents combined fees for federal and state prosecutions as well as a Securities and Exchange Commission civil probe.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Apr. 11, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Sunday, Apr. 11, 2010 – 10:58 am

The Legislature, whose public standing in polls is rock-bottom, did it itself no favors when it approved a resolution calling for Californians to observe a “cuss-free week.”

The action predictably attracted wide public attention, but most of it probably reflected Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby’s comment: “With the state broke, I don’t know that this is what we should be spending time on.”

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The legislation, prompted by a spreading nationwide scandal over sometimes huge fees paid to ‘placement agents,’ barely overcomes opposition from lobbyists for Wall Street firms.

By Marc Lifsher

April 8, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento
A bill that would outlaw payments of sometimes huge commissions to the intermediaries that broker investments by California’s two big public pension funds was approved by a key Assembly committee without a vote to spare Wednesday.

The measure, sponsored by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the country’s largest government pension fund, barely overcame opposition from lobbyists for Wall Street investment firms, led by the powerful private equity firm Blackstone Group.

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California Watch
A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
Money and Politics

California Watch Blog

April 6, 2010 | Lance Williams

In post-recession, post-stimulus-program America, we’ve gotten used to some frighteningly big numbers being thrown around in the discussion of public finance.

Nevertheless, it was difficult not to be alarmed at the bottom line in a study of California’s pension obligations conducted by Stanford graduate students and touted Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Apr. 5, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Some decades ago, California’s politicians decided – rationally, it seemed at the time – to create a separate pension system for police officers and firefighters.

These public safety employees, they reasoned, should be relatively young and more capable of handling the physical and psychological rigors of their vital jobs, thus emulating national policy about having a young military.

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INVESTING

The giant public pension fund and some California state officials say the fee system invites corruption. But Blackstone and other firms contend that so-called placement agents play a useful role.

By Marc Lifsher

April 2, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento – Legislation to ban commissions paid to intermediaries for steering California’s public pension money to investment houses has spurred a lobbying war led by Wall Street’s powerful Blackstone Group, allied with such major banking firms as Wells Fargo & Co.

The battle over fees for so-called placement agents is heating up as the bill gets its first hearing in the state Legislature next week.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 8B

Led by CalPERS, a group of big institutional investors held a summit meeting with several firms that invest their money Tuesday to discuss management fees and other contentious issues that have been festering for the past year.

The unusual meeting, held at a New York hotel, was the latest development in a yearlong movement to level the playing field between investors and their investment partners – mainly private equity firms and hedge funds.

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10:54 PM PDT on Saturday, March 27, 2010

By ALICIA ROBINSON
The Press-Enterprise

As Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach prepares to undergo 30 days of home monitoring after pleading guilty Thursday to driving under the influence, the clock already is ticking on his official retirement.

The misdemeanor conviction won’t affect his ability to retire and collect a pension, officials said. He has filed an application for industrial disability retirement, and Riverside City Attorney Greg Priamos said it is expected to be effective April 12.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Mar. 27, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 6B

The probe of possible influence-peddling at CalPERS and other public pension funds has become a criminal investigation, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Quoting unnamed sources, the newspaper said Friday that U.S. Justice Department investigators in Los Angeles are examining whether investment decisions at CalPERS and other funds were influenced by illegal payments.

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MARCH 26, 2010

BY JOHN R. EMSHWILLER

LOS ANGELES—-Federal criminal investigators are looking into possible wrongdoing involving investment transactions of public pension funds including Calpers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Justice Department investigators in Los Angeles have been looking at whether potentially illegal payments were made to influence decisions on where to invest public pension-fund money, these people said. Among the matters being examined, they said, are investments made by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s biggest public pension fund by assets.

The Calpers-related inquiries are focused on a small number of individuals, said one of the people.

Created: 03/22/2010 05:33:19 PM PDT

When the economy began to decline in 2008, investments through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System took a hit.

As a result, cities in the Inland Empire have been juggling losses in revenue while making sure they meet employees’ retirement obligations.

This is the status of pension obligations of some Inland Empire cities:

COLTON

CONTRIBUTION: $5.75 million in 2008-09
PENSION OBLIGATION BOND: $31.14 million
EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION RATE: 19.498 percent fire, 20.052 percent police, 7.060 percent misc.
EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTION RATE: 9 percent fire, 9 percent police – paid by city. 8 percent misc. – city pays 4 percent.

