March 4th, 2011
The current pay-as-you-go policy results in an actuarial unfunded obligation of $59.9 billion… California has an annual OPEB cost of $4.2 billion…the 2010-11 Budget Act provides $1.4 billion. Read the Full Report Here
Stanford University: Pension Costs Squeezing State Budget (Dec 2011)February 24th, 2011
“California’s pension plans are dangerously underfunded, the result of overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently. Unless aggressive reforms are implemented now, the problem will get far worse, forcing counties and cities to severely reduce services and lay off employees to meet pension obligations.” Continue reading
Legislative Analyst’s Office: Public Retirement Benefits: Options for the FutureFebruary 10th, 2011
PowerPoint presentation with data showing how retirement costs have grown as a percentage of the state General Fund. Recommends benefits changes to align public and private retirement benefits more closely. Continue reading
CATO Journal: “Public Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation”December 15th, 2010
“The public sector pay advantage is most pronounced in benefits. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that average compensation in the private sector was $59,909 in 2008, including $50,028 in wages and $9,881 in benefits. Average compensation in the public sector was $67,812, including $52,051 in wages and $15,761 in benefits.” Continue reading
Joe Nation, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research: The Funding Status of Independent Public Employee Pension Systems in CaliforniaNovember 15th, 2010
“The unfunded liability for all (local) independent systems is $175 billion. At a 4 percent risk-free discount rate the total increases to $195.2 billion. When including market performance over the past 2 years it is estimated these systems have roughly $200 billion in unfunded liabilities. “ Continue reading
Dr. Stuart Buck, The Foundation for Educational Choice: Trouble Brewing: The Disaster of California State PensionsOctober 15th, 2010
“If these obligations are re-calculated using a discount rate approximating what private pensions are allowed to use, liabilities reach $282.2 billion, a figure that rises to $326.6 billion when current market values are taken into account… Continue reading
Milken Institute: Addressing California’s Pension Shortfalls: The Role of Demographics in Designing SolutionsOctober 15th, 2010
“If no action is taken, the combined liability of the three major state pension funds will be more than 5.5 times as large as total state tax revenue around 2012-2013… Continue reading
California Center for Public Policy: Reforming Public Employee Compensation and PensionsOctober 6th, 2010
“The $2 to $5 million in annuity value that (public safety) employees may receive through pension programs in their early to middle fifties makes these employees’ comprehensive career compensation among the highest in America… Continue reading
Adam B. Summers, The Reason Foundation: How California’s Public Pension System Broke (And How We Can Fix It)June 15th, 2010
“Since 1998, California’s state workforce has grown by 31 percent and taxpayers now pay for more than 356,000 state workers…Since 2008, California has added over 13,000 employees to the state payroll during this recession. Continue reading
Adam Summers, Reason Foundation: Comparing Private Sector and Government Worker SalariesMay 15th, 2010
“Several analyses of average wages and benefits in the public and private sectors reveal that state and local government workers earn more than private sector workers. According to the most recent Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey from the U.S. … Continue reading
Office of the Controller: Public Retirement Systems Annual ReportMarch 15th, 2010
“The median percentage of disability retirees to all retirees receiving benefits, survivors not included, was 12.4% during the period covered by this report. These percentages ranged from 0% to 100%. Since most of these systems had similar benefits, the wide range appears to be the result of differing policies and practices of individual retirement boards in administering disability retirements.” Continue reading
Howard Bornstein, Stan Markuze, Cameron Percy, Lisha Wang, and Moritz Zander, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research: Going for Broke: Reforming California’s State Pension SystemMarch 15th, 2010
“By applying a “risk-free discount” rate to accrued liabilities, this study estimates the combined shortfall for CalPERS, CalSTRS and UCRS to be roughly $425 billion as of June 30, 2008. With recent market losses, the combined shortfall could be over half a trillion dollars. “ Continue reading
Public Policy Institute of California: “Californians and their Government”January 10th, 2010
Three of every four Californians view the amount of money being spent on the public employee pension systems as a problem. Continue reading
