News from the Placer DSA

With the Attorney General expected to release its Title and Summary for the pair of GOP pension-gutting measures any day now, we can only hope she comes to the same conclusion the Legislative Analyst did when it put its lump of coal into the stockings of the millionaires behind the proposals: The revelation that their sloppily-drawn "reform" plans in fact will cost state and local governments billions MORE in pension costs. The LAO pegs the taxpayer cost of the pair pension-stealing ballot measures at no less than $1 billion dollars every single year for the next three decades. The Orange County Register warns that taxpayers aren't likely to see any savings until they are "grizzled and gray." And although the LAO sees "potential" savings in the distant future, “pension reform could actually cost governments, and the taxpayers who fund them, more,” says the Register. The Sacramento Bee notes "two public pension reform plans aimed for the November 2012 ballot wouldn't make much of a dent in government costs for decades, and the savings to employers' retirement expenses would be 'offset to some extent by increases in other employee compensation costs', according to the LAO." Reports CalPensions.com: “The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office review of two versions of an initiative proposed by California Pension Reform, led by Dan Pellissier, said putting new state and local government hires in cheaper retirement plans could trigger major costs. The analyst said an initiative giving new hires 401(k)-style investment plans could increase employer costs for two or three decades by “up to several billion dollars more per year (in current dollars) to cover pension costs of current and past employees. Over a similar period, the analyst said an initiative giving new hires a “hybrid” retirement plan combining a smaller pension with a 401(k)-style plan could cost employers “$1 billion more per year (in current dollars).” And let's not forget that public employees already are getting whacked with pay cuts, furloughs and layoffs. Today's Sacramento Bee reports that public school teachers are taking hefty cuts in their salaries as well as class sizes continue to swell and classroom budgets are cut. Even the planners don't seem too interested in the facts emerging about the costs and risks of the pair of measures they are shopping around to wealthy potential funders. Pellissier told Calpensions that his group will decide which of two measures to put to voters once they find out which one polls better. Pension "reform"? Hardly. These two measures will make matters even worse for public employees -- and taxpayers.