Backdrop to CalPERS’ many debacles: Agency thinks it’s great

The giant California Public Employees’ Retirement System, as one might suspect from its massive and self-important Sacramento headquarters, thinks it is the bomb — a flawless organization that should inspire awe in onlookers.
Yes, of course, the phenomenon of government agency leaders and their managing boards getting into mutually beneficial, mutually reinforcing praise parties is common, especially where there’s a homogenous quality to board membership.
I covered the all-Republican Orange County Board of Supervisors from 1999 to 2001 for the OC Register, and members mostly couldn’t get enough of CEO Jan Mittermeier’s narrative of how the county had rebounded with amazing surefootedness from its 1994 bankruptcy. Mittermeier was so intoxicated with her spiel that I even got her in a taped interview to say the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history was arguably a positive thing.
Now, as a San Diego journo, I’m confronted with more of the same from what until recently was an all-GOP county board, which ignores its chaotic pension system and operates million-dollar-per-member slush funds while simultaneously depicting itself as a divine inspiration to the rest of the planet. This is an actual passage from an actual story (by actual Chris Cadelago) about an actual California government official named Walt Ekard upon his retirement:
“I have been privileged for the past 13 ½ years to lead the finest local government in America, and I say that without fear of legitimate contradiction,” Ekard said.
“Without fear of legitimate contradiction”? Wow. There are some dark chords in that note — and some crazy ones.
Where’s CalPERS’ claim to glory?
But at least in each case, the counties had fig leafs. Mittermeier was plainly way better than her predecessors, even if Orange County’s economic boom was mostly what made its recovery from the 1994 bankruptcy relatively painless. San Diego County’s bond ratings are strong — although it also benefits from the contrast with the city of San Diego’s intensely bad press from the early 2000s.
But what is one to make of this we’re-awesome mindset from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System? Its board meetings, dealings with the media and general demeanor all reflect the notion that it is a “forward-thinking” organization that should be held in high esteem — an agency with a history that is pristine. When I made fun of this attitude, the push-back was quick.
Which was pretty incredible, given CalPERS’ central role in both the state government’s and many local governments’ pension debacles. In a 2011 story about Gov. Jerry Brown’s pension reform manifesto, Ed Mendel — the king of the California pension beat — explained why Brown thought CalPERS was, ahem, unsophisticated:
The “unaffordable” pension increases [Brown cited] were not identified. But the reference may have been to two bills backed by the powerful CalPERS board, which sets annual rates that must be paid by government employers in the giant retirement system.
When a booming stock market gave pension funds a surplus, a CalPERS sponsored bill, SB 400 in 1999, sharply boosted Highway Patrol pensions and authorized the same pension formula for local police, which many obtained through bargaining.
For state workers, SB 400 rolled back a pension cut given new hires earlier in the decade. Low pensions earned under the old plan could be boosted through a “buy back” with increased contributions. Retirees received a 1 to 6 percent pension increase.
A second bill, AB 616 in 2001, authorized three escalating pension formulas for local governments in CalPERS and 20 county systems operating under a 1937 act. The top formula, “3 at 60,” provides 120 percent of pay after 40 years of service at age 60. (See table at bottom)
The CalPERS board, rejecting the advice of its chief actuary, encouraged local governments to boost pensions authorized under AB 616 by offering in 2001 to inflate the value of their pension fund investments to help cover the increased cost.
Yet in 2009, I couldn’t get a substantive reaction from CalPERS on the 10-year anniversary of the SB 400 mega-fiasco. Why? The pension fund would not admit that it was fiscal arson to tell the Legislature in 1999 that increasing pension-benefit formulas by 50 percent would have little or no long-term cost to taxpayers.
CalPERS’ bonfire of vanities
Now a story that broke Friday adds more fuel to the CalPERS bonfire of vanities.
The first two payments were made in paper bags. The last installment came in a shoebox. The handoffs all came at a Sacramento hotel near the Capitol.
In a stunning admission covering years of corruption, the former chief executive of CalPERS said Friday he accepted $200,000 in cash, along with a series of other bribes, from a Lake Tahoe businessman who was attempting to influence billions of dollars in pension fund investment decisions.
Fred Buenrostro, who ran the nation’s largest public pension fund from 2002 to 2008, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud. He has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors as they pursue charges against his longtime friend, Nevada businessman Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS board member. …
Most of those allegations had been aired publicly already. What was new Friday was the blockbuster admission that Buenrostro took $200,000 in cash from Villalobos. In his written plea agreement, Buenrostro said Villalobos paid him in three installments in 2007, “all of which was delivered directly to me in the Hyatt hotel in downtown Sacramento across from the Capitol.”
