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With a massive funding shortfall looming, trustees of the California State Teachers' Retirement System began grappling Thursday with the painful task of either boosting pension contributions or slashing benefits for newly hired teachers. Ultimately, officials predicted, benefits for future retirees will have to be cut by $50 to $500 a month to erase a funding gap expected to be $23.1 billion in three decades. Pension plan executives laid out a series of possible cost-cutting and revenue-generating steps: * The state could sell pension obligation bonds. CalSTRS would then use the proceeds to increase investments, hoping to generate hefty returns to...

Poll: Sinclair should show both sides By Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 1:12 PM ET Oct. 21, 2004 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- People responding to a Consumers Union poll overwhelmingly said that Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the largest U.S. television station company, should air opposing points of view and not only a documentary reviling presidential candidate John Kerry. According to Consumers Union, the vast majority of Americans aware of the Sinclair situation believed that the opposing political viewpoint should be presented, regardless of where they stood in the political spectrum. "It's abundantly clear the public wants and expects balance, fairness and...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday appointed two educators and three business people to the governing board of the California State Teachers' Retirement System.</p>

<p>CalPERS' lawsuit against the New York Stock Exchange highlights a renewed commitment to shareholder activism at the mega-pension fund, a commitment sparked by a rash of corporate scandals and the emergence of ambitious new Democratic leaders eager to make waves.</p>

<p>CalPERS stepped up its criticism Thursday of John Reed's plan to reform the New York Stock Exchange, calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to reject the proposal and urging other pension funds to lobby for the plan's demise.</p> <p>"He's looking for incremental reform; we're looking for comprehensive reform," Sean Harrigan, president of the influential California pension fund, said after meeting in New York with Reed, the NYSE's interim chairman.</p>

<p>California Treasurer Phil Angelides called Thursday for the state's two huge pension funds to combine forces in what he calls a ``war'' to clean up corporate wrongdoing and re-establish faith in the financial markets.</p> <p>His goal is to form a single unit that would press for corporate reforms, conduct investigations and scrutinize corporate activities for both the $133 billion Public Employees' Retirement System and the $90 billion State Teachers' Retirement System.</p>

<p>A multibillion-dollar bill for the state's public employee retirement plan is coming due now that the plan's investment income has dried up.</p> <p>And taxpayers will be asked to pay it.</p> <p>The bill is expected to be $2 billion next year to cover commitments to the 1.3 million members of the California Public Employees' Retirement System. That's up 195 percent from last year's $677 million, and 43 percent over this year's $1.4 billion.</p>

Bonds and the BudgetAN OVERVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S BORROWING PROPOSALS The 2002-03 Governor's Budget reflects 11 separate borrowing proposals, including one that is already on the March 2002 Ballot (Proposition 40, Clean Water Bonds). As shown in Table 1, eight of these borrowing proposals are intended to provide resources for the budget in 2002-03, while the other four address ongoing infrastructure or energy crisis issues. The total amount of the borrowing proposals is approximately $58 billion, although not all of this amount would be borrowed during 2002-03.For each of the borrowing proposals, the table shows three figures. First, the table...