Jerry Brown (courtesy Creative Commons)

Brown sent a letter Tuesday to a joint Senate-Assembly Conference Committee on Public Employee Pensions discussing pension reform. Brown said he looked forward to working with the committee “in taking the necessary steps to improve our retirement systems.”

The committee met Wednesday at the City of Carson council chambers. The meeting was comprised of legislators, city officials, principals and more public employees who discussed pension reform.

Even though there has been disagreement with Brown’s proposed reforms by many public employees, Republicans, Democrats and even some unions agree that abuses like spiking and double dipping need to end, according to Capitol Public Radio.

Brown is expected to take the plan he announces Thursday further than most Democrats would like, and parts of his plan would need voter approval, Senators Mimi Walters (R-Laguna) and Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino) told Capitol Public Radio.

In March, Brown released 12 pension reform ideas. The ideas came two days after ending budget negotiations with republicans. Many of the proposals would rid loopholes some public employees have used to increase their benefits and force employees to contribute more to their pension plans.

Critics of Brown’s ideas have been buying pension plans at an increased rate and contesting Brown’s reform ideas.

State and local leaders, however, say the cost of public employee retirement pensions is threatening funding of other government services and needs to be reformed, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In April, pension consultant Girad Miller told California’s Little Hoover Commission that state and local governments have $325 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, the equivalent of $22,000 for every working adult in California, reported the LA Times.

If reform measures are not taken, taxpayers will have to pay more in taxes to pay for the pensions or government programs will have to be cut.

In LA, pension costs are expected to eliminate 19 percent of the general fund budget in the next fiscal year, the LA Times reports.

The current pension plan is expensive, costing California $500 billion, almost eight times greater than officially reported, according to the LA Times. To combat this, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed decreasing pensions of new employees but not going back on pension promises already made.

Current pension payouts are calculated by multiplying a small percent of an employee’s salary by the number of years he/she worked, according to the LA Times.

Some employees purchase airtime. Employees, with at least five years on the job, can purchase airtime. Airtime is the equivalent of five years of additional service time, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Airtime purchased earlier this year at the price of $124,000 would get the recipient an extra $9,840 per year for life, the LA Times reports. Employees would break even at the age of 67. Since the average person now lives into their mid-80s, this amounts to a lot of extra money.

Employees with a small salary can buy airtime for less than an employee making more money. If their salary rises during their career, though, that employee would receive the same benefits as the employee who purchased the airtime for a larger sum of money and break even earlier, according to the LA Times.

Many public employees fear that their pensions will be cut and say that it is unfair to change them under certain expectations after they were contributing to it for years. While many of the reform ideas are aimed at newer employees, many are still concerned and are fighting the measures.

----------

Reach assoicate news editor Hannah Madans here.