That’s from the Sac Bee.
There is no way, or at least no sane way, that this grotesque corruption can be compartmentalized away. CalPERS’ whistleblowers didn’t turn Buenrostro in. Instead, he was caught as part of a far-reaching federal probe into “pay-to-play” pension scams. This is a sad and troubling comment on how CalPERS functions.
The next time you see CalPERS start to pat itself on the back, feel free to laugh. Or maybe to start convulsing in pain.
80 comments
Write a commentWrite a Comment
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Related Articles
Why not drive away more companies?
Taking a tactic from the envy playbook , Democrats in the California Senate want to grab even more from successful
Democrats lose super-majority in CA Assembly
Republicans, who have already blocked a Democratic super-majority in the California Senate, have also succeeded in defeating a Democratic super-majority in the
Median household income crashed 1/3
Wonder why you feel so poor? Because you are. According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation, in
LOL
I wonder if CWD thinks it’s great?
Mmmmmm
Calpers is 300 Billion strong— doing a great job if you measure that by fulfilling it’s mission of collecting, investing and returning funds to people that worked for the money.
EVERY organization populated by humans has problems— even the Republican controlled House pf Reps has issues…..Name a large org that has zero organizational or human problems?
The above post should bring Doomers ™ out of the bunkers!
CaLPERS is 300 billion strong. CaLPERS is also 420 billion WEAK(Liability to pay pensions aka PVB). Please folks, look at both sides of the CaLPERS balance sheet.
The 120 billion deficit grows at the investment rate of 7.5% per year.
And who ever dreamed that contribution rates would attain the current stratospheric level, with higher, much higher rate increases to come.
If you imagine that the RAGWUS pension cabal is doing is wrong, the feeders will call you paranoid or a conspiracy doomer, but ity has actually already happed with the passage of SB400.
The RAGWUS unions need to die a quick and painful death!! 🙂
Total CalPERS Fund
Market Value
Reflects market value, as of market close on 7/10/2014.
$299.1 Billion
———————————-
You like apples? how ya like them apples DOOMERS!!!!!!!
the former chief executive of CalPERS said Friday he accepted $200,000 in cash, along with a series of other bribes, from a Lake Tahoe businessman who was attempting to influence billions of dollars in pension fund investment decisions.
——————————-
Yep, leave it to a private sector corporate pig to corrupt gov’t and all else with their billions. Its either that or hookers and blow!
Donkey says,
The RAGWUS unions need to die a quick and painful death
————————————
Quik, call your FBI son and get him on the case!!!
NTHEOC–Duncey does not want any of his years old well known hate speech about gov workers, and especially those in LE, to apply to his boy with the bureau —- so none of that applies personally to the “Duncey Clan” ™ unless he let’s us know it applies…I guess?
What a clown.
Boring…..yawn…..zzzzzzzzzzz
Doomers worry about everything their powerless to change…..a pity.
The weather is wonderful….so much fun things to do….
Hang up your bug out kits doomers and get out to the Adelanto picnic grounds and have a veggie box lunch or something and watch the Betty Grable movie showing on the green tonite.
Your pensions are safe-
The money was delivered in paper bags, Chris. It was a secret deal between two dishonest people. What other CalPERS employees do you know of, who were privy to this scheme and failed to blow the whistle? I’m not even sure that the three Board members who enjoyed the round-the-world trips and wining and dining in New York knew what Alfred and Fred were up to. You can advance all the opinions you want–being neither you or anyone else will ever know all the facts. The important thing is that CalPERS has cleaned this mess up–we now have a 13-member Board of honest people, far as we know. (Fred is getting his punishment–Villallobos might not live long enough for a completion of his trial.) And, the CalPERS bottom line has recovered since it was decimated by those “honest” people in the private sector.
In a stunning admission covering years of corruption, the former chief executive of CalPERS said Friday he accepted $200,000 in cash, along with a series of other bribes…
Someone would have to be pretty naive to believe that this is an isolated incident and there was only one bad apple at CalPers.
Now this is a video seesaw, afrikanized swarm and all rawgi feeders will just love
Sorry Bob–I have to be very careful about what I open. The phishers have already caused me enough trouble. I am very serious about the issues I comment on, and I don’t need any “stand-up”. There were a few bad apples in that scenario which played out over a period of six years. The bad apples, in addition, to the original two were enjoying their own little conspiracies with Villallobos. You have no proof that the scene went beyond those five people–all of whom are either now out of CalPERS or being tried in a court of law. CalPERS cleaned it up and now has rules to prevent this type of thing from happening again. Why don’t you turn your interest over to what goes on in wall street, because that makes CalPERS look like a tea party–it should be of more interest to you..