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Foundation sees sign of growing problem
Sandra Emerson and Liset Marquez, Staff Writers
Posted: 03/21/2010 09:21:47 PM PDT

More than 300 local retired city officials, public safety personnel and school teachers are among a group raking in $55.3 million in retirement benefits.

The retirees in San Bernardino County and parts of Los Angeles County are each being paid pensions of $100,000 or more annually.

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Some say system is unsustainable
Sandra Emerson and Liset Marquez, Staff Writers
Posted: 03/21/2010 07:03:00 AM PDT

The second-largest public pension fund in the nation dropped in value by 25 percent in 2009.

That has fanned the flames for reformers who say the California State Teachers’ Retirement System is unsustainable.

CalSTRS, which funds pensions for teachers and classified employees throughout the state, saw a decline of $68 billion in its investment portfolio when the economy took a nose dive at the end of 2008.

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Fixes are proving to be contentious
Sandra Emerson and Liset Marquez, Staff Writers
Posted: 03/21/2010 07:02:54 AM PDT

For years, the state has been embroiled in a debate over whether its pension practices are sustainable.

Despite opposing opinions in that debate, both sides point to the economy as a major culprit in asset losses.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System lost about 20 percent of its value in the recent economic downturn.

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City at financial crossroads
Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Created: 03/21/2010 07:02:58 AM PDT

RIALTO – The city’s financial future remains uncertain as rising pension costs are crashing head-on into plunging revenues.

When enhanced retirements for safety personnel and nonsafety workers kick in next year, the city will be funding an estimated $12 million in pension costs, including $5 million in sweetened benefits approved by the City Council in 2008.

Already tasked with closing an $8.2 million General Fund budget deficit, City Administrator Henry Garcia reported to the council recently that the city does not have the revenue needed to meet its contractual obligations for the pensions.

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Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
Created: 03/20/2010 09:49:50 PM PDT

Amid stories of sinking and underfunded pension funds, the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association stands apart.

In fact, the fund is one of the healthiest in California.

“You take money from your winners and put it into the ones that’ve done poorly,” said Tim Barrett, chief investment officer for SBCERA.

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State public pensions

Liability surge raises concerns
Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
Created: 03/20/2010 09:46:46 PM PDT

As local lawmakers brace for yet another round of budget cuts to make up for chronic shortfalls trickling down from Sacramento, some are pointing to burgeoning public pension liabilities as a looming financial disaster.

Over the past decade, California’s unfunded public pension and health care liability has soared from zero to nearly $60 billion, and experts warn that unless costs are cut and policies change, that number could increase dramatically in coming years.

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Policy shift targets public pension pots
Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
Created: 03/20/2010 09:48:54 PM PDT

A policy shift by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board to use mark-to-market accounting procedures is being considered, which could make the funding status of several public pensions plunge.

Tim Barrett, chief investment officer for the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association, says it’s a good thing GASB’s standards – the gold standard for the industry – critique losses by realizing them over decades instead of days.

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Michael J. Sorba, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/19/2010 07:36:00 PM PDT

COLTON – Pricey pension packages, budget breakdowns and deep deficits have reduced or jeopardized the reserves some cities have amassed over recent years.

Both Colton and San Bernardino are struggling with dwindling incomes that have burned cash reserves to dangerously low levels.

Rialto is struggling with higher pension costs set to start July 1, which a top official has said will deplete a sizeable $31 million reserve within three years if employees don’t agree to concessions.

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By Ed Mendel

A proposed ban on fees paid to middlemen for investments from public pension funds, prompted in part by about $60 million collected by the small firm of former CalPERS board member Al Villalobos, may turn into a fight with big Wall Street firms.

Legislation sponsored by CalPERS and two state elected officials, Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Controller John Chiang, would require “placement agents” that help investment firms get pension fund money to register as lobbyists.

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By Ed Mendel | 03/18/10 12:00 AM PST

Support is growing for legislation to curb boosts in final-year pay to get a bigger public pension, a practice called “spiking,” despite recent local setbacks in Contra Costa County, San Francisco and Rocklin.

An “anti-spiking” bill was introduced last week by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, a clone of legislation introduced last month by Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina.

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Darius Anderson

The Swarm
Mix it up with The Bee’s editorial board.
March 12, 2010

Markstone Capital, an investment house whose founder pleaded guilty in an ongoing pension fund scandal, hired a well-connected Sacramento placement agent to help win a $25 million investment from the California Public Employee Retirement System, newly disclosed documents show.

In disclosures released by CalPERS, Markstone acknowledged hiring Sacramento lobbyist Darius Anderson, and paying him $250,000 after he helped Markstone secure a CalPERS’ commitment to invest $25 million with Markstone in 2005.

