CalPERS, CalSTRS and other government
pensions
Pension reform allows cities to bypass bargaining
Posted on September 4, 2012
Pension reform approved by the Legislature last week gives many cities new
cost-cutting power that some have been unable to win from public employee unions
at the bargaining table.
The legislation does not cover several of the statefs biggest cities that
have independent retirement systems, some with well-publicized pension problems:
Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose.
But for most cities the legislation extends retirement ages, caps pensions
and gives new hires a lower pension by imposing a single formula (rolling back
increases after SB 400) instead of allowing bargaining on a menu of different
formulas.
The legislation calls for a 50-50 split of gnormalh pension costs between
employers and employees. As current contracts expire, if unions do not agree to
equal cost sharing in bargaining by 2018, cities can impose an employee
contribution increase.
A survey of city managers earlier this year by the League of California
Cities found that 47 percent of the responding cities had bargained lower
pensions for new hires and 64 percent had bargained increased employee pension
contributions.
gWhile not perfect, the League views this legislation as a substantial step
forward in implementing pension reform largely in keeping with the Leaguefs own
comprehensive pension reform principles,h the League directors
said in a statement last week.
The League agrees with eight of the 10 points in the legislation, AB 304,
prepared in private by Democratic legislators and Gov. Brown. He asked that two
of his original 12 points be omitted for possible action later: retiree health
care and pension boards.
The cities dislike a cap on high-end pensions for new hires, preferring a
ghybridh plan with a pension providing at least 70 percent of final pay. And
cities think pension forfeitures should be limited to felonies for pension
fraud, not broader activities.
League of Cities policy aligns with eight of 10
reforms
The legislation limiting bargaining for pensions moves California closer to
the mainstream.
About 30 states allow collective bargaining by public employees. But only a
few allow bargaining for retirement benefits — notably California, Vermont and
New Jersey in a survey by the National Association of State Retirement
Administrators in 1998.
Critics say bargaining resulted in gbidding warsh that drove local government
pensions to unaffordable levels. New benchmarks were set when tCalPERS sponsored
SB 400 in 1999 giving state workers a major pension increase.
Three formulas for pensions, a ladder for step-by-step increases, were added
for local governments by AB 616 in 2001. Although not a sponsor of the bill,
CalPERS offered local governments an incentive for boosting pensions with the
new formulas.
The California Public Employees Retirement System said it would reward higher
benefits by inflating the value of the local governmentfs pension investment
fund, making it easier for the employer to pay for the more generous
pensions.
The pension formulas specify an employee contribution, usually 5 to 8 percent
of pay, that can be changed through bargaining. The employer contribution, often
at least twice what employees pay, is adjusted annually as pension fund levels
rise and fall.
During bargaining, many employers agree to pay part or all of the employee
contribution, sometimes in lieu of a pay increase. The practice is common enough
to have its own bureaucratic term, EPMC or gemployer paid member
contribution.h
The president of a pension reform group said AB 340, though an gimportant
step to reform,h should have had a ghybridh plan making employees share the risk
of investment losses and a constitutional safeguard against a rollback by future
Legislatures.
gThe provision requiring that almost all public sector employees pay half the
cost of their pensions is the most significant of the reforms and will provide
both immediate and long-term savings,h Marcia Fritz of the California Foundation
for Fiscal Responsibility said in a news release.
If employees increase their pension contribution, employers can reduce their
contributions by a similar amount
Prodded by a record 100-day state budget deadlock, the largest state worker
union agreed two years ago to raise employee contributions from 5 to 8 percent
of pay, helping to reduce the annual state payment to CalPERS by about $400
million a year.
On the other hand, the city of Sacramento
laid off 16 police officers in July because the police union would not
begin paying the employee share, 9 percent of pay. Sacramento firefighters
agreed to phase in full payment of their employee contribution.
AB 304 calls for an equal employer-employee split of the gnormal costh for
pensions earned during the current year. But most retirement systems have an
gunfunded liabilityh from shortfalls in previous years caused by below-target
investment earnings.
For example, last year state miscellaneous workers contributed 8 percent of
pay, more than half the 14.4 percent normal cost. But state employers
contributed 18.2 percent, an amount that includes a payment for a large unfunded
liability.
In a review of the governorfs plan last November, the nonpartisan Legislative
Analystfs Office said employees should share in the cost of the unfunded
liability, but doubted that higher employee contributions can be legally imposed
on many workers.
gSince increasing current employeesf contributions is one of the only ways to
substantially decrease employer pension costs in the short run, the legal and
practical challenges that we describe mean that the governorfs plan may fail in
its goal to deliver noticeable short-term cost savings for many employers,h
said
the analyst.
The legislation apparently is designed to clear legal hurdles by changing
bargaining law to give employers more flexibility to increase employee
contributions. Impasse procedures can be used to impose contribution
increases.
A legislative analysis of AB 340 said impasse cannot be used for contribution
increases that exceed statutorily required contributions for current employees
or half the normal cost for employees hired on or after Jan. 31, 2013.
Local governments have until 2018 to bargain employee contributions that
share half of the normal cost. Then imposed increases are limited: 8 percent of
pay for miscellaneous workers, 12 percent of pay for police and
firefighters.
Importantly, the self-described guardian of pension gvestedh rights under
contract law, CalPERS, is not warning that requiring employees to pay half the
normal cost is likely to be challenged in court.
A CalPERS analysis
said only two parts of the plan may raise vested rights issues: barring
current employees from purchasing gair timeh service credits to boost their
pensions, and requiring some members convicted of felonies to forfeit their
pensions.
Narrowing an earlier preliminary estimate, CalPERS told legislators the
legislation should save employers using its plans between $42 billion to $55
billion over the next 30 years.