Stefan Molyneux is a nut and a cult leader. From his bad morality to his personality! Ya the guy is a good speaker and plays to the camera, but what else would you expect from someone who studied theater in college. I would put his views more in line with the “SOVEREIGN CITIZENS” type….
http://youtu.be/2F_pY47hE5U
CrapPERs is just another ponzi scheme. I knew that video would hit RAWGI nerve.
bob says:
CrapPERs
——————-
Oh bobo, its only crap because you dont have it! And what is a RAWGI?
Plural for RAWGUS.
bob says:
CrapPERs
——————-
Oh bobo, its only [email protected] because you dont have it! And what is a RAWGI?
LOL I forgot about the fruitcake sov cit crew!!!
LMAO!
But the post of the day is the revelation that ol Duncey’s kid is a fed LE trough feeder—- to use his feeble lexicon!
My day was made!!!
I think poor doinkey is off licking her wounds!
Still here TCS, watching the RAGWUS fools jump through hoops like the circus clowns they are, evil clowns indeed. 🙂
When u say you’re “watching the RAGWES fools jump through hoops like the clowns that they are”, are you including your guvment LE son in that?
Oh my.
When u say you’re “watching the RAGWES fools jump through hoops like the circus clowns they are”…….are you including your trough feeding guvment LE son in that?
Little buddy?
Oh my— it may take awhile to get a satisfactory answer to that!
I’m having fun watching Tweedledum and Tweedledee rub all over each other. Having a Son in the FBI is nothing I worry about TCS, He received his degrees and did his priorities correctly, and it wasn’t by GED like the feeders in California steal under.
I can see you are having trouble staying on topic, but then that is how RAGWUS feeders rolls. 🙂
Unfortunately for your FBI employed son, your years of anti-government rhetoric have probably prevented his assignment and certainly his promotion to units involved with domestic terrorism. After all, his dad is a well documented domestic terrorist.
By the way, did you notice that CalPERS made over 18% this year?
As of July 14, 2014, CalPERS bottom line in 300.4 billion! I don’t know why people who are not recipients of CalPERS would want to see it go down–the better it does, the better the CA economy does, and they don’t have to worry about us old folks being sustainable.
I am anti-RAGWUS you moron, you are anti-,freedom, citizen, and justice. But being a RAGWUs troll, and having no integrity continue being the lying fool that you portray yourself. 🙂
The Donkey shows posterior intellect…pity…..you nail him Teddy at every turn. Pin the tail on the……..
LOL– Well Duncey—- I guess YOUR family is just “special”. You have spent years out on this site and others saying some of the meanest most hate filled nonsense about ALL gov workers, their families, their work, their compensation, their skills, their integrity their bonefides and you have NEVER EVER made an exception for one. UNTIL NOW!
So your boy is special? Is he a troughie?
Are there any other gov employees who pass your test little buddy?
Name em!
It’s not about me TCS, it’s about the RAGWUS in California. I choose to reveal the truth, you dabble in lies, a talent encouraged by the RAGWUS and its evil leaders.
You are over compensated, and under worked, over pensioned, and over benefited. The people that work in federal jobs are not as greedy as the feeders in California. 🙂
LOL–
So………………..the compensation of the Fan Belt Inspectors is just about right little buddy?
LMAO
What’s the matter? Too hot in the kitchen? Can’t take it when it hits close to home? Can you imagine all the hate fueled things you have said to SeeSaw over the years that we have all had to read? And about her family?
Chickens have come home to roost little buddy!
You are the RAGWUS troughie TCS, and no , you are not special. 🙂
Turns out you’re not so special having raised trough feeding kids and advising all of us out here not to. This explains the obvious emotional problems you have.
Hiding from the truth TCS, my trough feeding fowl. 🙂
LOL — kind of a bummer you’ve been outed as a troughie huh little buddy???
TCS, the original RAGWUS thief. 🙂
No reason to be sullen and mean……nasty Donkey!
Oh ya,his son is SPECIAL!
FBI agents are able to retire at age 50, as long as they have served 20 years. Agents are able to retire earlier if they have 25 plus years of service. Their pension is calculated by adding up three of their highest-paid years. The average salary from these three years is multiplied by 1.7%. The result is then multiplied by the number of years served (for example, 20 years). An average FBI agent’s pay is 60,000 to 100,000. If you calculate the pension, some agents could make a million for retirement, and fully paid medical.