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By Ed Mendel

The nation’s two biggest public pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, lost a combined $170 billion by the time the stock market hit bottom last March. Since then, they have regained about $70 billion.

Just getting back to where they were two years ago will take another $100 billion, a big hole to fill for retirement systems that have been relying on investment earnings to cover 75 percent of their costs.

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Paying for pensions

Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/09/2010 08:51:12 PM PST

RIALTO – The city will spend between $60,000 and $70,000 to find out if residents want to reinstate a property tax to pay for enhanced public employee pensions.

The council in a 4-0 vote on Tuesday night approved a resolution calling for an advisory measure to be added to the statewide June 8 primary election, to gauge public interest in a proposed tax of roughly 15 cents per $100 of assessed valuation on properties in order to pay into the Public Employee Retirement System.

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By Ed Mendel

In exchange for boosting CalSTRS payments to retirees, the state has saved money by cutting its annual contribution to the pension fund with two different legislative deals during the last dozen years.

It’s not the main reason the nation’s second largest public pension fund is now seriously underfunded. Investment losses in the stock market crash get the bulk of the blame.

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by Mary Williams Walsh
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

provided by
The New York Times

States and companies have started investing very differently when it comes to the billions of dollars they are safeguarding for workers’ retirement.

Companies are quietly and gradually moving their pension funds out of stocks. They want to reduce their investment risk and are buying more long-term bonds.

But states and other bodies of government are seeking higher returns for their pension funds, to make up for ground lost in the last couple of years and to pay all the benefits promised to present and future retirees. Higher returns come with more risk.

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By Jack Chang
jchang@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Mar. 4, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

OAKLAND – A day after announcing his candidacy for governor, Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday that if elected he would consider overhauling public employee pension programs while opposing any move to privatize them.

The Democrat also expressed admiration for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and stuck with his pledge not to raise taxes to bridge budget deficits, saying he would focus like a laser on the budget.

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By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 – 6:39 am

Despite their full-throated support for cutting public employee pension costs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the leading GOP candidate to replace him, Meg Whitman, have backed away from supporting a ballot measure that would do just that.

Their decisions, part of the complex calculus of California politics, are the death knell for the initiative drafted the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. The Citrus Heights-based group had courted both the governor and the former eBay CEO.

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By Ed Mendel

A new bill makes yet another attempt to crack down on public pension “spiking,” a bag of tricks that last year famously gave two Contra Costa County fire chiefs monthly pensions far larger than their salaries.

The chairman of the Assembly public employees retirement committee, Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, wants to add spiking to his reform bills aimed at regulating “placement agents” paid big fees for helping investment firms get pension funds.

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By Andrew McIntosh
amcintosh@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Feb. 22, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

When the former chief executive for CalPERS, Fred Buenrostro, moved the giant pension fund into the clean energy and technology sector three years ago, two of the businessmen who ultimately benefited were friends.

Al Villalobos, a former CalPERS board member who was so close to Buenrostro that he hosted his wedding, will pocket $432,800 in sales commissions for helping Enlink Geoenergy secure investment money from one of a half-dozen smaller clean energy technology funds backed by CalPERS.

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RETIREMENT COSTS

State governments can help ease a $1-trillion shortfall by reducing future benefits, requiring greater employee contributions and raising retirement ages, a Pew report says.

By Marc Lifsher

February 17, 2010 | 9:00 p.m.

Reporting from Sacramento – California has plenty of company when it comes to not being able to pay its growing public pension costs, a Washington think tank says in a report to be released Thursday.

Coming up with the money to pay for future obligations is expected to burden state and local governments and school districts with huge retirement costs that could translate into higher taxes and fewer basic services for the next generation of taxpayers.

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February 15, 2010 | Erica Perez

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee on Wednesday will review a request from Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to audit the University of California – a move that Yee said was bolstered by reports from California Watch and Spot.us.

California Watch reported last week that UCLA had hired a consulting firm that is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission because of major accounting errors that resulted in a $57 million overstatement of the company’s income.

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By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 – 9:25 am

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several state employee unions have restarted long-dormant contract talks aimed at a long-shot breakthrough during the roughest economic patch California has seen in the three decades that the state work force has been organized.

At first glance, the sensitive discussions seem like a fool’s errand.

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Information related to two contracts awarded by the Board of Trustees’ for the San Bernardino County Employees’ Association (SBCERA) is raising red flags as to why the contracts were awarded, and what was the motivation behind the expenditures.

