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SAN BERNARDINO, California (Reuters) - Bankrupt San Bernardino, California, voted on Monday to present a plan to a bankruptcy judge that seeks to balance its budget through deferring payments to the state's public employee pension fund and to the city's bondholders. ....... San Bernardino has already halted its biweekly $1.2 million payment to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) since it filed for bankruptcy protection on August 1. The city calls the halted payments "deferrals," but under the pendency plan it would not resume any payments to Calpers until the 2013-2014 fiscal year. It also wants to negotiate its...

After getting stiffed by the city of San Bernardino for millions in payments, CalPERS is objecting to the city's right to file for bankruptcy protection. In a lengthy court filing late Wednesday, the California Public Employees' Retirement System suggested San Bernardino is using bankruptcy protection to avoid paying its debts. The city owes CalPERS about $5.2 million. The city's action "raises a serious question of whether its underlying purpose has been merely to 'buy time' and 'evade creditors,'" CalPERS wrote in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside.

(Reuters) - In the opening skirmish of a battle over how local governments deal with soaring pension costs, America's largest public employee retirement system made clear on Friday it would not tolerate a city deciding to miss a payment. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) told bankrupt San Bernardino it may take legal action to force the city of 210,000 to resume its pension payments. And the $243 billion Calpers even threatened to sever its ties with the city altogether if it continues to be in arrears. San Bernardino, a city 60 miles east of Los Angeles that has...

El Monte Police Chief Thomas Armstrong oversaw a modestly sized department, with 120 officers But when Armstrong stepped down last year, he was paid nearly $430,000 The payday was possible thanks to a clause in Armstrong's contract that allowed him to accrue unlimited sick and vacation hours and sell them back to the city at the end of his career. By the time he retired at age 56, Armstrong cashed out for roughly $200,000. And he's not alone. Similar payouts have been made in city governments across the state. Those employees include Roy Campos, Downey's former police chief, who was...

In a major case involving gay rights at CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund has been ordered to offer its long-term care insurance program to same-sex partners of California workers. A federal judge in Oakland struck down portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that have prevented the California Public Employees' Retirement System from extending the insurance to gay spouses and domestic partners. In a ruling released Thursday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken said the ban served no "legitimate governmental interest" and was apparently "motivated by anti-gay animus."

Against Gov. Jerry Brown's wishes, the California Public Employees' Retirement System board voted today to phase in a higher cost to the state over two years rather than bill the state immediately in full. In a letter to the board, Brown called that "not a prudent decision." The disagreement was over the pace at which PERS is lowering its assumptions about future investment returns from 7.75 percent to 7.5 percent, called the discount rate. Such changes are intended to compensate for lower market returns. When the rate of return assumption goes down, governments must contribute more. The PERS board agreed...

* SEC says ex-CEO, ex-board member fabricated documents * Two charged with scheming to defraud a firm of $20 mln (Reuters) - A former chief executive of Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, and a former board member were charged by federal regulators on Monday with scheming to defraud Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, of more than $20 million in placement fees. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Federico Buenrostro, a former chief executive of the California Public Employees' Retirement system, and Alfred Villalobos, a friend and former board member who became a placement agent,...

Solving California's public pension crisis must begin with honest numbers. So when top government administrators, who are supposed to be the neutral brokers, start advocating for cooking the books for political and budgetary reasons, we should be concerned. That's what happened last week as the California Public Employees' Retirement System took a small step toward realistically forecasting future investment returns. Peter Ng, employee benefits director for Santa Clara County, supported by his boss, County Administrator Jeff Smith, pleaded with CalPERS board members to override their actuary's advice because it would lead to increased short-term pension costs. While the investment forecast...

CalPERS gave final approval today to a quarter-point reduction in its investment forecast, but will look at softening the fiscal impact on government budgets. The lowered forecast will cost the state an extra $167 million a year, and will also raise costs for the school districts and municipalities that belong to the California Public Employees' Retirement System. But the CalPERS board, sensitive to piling a higher burden on cash-strapped government agencies, told its staff to examine phasing in the dollar impact over two years. CalPERS' governing board voted 9-1 to lower the investment forecast to 7.5 percent, affirming a recommendation...

Bondholders of Stockton, California debt are about to be punished as City Manager Takes Steps Toward Bankruptcy. Stockton, California, may take the first steps toward becoming the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy next week because of burdensome employee costs, excessive debt and bookkeeping errors that misrepresented accounts, city officials said today. The Stockton City Council will meet Feb. 28 to consider a type of mediation that allows creditors to participate, the first move toward a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing under a new state law. The council will also weigh suspending some payments on long-term debt of about...

