CalSTRS CEO: Avoid drastic change
Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess
A response from CalSTRS’ CEO rejecting key recommendations of the Little Hoover Commission serves as a cautionary note to Gov. Jerry Brown and five Republican senators who have been negotiating changes in public pensions as part of an agreement to vote to place tax extensions on the June ballot. In a letter last week to Daniel Hancock, Little Hoover’s chairman, CalSTRS CEO Jack Ehnes dismissed as “impractical” the watchdog commission’s call for reducing the future benefits of current CalSTRS members and requiring that all public employees join and coordinate their benefits with Social Security. Both of these ideas have been bandied about in various reform proposals. The five Republican senators are reported to advocate requiring new public employees to switch to a hybrid retirement plan similar to one imposed on federal employees a quarter-century ago. (more...)