Posted on 02/10/2005 6:45:46 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A week after they voted to against his plan to privatize the state's public pension system, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday ousted four of his appointees to the board of the California State Teachers Retirement System.
The sudden firings of Mark Battey, James Gray, Miguel Pulido and Gloria Hom, who were appointed by Schwarzenegger to the board last year, leave one-third of the 12-member board vacant.
Last month, Schwarznegger proposed turning the state's two huge public pension plans into a system more like a 401(k) savings plan in which workers make defined contributions. CalSTRS and its board manages $126 billion, while the nation's largest public fund, the California Public Employees Retirement System, manages $182 billion.
Schwarzenegger formally removed the four through a letter to the Senate Rules Committee.
"The governor concluded that these particular appointees are not best suited to implement his mission for reform," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Ashley Snee.
The Feb. 3 vote at the nation's largest teachers retirement system to oppose Schwarzenegger's plan was advisory only. Those prevailing in the 10-2 vote said privatization would undermine the fund's structure by pulling money out and reducing investment earnings for thousands of retirees.
Schwarzenegger backs a proposed constitutional amendment by Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Chatsworth, that would put the change before the voters. However, Democrats who control the Legislature haven't announced their support, making it unlikely to get the two-thirds vote needed to get on the ballot.
Backers are attempting to qualify a companion measure as a ballot initiative, possibly for a special election later this year. Schwarzenegger made changing the pension system a key element of his government reorganization package, calling it "another financial train on another track to disaster."
Schwarzenegger appointed the four ousted Thursday to the pension fund's board April 2, 2004.
They hadn't been confirmed by the committee, so Schwarzenegger's letter removed them from consideration. The committee had up to a year to confirm the appointees, who had served 10 months.
Pulido, mayor of Santa Ana, and Battey, of Half Moon Bay and a managing director of Miramar Capital, are Democrats. Gray, an Indian Wells resident and trustee of the Desert Community College board, is a Republican. Hom, of Palo Alto and longtime faculty member at West Valley Mission College, is also a Republican.
Schwarzenegger retained Kathleen Smalley, a real estate finance specialist from Los Angeles who has no party affiliation. She was one of the two board members who voted in favor of his privatization plan. The other was Dave Harper, representing Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance.
Officials at CalSTRS had no immediate comment on the ousters.
Treasurer Phil Angelides, a CalSTRS board member, called the firings "outrageous" because the appointees "stood up for taxpayers, for teachers and school children."
The firings were "particularly troubling because trustees of pension funds sit there as fiduciaries with a legal obligation to do what's right from the financial perspective and they rejected the governor's proposal on its merits," said Angelides, a Democrat who's considered likely to run for governor next year.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said he was "extremely disappointed" by the firings. "The STRS board has a record of acting in the best interest of teachers, rather than blindly following political agendas," he said in statement.
Angelides is leading a national campaign among state treasurers and public pension funds to fight the privatization plan, which he says is a move to crush the funds' work to bring more responsibility to corporate governance.
Schwarzenegger removed his appointees on the same day he staged an event in San Diego to promote the privatization plan. Speaking before two Brinks armored security trucks, where white bags marked "Taxpayers $$" and "$" spilled out from one truck, he said, "Right now our treasury is like the armored cars right behind me - the doors kicked wide open and the money is flying out and bleeding our state dry."
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On the Net:
California State Teachers Retirement System: http://www.calstrs.ca.gov
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: http://www.governor.ca.gov
adding to the pings
HAHAHAAaaa. Arnold is VONDERBAR! :)
BACKGROUND: The California Public Employees’ Retirement System manages pension and health benefits for more than 1.4 million California public employees, retirees, and their families. As of June 30, 2004, we provided benefits for 1,002,067 active and inactive members and 416,783 retirees. CalPERS membership is divided approximately in thirds among current and retired employees of the state, schools, and participating public agencies.
CalPERS is a defined benefit retirement plan. It provides benefits based on a member’s years of service, age, and highest compensation. In addition, benefits are provided for disability and death, with payments in some cases going to survivors or beneficiaries of eligible members.
Year 2003-04 Member Contributions $2,266,445,429 Employer Contributions $4,261,347,422 Investment and Other Income $24,272,572,596 Total CalPERS administrative expenditures 2003-04 (actual) $230,038,192
I'll second your comments re: stepping up to the plate and play hardball.
While I don't think he is a Hiram Johnson nor need he be necessarily,, as long as he patsycakes with the dems, we are losing more and more ground.. (no pun intended there about loss of ground and any connection to the SNC)
This state is sitting on so many ticking timebombs,, time is a wasting,, even now the dems are running legal actions to drastically reduce fund-gathering to push for reform initiatives in the fall.. not to worry tho, the money will be raised one way or another. You know the unions and CTA are coffer ready.
The dems have made no serious efforts to even consider real reform.. they pay lip service to change.. and here we sit with their legacy of deficits and schools barely able to teach the real assets and future of California, the children.
As if the chunk of what schools get is not massive enough for the unions to divvy up already,, you see why these battles need to happen..
Even peRATa was conciliatory re: Prop 98 needing some work done.
Hey Sierra, if it was his veto pen cutting spending, I'd be cheering.
In this case, two of those fired were republicans and all of them are put there in a 'fiduciary' role, not just to implement his plan.
From what I've seen of this plan, it's gonna cost more and the power shift to NY Banking firms is gonna be bad for California. What am I missing?
Now, if he ousted his appointee on CALPERS, Willie Brown, I would also cheer (fiduciary duty, or not! lol).
Norm, you khow the answer to your questions....they are getting a large percentage of their final salary.....three or four times the avg social security plan holder
My understanding is that is for very few of the population, not the majority (specifically, the "public safety" workers). Those extreme cases are the ones that need to be changed.
Calstrs is teachers, Calpers is state and local govt employees.....some of the rates are jumping up to 17% of salary because of sweetened benefits that were passed, and losses in the dotcom bust.
That is breaking budgets all across the state.
City of LA has their own plan, as do other big cities. San Diego recently disclosed they were still paying over 100 dead retirees from their pension plan, which is $1 billion in debt.
They weren't fired.
They were terminated by the Terminator!
But at this point, It's getting to the point where it doesn't matter as long as the supposed "celebrity action figure" has finally produced some possible action that can unequivocably be interpreted by his entrenched adversaries as the slightest bit PRO Fiscal Conservatism!!!
All that borrowing to forstall the pain and avoid upsetting his entrenched adversaries is NOT what I perceived the citizens/taxpayers and all other voters in the historic Recall were truly expecting!!!
All that borrowing was born out of his inordinate fear that actually going the "CUT, CUT, CUT!" route would possibly cause his entrenched adversaries to not invite him to their next glitzy function with lotsa photo-ops!!!
Meahwhile, I see what small semblance of what used to be Republican "Leadership," hanging onto the big celeb's coat-tails, like Tim Leslie and the other overweight dude from the overweight southland, hoping and preying on any cigars, or other insignificant morsels that may fall from the rich celeb's table for them to gobble up!
So far There's only ONE EXCEPTION to this behavior and I don't want to mention any names, but his initials are........ Tom McClintock!!! Who, by the way, shows me more courage, both personal, but especially political, in his little pinky that the big oaf has in his entire being!!!
We didn't have the time, nor the money for this run up to and beyond the brink of bankruptcy, just to keep from frightening Arnold's entrenched adversaries a little bit!!! They were the danged problem, even more than Gray Davis!!!
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