A well-placed reliable source within the retirement board says the contracts awarded to Orange County-based Delta Partners, LLC and the Sacramento office of lobbying firm Platinum Advisors were of questionable need and ushered through at the behest of former Treasurer-Tax Collector Richard Larsen. Larsen was a statutory member of the pension fund board during his entire tenure as the county’s elected Treasurer.

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Information related to two contracts awarded by the Board of Trustees’ for the San Bernardino County Employees’ Association (SBCERA) is raising red flags as to why the contracts were awarded, and what was the motivation behind the expenditures.

A well-placed reliable source within the retirement board says the contracts awarded to Orange County-based Delta Partners, LLC and the Sacramento office of lobbying firm Platinum Advisors were of questionable need and ushered through at the behest of former Treasurer-Tax Collector Richard Larsen. Larsen was a statutory member of the pension fund board during his entire tenure as the county’s elected Treasurer.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 – 9:58 am
Last Modified: Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 – 1:45 pm

Two investment firms that have won pension business in California agreed to pay millions of dollars today to settle a placement-agent corruption probe at New York state’s public pension fund.

The civil settlements with Markstone Capital Group and Wetherly Capital Group, both of Los Angeles, were announced by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and shed additional light on the placement-agent scandals that have erupted in New York and California.

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February 4th, 2010, 4:24 pm · posted by Jennifer Muir

(Updated 2/5/10 with a correction to employee contributions.)

After The Watchdog complained in a post yesterday that county officials were withholding the details of a tentative agreement with the sheriff’s deputy union, they rang us up and said they wanted to open up.

The county’s Human Resources Director Carl Crown explained this afternoon that he was reluctant to release a breakdown of the contract’s costs before county supervisors consider the contract on Tuesday. They’ve been negotiating with the union since August, he explained, through a period when the county continues fighting a legal battle with the union over its pension costs. So the deal is a bit delicate.

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By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

CalSTRS officials say controversies at the state’s other big pension fund, CalPERS, will complicate the already difficult task of persuading the Legislature to raise pension contributions for teacher retirements.

Staggered by a 25 percent loss in the last fiscal year, the board of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System began crafting a strategy Friday to petition lawmakers for higher rates.

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Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/03/2010 07:38:18 PM PST

RIALTO – An increase in the retirement benefits for police and firefighters that is set to begin next year will almost triple the city’s unfunded pension liability, according to a cost analysis by the California Public Employees Retirement System.

The “3 at 50″ plan which allows policemen and firefighters with 30 years of service to retire as early as age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of their highest annual salary will boost the unfunded liability from $9.7 million to $26.8 million when it goes into effect in 2011, according to CalPers.

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Two staunch allies of District Attorney Mike Ramos have quietly scored payouts by way of lucrative contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some of the contracts, concentrated among three local agencies, have an interesting genesis.

The two Ramos allies are David Ellis owner of Delta Partners, LLC, located in Irvine and Brett Granlund, a registered lobbyist with Platinum Advisors in Sacramento.

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By Ed Mendel

The chief executive of the trendsetting California Highway Patrol union told a CalPERS forum last week that he is thinking about negotiating lower pension benefits for new hires, a move to protect them from a greater rollback by a future initiative.

Jon Hamm, the CEO of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, said he is concerned about “pension envy” among private-sector workers with dwindling retirement security as corporations switch to 401(k) individual investment plans.

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By Dale Kasler
and Jon Ortiz dkasler@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

CalPERS billed it as a sober, factual discussion of pension fund costs, aimed at toning down the rhetoric over an explosive political issue.

But there was no shortage of emotion during the daylong forum – particularly when a panel discussion including a prominent labor leader and a key aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned personal.

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PENSIONS

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System says that as of June 30, 2009, it could meet only an estimated 77% of its future pension obligations — far less than the 100% recommended by actuaries

By Marc Lifsher

January 29, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento – Another pension alarm bell is ringing in Sacramento, this time at the teachers retirement system, where the nation’s second-largest public pension fund is reporting a $43-billion shortfall.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Ed Mendel

A decade ago, when the stock market was booming, the funding levels of CalPERS and CalSTRS were both over 100 percent, a projection that assets would be more than enough to meet pension costs in the decades ahead.

Now the funding levels of the nation’s two largest public pension funds have dropped below what some regard as the acceptable minimum, 80 percent, and for different reasons are not likely to bounce back anytime soon.

