California lawmakers eye huge pension boosts despite market jitters

California lawmakers eye huge pension boosts despite market jitters

SACRAMENTO—It’s been 26 years since the California Legislature passed a landmark law that dramatically boosted California Highway Patrol pensions—a move that municipalities quickly followed. Senate Bill 400 was designed with the obvious intent that other agencies would follow that pension-increasing lead. So that one law built the foundation of the state’s pension crisis and has obliterated local budgets and public services ever since. The banal…

Lawmakers might undermine California’s landmark public pension reform

Dan Walters Commentary: Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a San Francisco Democrat, is carrying the legislation, Assembly Bill 569, which would repeal one of the major provisions of the reform banning local governments from enacting “supplemental retirement benefits” for their workers.

Walters: Lawmakers might undermine California’s landmark public pension reform

Thirteen years ago, a minor political miracle occurred in California’s Capitol. A Democrat-dominated Legislature passed and a Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, signed a significant overhaul of state and local public employee pension systems. It was a miracle because the reform was universally opposed by public employee unions, which were and still are the Capitol’s most potent political interests with long-standing ties to Democrats. The overhau…