As part of a year-long national campaign promoting my book California Dreaming: Lessons on How to Resolve America’s Public Pension Crisis, I’ve been saying that it’s impossible to have both public governance of defined-benefit public pension plans and responsible management of these plans. Politicians face strong perverse incentives to mismanage the plans for their…
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The actuarial firm Cheiron recently projected the future yearly pension costs for San Jose’s police and firefighter pension plan. Cheiron wrote: In the worst scenarios, the City’s aggregate contribution rate can exceed 110 percent of payroll. In the best scenarios, the City’s Tier 1 rate can drop to 0 percent, leaving a relatively small…
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In an effort to control skyrocketing retirement costs in the massive University of California system, U.C. employees hired after July 1, 2016, will be able to choose a 401(k)-style pension plan, the first time this has been offered. Governor Jerry Brown and U.C. president Janet Napolitano negotiated the agreement, which was enshrined in the…
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