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LEGISLATURE URGED TO BYPASS UNIONS IN REDUCING SALARIES

By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 – 7:46 am

The Legislature’s budget analyst on Wednesday recommended that lawmakers go along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut state employee pay, even without labor unions’ consent, saying the state’s fiscal distress warrants the action.

The report by Diego Martin and Jason Dickerson of the Legislative Analyst’s Office suggests that the state’s finances are so grim and Schwarzenegger’s bargaining position so weak that the Legislature should use its wage-setting powers to reduce state workers’ pay.

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Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Posted: 01/23/2010 07:05:05 PM PST

RIALTO – At a time when local governments are looking to cut spending every way they can, this city is preparing to spend up to $5 million a year on upgraded pension packages for police, firefighters and other employees.

Budget plans for the 2010-11 fiscal year will have to account for the new “3 at 50″ pension plan, which allows firefighters and police officers with 30 years of service to retire as early as age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of their highest annual salaries for the rest of their lives.

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January 20th, 2010, 7:25 pm · posted by Jennifer Muir

Sheriff’s deputies have agreed to start paying for a share of their retirement costs and reduce the lucrative “3 at 50″ pension benefit for new employees.

Members of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs voted overwhelmingly to approve a tentative three-year contract agreement with the county, union spokesman George Urch said tonight. The plan comes after months of negotiation with the county, which was pushing for ways to reduce deputy retirement costs.

About half the union’s members voted, and 86.5 percent — or 766 members — approved the tentative agreement, Urch said. The union’s president Wayne Quint declined to comment until after county supervisors vote on the agreement.

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Massachusetts – Republican Scott Brown defeats Democrat Martha Coakley to take senate seat previously held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

With 69% of precincts reporting Brown has a 53% to 46% lead.

By Ed Mendel

The giant CalPERS public pension system, a leader in pushing for better management of corporations, has its own problems with big fees paid for helping investment firms get pension fund money.

CalPERS pushes for diversity on corporate boards, pay for performance among executives, improvements in firms placed on an annual “focus” list, and has $4.4 billion invested in funds that try to boost shareholder value by improving management.

Now CalPERS, looking at its own management, has discovered that one of its former board members, Al Villalobos, has received $59.8 million in “placement agent” fees for helping investment firms obtain money from the pension fund.

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PENSION FUNDS

Placement agents seeking pension fund investments for their clients ranged in size from Wall Street heavyweights to smaller independent firms, documents show.

By Walter Hamilton and Jack Dolan

January 15, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento and Los Angeles – The obscure intermediaries that were paid millions of dollars to win investment business from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System ranged from Wall Street heavyweights to small independent firms.

But all shared a common pursuit: grabbing a piece of lucrative consulting work in what has become a pension-fund bonanza.

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PENSION FUNDS

The disclosure by the pension giant prompts calls for greater oversight of those soliciting public pension money. Among the lobbyists disclosed is William Crist, a former CalPERS board president.

By Marc Lifsher and Stuart Pfeifer and David Zahniser

January 15, 2010

Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento – Private investment funds paid more than $125 million to scores of intermediaries who helped them win business with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, new documents show, prompting calls for stronger oversight of those who solicit public pension money.

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By Ed Mendel

CONCORD — A nightmare for retired government employees was aired before an overflow crowd at a Contra Costa County pension board hearing this week — fear not only of a pension cut but of being forced to repay a pension overpayment.

Gayl Belfor said her pension is $2,377 a month, far less than the big pensions received by two fire chiefs that triggered a legal review of the policies of the Contra Costa County Employees Retirement system.

If the board wants a “clawback” or repayment of the pension payments received under the decade-old policy questioned in the review, Belfor said, she calculated that she would owe $15,200.

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PENSIONS

The California pension fund is expected to make public hundreds of documents with the names of agents who represent investment funds, the investments they promoted and the fees they were paid.

By Marc Lifsher

January 11, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento – California’s giant public pension fund, racked by criticism for the way it has managed a $205-billion portfolio, is preparing to disclose new details about the financial middlemen who play a little-understood and lucrative role in pension investing.

At issue are unregulated placement agents paid millions of dollars by private investment funds to act as marketing pitchmen to help get business from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as CalPERS.

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By Ed Mendel

There aren’t many ways to make quick cuts in public employee pension costs, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed one last week.

His new budget would divert an additional 5 percent of state worker pay to help the state cover pension costs, doubling the annual pension contribution already being made by most state workers.

The larger employee payment is expected to yield $406 million, allowing a similar reduction in the annual state payment to the California Public Employees Retirement System.

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