Sacramento Bee, March 11

The Legislature on Monday sent a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would exempt an estimated 80,000 "special fund" department state workers from furloughs with a lopsided combined vote of 97-14.

(There's no legal definition for "special fund," but in this case, the bill furlough-proofs jobs paid 95 percent or more with fees, federal money or other sources outside the state's perpetually cash-poor general fund.)

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           Members of the CalPERS Long-Term Care Program will soon receive letters in the mail explaining that there are options they can choose in lieu of increased premium hikes that are scheduled to go into effect July 1.

           The letters – slated to begin arriving in mailboxes March 15– will outline options for members ranging from maintaining their plan or opting to reduce benefits and benefit periods for savings. The options are customized based on the member’s current plan and when they first enrolled into the program. The options may include:

• Accepting the full rate increase
• Decreasing daily benefit levels
• Reducing the benefit period to six years
• Reducing the benefit period to three years

SACRAMENTO BEE March 4

OAKLAND - A day after announcing his intention to run for governor, Attorney General Jerry Brown said in an interview Wednesday that he would look at reforming public employee pension programs if elected while opposing any move to privatize them.

Bruised by heavy losses and wary of the economic road ahead, California's two big public pension funds are considering reducing their official forecasts of future investment results.

Albert “Bert” Clark, who served as both a board member and Chapter 16 president for CSEA Retirees, Inc., passed away in Folsom at the age of 90 Feb. 13.

The so-called California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility has suspended its efforts to place two measures on the November ballot to reduce the pension and health benefits for new public employee hires.

Don LaPlante, the husband of former CSEA Retirees, Inc. President Barbara LaPlante, passed away Feb. 27. He was 88.

Despite their full-throated support for cutting public employee pension costs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the leading GOP candidate to replace him, Meg Whitman, have backed away from supporting a ballot measure that would do just that.

The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility is suspending for now its efforts to obtain signatures to qualify its New Employees Benefits Reform Initiative for the November, 2010 ballot, according to a press release issued Feb. 24.

Destroying something worthwhile, such as a pension system, is best achieved by misdirection, claiming that doing so is necessary to help solve a financial crisis or other problem. Calling it "reform" rather than destruction and distorting the facts or being untruthful are the other ingredients in sowing the poisonous seeds to weaken, then kill a healthy, worthwhile program that provides reasonable benefits to retired career public servants.

California has plenty of company when it comes to not being able to pay its growing public pension costs, a Washington think tank says in a report to be released Thursday.