California’s largest state/local government employee pension system, CalPERS, has posted a page on their website called “Myths vs. Facts.” Included among their many rather debatable “facts” is the following assertion, “Pension costs represent about 3.4 percent of total state spending.”

This depends, of course, on what year you’re considering, and what you consider to be direct cost overhead for the state as opposed to pass-throughs from the state to cities and counties. But CalPERS overlooks the fact that most of California’s government workers who collect pensions do not work for the state, they work for cities and counties and school districts. As can be seen on the “view CalPERS employers” page on Transparent California, there are 3,329 distinct employer retirement pension plans administered by CalPERS, and the vast majority of these are not state agencies paid from the state budget, but local agencies.

In a study earlier this year, “… Read More

“Critics of public employee retirement benefits are engaging in hyperbole and pointing to potholes as evidence that millions of elderly Californians should be stripped of their retirement savings.” Brian Rice,president,Sacramento Area Fire Fighters, Sacramento Bee, June 2, 2015

Notwithstanding the possibility that saying pension reformers want to see “millions of elderly Californians stripped of their retirement savings” is itself “hyperbole,” Brian Rice’s recent Sacramento Bee submission requires a detailed rebuttal. Rice’s piece, entitled “Pensions aren’t being paid at expense of filling potholes,” was in response to a study written by Stephen Eide and released by the Manhattan Institute entitled “California Crowd-Out, How Rising Retirement Benefit Costs Threaten Municipal Services,” published in April 2015.

Rice leads off by attempting to link the Manhattan Institute to the supposedly… Read More

“Calpers argued that the California constitution’s guarantee of contracts shielded pensions from cuts in bankruptcy. The fund also asserted sovereign immunity and police powers as an ‘arm of the state,’ including a lien on municipal assets.” – Wall Street Journal Editorial, “Calpers Gets Schooled,” February 8, 2015

If you want powerful evidence ofcrony capitalismat its worst, look no further. In the Stockton bankruptcy trial, the pension fund serving that city’s employees threatened to seize municipal assets to pay pension fund contributions. They’ve made similar threats to other cities that protest against the escalating contribution rates. And they’ve made the cost to exit pension plans confiscatory. It is hard to imagine a bigger or more blatant example of collusion between business interests and government employees at the expense of ordinary private citizens.

In the Stockton bankruptcy case, judgeChristopher Klein’s ruling left… Read More