New legislation unveiled this morning aims to build a sort of CalPERS-for-all retirement savings system that the measure's author says could cover an estimated 7 million working Californians in the private sector. Senate Bill 1234 by Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Kevin de León would require businesses with five or more employees to enroll them in a new "Personal Pension" defined benefit program or offer an alternative employer-sponsored plan. De León, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and other political and labor leaders who touted the measure noted that public discourse has focused on public employee pensions. The press event came...

CalPERS is going to look again at adjusting its investment forecast, a move that could increase taxpayer contributions while ramping up the political heat on public pension funds in California. Just a year ago, the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System ignored recommendations from senior staff to cut its forecast a quarter-point, to 7.5 percent. Yet on Tuesday, senior actuary Alan Milligan said CalPERS staff will make another recommendation to the board next month. He didn't say what the recommendation will be. But other big public pension funds have been cutting their forecasts in recent years to reflect...

CalPERS refuses to sell its long-term care insurance to the same-sex partners of state workers, on the grounds that federal law doesn't allow it. Now a judge in Oakland seems ready to overturn that federal ban. Last week, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken refused to dismiss a class-action lawsuit against CalPERS and the U.S. government over the California pension fund's long-term care program. In her ruling, she suggested the ban could be unconstitutional. While the California Public Employees' Retirement System extends most benefits to same-sex couples, it has denied long-term care coverage to the same-sex spouses or domestic partners of...

This story isn’t very complicated. In 1999 California’s public employee unions took control of the Golden State from a weak sycophantic Democrat Governor, the now infamous Grey Davis. The unions instructed their servants in the Legislature to create the California Public Employees Retirement System known as CalPERS. With CalPERS. Davis and his Party purchased perpetual control of California’s government through never ending union support. And why not; CalPERS gives state employees lavish pay, benefits and pensions amounting to 90% of yearly salaries. Not surprisingly Californians knew little or nothing about the dirty secret imbedded in the CalPERS bill (SB 400)...

California taxpayers should ask themselves, in the words of Clint Eastwood's famous movie character, "Do I feel lucky?" We're not staring down the barrel of "Dirty Harry" Callahan's gun wondering whether there's a bullet in the chamber. Instead, we're gambling our financial future on whether public pension fund investments will surpass reasonable expectations. If state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, union leaders and the state's largest government employee retirement funds have their way, they'll continue betting against the odds. It's not surprising. It's not their money at risk. They won't have to cover the losses. Taxpayers will. Last week, a study led...

Back in April of this year I wrote about the covert bailout that was buried in the Obamacare bill which gives $5 billion of taxpayer money to unions, states (for public employees) and corporations for health care coverage for retirees aged between 55 and 64. The program is called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program or ERRP. The UAW is the largest single beneficiary, receiving over 200 million dollars. General Motors also gets a piece of the pork with about a 20 million dollar cut. A recent report by the Washington Examiner identifies early retirees (many of whom are being...

CalPERS rolling out new computer system late and at higher cost California Public Employees' Retirement System officials hope the complex $507-million project for tracking data of 1.6 million members will work as planned, though they expect start-up problems. Reporting from Sacramento — At nearly twice the estimated cost and a year late, a new computer system for the state's giant public pension fund is scheduled to go live Monday, tracking the contributions, healthcare coverage and retirement benefits for 1.6 million members. Officials at the California Public Employees' Retirement System hope the complex $507-million project, dubbed My CalPERS, will work as...

The fortunes of California are sinking fast. We need not imagine what our lives would be like if the Democrats take top to bottom control of our lives ever again. The unmitigated disaster that is California shows us what America’s future would be if Democrats and their union masters ever regain control of our government. When disgraced and recalled California Democrat Governor Gray Davis quietly signed SB 400 a bill funding the California Public Employees’ Retirement System in 1999,he set in motion a nightmare for taxpayers and sugarplums dancing in the empty heads of the state’s unionized workers. Bill SB...

The chief executives of CalPERS and CalSTRS along with Controller John Chiang and Treasurer Bill Lockyer are asking the Brown administration to overhaul the state's travel meal reimbursement rates to help accommodate for trips to expensive locales. Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2011/08/california-officials-seek-higher-rates-meal-reimbursements.html#ixzz1U6X38OST

Wounded by the CalPERS bribery scandal and other problems, a New Jersey pharmaceutical-benefits company is being sold. Medco Health Solutions Inc., one of the giants of the drug-benefit industry, on Thursday agreed to a $29.1 billion takeover by rival Express Scripts Inc. Such a deal would have been unthinkable a few months ago, when Medco was flying high. But the New Jersey company ran into a series of problems that began with its entanglement in the CalPERS bribery case. "This year has been a head-spinner for this (Medco) management team, starting out with the CalPERS issues," said investment analyst Arthur...