————————–
WOW, i would love to retire after only 20 years!!!
Maybe his over paid son will show compassion on poor Duncey and support her in her old age? Ironic– Duncey will be compensated by a million dollar guvment pension!
TCS, the Donk is his own man, unlike a RAGUWS feeding coward like you, I took are od my own business through out my working days, no need for I to feed off of the state, as you do my fowl one! 🙂
LOL So I guess your RAGWES boy WILL be supporting you with his MILLION dollar pension!!!
LMAO this is too easy!
TCS, my little parrot! 🙂
I knew you couldn’t handle the heat Duncey! Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Of course you would Ntheoc, you are a RAGWUS leach, and you can with the simple words, “I hurt myself getting out of bed day after day.” Spike that pension you drama queen!! 🙂
Duncey—Since you’ve pronounced your hatred of ALL gov workers out here so MANY times—- how does your son’s pension work?
Has he earned it?
If so, how?
Any other gov troughies in your family?
Do you want to apologize to SeeSaw yet for the subhuman way you’ve treated her for all of these years?
Or are you too small to admit when you are wrong and a hypocrite?
Lot’s of questions little buddy– pick 4.If you forget, I’ll help ya remember ya troughie raiser.
TCS, go frag another 2 year old you RAGWUS feeding troll. 🙂
Duncey– Does you LE ragwes son feed at the trough?
Do you have something against the FBI TCS? Do you hate your nation? 🙂
I love my nation little buddy, I am just feeding you back your own spew verbatim!
Pensions are earned. Hard long term work. Government workers protect cocktail party grazers from the poor they disdain and exploit. Redistribution is justified to combat evil people who have no compassion for hurting fellow citizens. Thank goodness for the Democratic Party!
“Pensions are earned” — by powerful unions that rip off the toiling, working-class masses.
John– Do you mean like the million dollar pensions they got over there at the FBI??
CalPERS earned 18% on its investments last year. That’s far above the 7.5% assumed rate of growth.
Pensions are earned by the people who eventually receive them, John. When you actually become an advocate for the “toiling, working-class masses” you won’t be able to find a job working for any right-wing publication. You’ll actually have to leave the bubble.
John is the quintessential pension envy guy——
Not really. Soon I’ll be out of CA and not paying for any of this robbery anymore.
I have been planning to move also John, I will miss the weather and all my neighbors, but many of them are also packing up. The elites want this to be like Dubai, and the RAGWUS feeders want nothing but to feed at an ever increasing rate. In the end it will fail, I don’t want to be around to be forced to help keep it running any longer. 🙂
Duncey–
We will all surely miss you and your gov employed offspring! Enjoy the pension!
John– you going to move to a state without gov employee compensation?
You may have to just move out of the country john. In the United States, public sector pensions are offered by federal, state and local levels of government. And each of the 50 US states has at least one retirement system for its employees!!
Calpers hit 300.4 BILLION today!
Man are they screwed up!
Too bad Duncey’s trough feeding kin are in another pension fund!
I will still be here you dummy RAGWUS feeding fool. 🙂
My Son works for the people that make the money moron, you on the other hand my
RAGWUS parrot feed from a broken water line. 🙂
LOL Huh????
You should not threaten the FBI TCS, they take an interest in people like you. 🙂
Duncey— If you think I threatened the FBI then you let them know little buddy, I’m easy to find.
I love the FBI– would never threaten them or wish them ill will in any way—you are unable to understand the hypocracy of your life– you post HATE out here to all gov workers, especially those in LE, and then YOU tell us your son is in the FBI!
You have spent years on here railing about LE pensions and your son has a million dollar one!
The difference between you and me is this.
I know he earned it.
YOU spew hate towards Everyone else in LE who also earned them!
You sir, remain …
A CLOWN!
That last rant seemed pretty violent TCS. Why are you so hateful towards the FBI?
I have written only the truth TCS and you call it hate!! Ashley Macdonald, Doug Zerby, Kelly Thomas, and the list goes on, that is not hate but truth you RAGWUS feeding troll.
There is not one person in LE that has earned a pension of more than
$50,000 a year that is not a scam built by the RAGWUS machine my hate-filled anti-FBI friend. 🙂
Seriously? Not one single person has earned a pension at 55k from LE? Honestly??? Do you truly think that???
Go back to your hate-filled rants against the Feds TCS, it is clear you need a good vetting!! 🙂
You really are a GED cop my mentally challenged friend. It must be hard not being able to string more than two words together. 🙂
Don’t you think that fed law enforcement folks with 30 plus years in deserve 55k a year pension?
