More California cops and firefighters are paying for their pensions. Is it too late?
From Arcata on the North Coast to Hemet in the Inland Empire, California cops and firefighters are chipping in more money to pay for their pensions while the cities that employ them struggle to manage fast-rising retirement costs.
The new pension charges – a 12 percent paycheck deduction in Sacramento, an extra 8 percent deduction in Clovis, a pay cut and 12 percent pension contribution in Oroville, for example – reflect a calculus at local governments that workers are better off in the long run putting money into the California Public Employees’ Retirement System today rather than banking on the $350 billion pension fund earning its way out of its recession losses.
They’re also among the few options that local governments have to smooth out hikes in pension costs that many of them anticipate will nearly double their annual spending on CalPERS by 2024. The pension fund’s assets are worth about 70 percent of what it owes to workers and retirees, leaving it short tens of billions of dollars over time.
Local governments cannot rescind benefits they’ve promised to workers or retirees, so their choices are to reach compromises with their unions or find a way to pay down their pension debts faster.
Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article220698755.html