I think they do. Why do you think they don’t? Its a dangerous job. It requires a college education. It has difficult hours and work locations. They pay into the pension fund.
And you honestly don’t think they deserve the pension? On what could you possibly base that opinion?
We have been talking local politics here TCS, not federal, but you have never tried to have a serious discussion at any time, your entire drama is “I deserve.”
TCS, you have been attacking anyone that puts forth any argument short of agreeing with anything the RAGWUS does. I have written on many occasions that RAGWUS members deserve pensions, just not pensions above $50,000 a year, or three to 20 times what a SS recipient receives. And the spiking is criminal in the PS cabal, phony injuries, fake ptsd, carpal tunnel, bad back, hip from getting in and out of their car, the list is laughable. OSHA would shut down any industry with the number of on the job injuries that PS submits.
Qualifications for a LE job is a GED and then the completion of training from a POST accredited school which is equal to a sixth grade education.
Sure the job can be dangerous, but so is driving to work, working an oil derrick, steel, construction, fishing, timber, and about forty other occupations that are more dangerous than any PS job and most don’t receive any compensation close to what you RAGWUS feeders are pulling down.
As I have written many times PS workers deserve a pension, but not at taxpayers expense and not how the RAGWUS has set things up. I base this on the fact that RAGUWS PS people are working for the taxpayers with a medium household income of $51,000 a year and demanding anywhere from twice to ten times that amount on their checks and the demanding even more at retirement, and add endless COLA’s and medical to the pot also.
So I still say, RAGUWS feeders in every case are over paid, underworked, over-benefited, and grossly over pensioned when compared with the people they are screwing over, and that would be the taxpayer whom is footing the bill. 🙂
So—You confirm it yet again little buddy…”no pensions above 50k”. Well, you’ll have a hard time making that law and denying that two parties may contract for compensation in conformity with statutes and Constitutional law is, I guess, abrogated in your dream world.
What other contracts between people would you seek to outlaw?
I have never in ANY post I have EVER made said “i deserve”, I said “they earned”. There is a dif. These employees did the American thing— they contracted for work for money, they did the work and in our system they get paid.
In a representative democracy you can change the laws to a point easily but the burden is on you. So far it seems like all you do is complain. Why don’t you get on the city council? Or run for congress????
Until then….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
And there in lies the rub TCS. When a dishonest cartel,(the RAGWUS), is running the show and owns the politicians the only recourse is non-violent revolution.
RAGWUS feeders do not work for their money, you have built a scam codified by law to give an appearance of truth and justice, yet it is only a façade of lies filled with spiking, buy-ins, phony last second promotions, DROP programs, and over site controlled by the public unions.
As a person that has lived in California I can see the deterioration of the state the RAGWUS has wrought, as a higher and higher percentage of tax dollars has been diverted to the pockets of the feeders, it has now reached over 90%, the infrastructure is not in the shape of New York, Chicago, Cleveland. 🙂
300.9 BILLION — The world’s largest!
IT doesn’t matter how big it is, the rub is that it is being used to pay huge pensions to RAGWUS feeders that have rigged the system to enrich themselves at taxpayers expense. 🙂
So why don’t you stop complaining and run for office to “fix” it? Or back someone that will? In a rep democracy if your electeds vote to approve the compensation and you can’t get your kooky minority views codified, well….ah…er….Duncey….you’re outta luck little buddy………Seems like you have the passion and energy to do “SOMETHING” other than live in the bunker, watch Faux News, and type on blogs?
You are a full blown idiot TCS, I do want I want when I want, and the last thing I am after is to a public office. I have been on planning commissions, and financial review boards, sat on juries, after having been a business owner there is nothing about government that appeals to the rational mind.
You are the one trapped in a “RAGWUS Bunker” my friend. I travel the world writing from Barcelona, Paris, London, Milan, Rome, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Perth just to keep your blood pressure up, it lets others know that the icky feelings they have as to why their tax dollars are doing nothing to improve their lives is because it is being given to the RAGWUS feeders to improve only their lot in life, while the private sector citizens are made to pay more for less and then “fees” on top of that for the new RABWUS tax, “full cost recovery,” another RAGWUS ruse. 🙂
1. What is a RABWUS? Is that a typo, or is there a new acronym in your tiny angry lexicon?
2. If you’re so important, then why would you keep a dialog going with a worthless troll such as myself?
3. Where can I find your “writing”s — or are they unpublished?
Your Mentor,
Teddy Kennedy Steele
In your next to last line you refer to the “RABWUS”. Is that a new acronym in your tiny angry mind or just a typo??
…just trying to keep up.
your mentor,
TED K. Steele