Take Notice of New Laws Affecting CalPERS Members in 2015

Posted: 1/5/2015

Several Assembly and Senate Bills that could impact CalPERS members made their way through the California Legislature in 2014. One of the most important bills signed into law may affect your retirement benefit decisions, while others will work to protect benefits and strengthen the pension system and health benefits program.

AB 2472 (Committee on PERS) allows members, when they are newly retired, to change their survivor benefit option election if CalPERS receives their request within 30 days of the issuance of their first retirement payment, rather than before the receipt of the first check.

AB 1163 (Levine) reflect the Board’s ongoing commitment that its Board members possess the education and training necessary to ensure the sustainability of our retirement, health, and other benefit plans. These education requirements match the education and training policy that the Board has been working on for several years.

SB 1182 (Leno) and SB 1340 (Hernandez) will improve CalPERS’ access to health care cost information, so that health care purchasers can better identify cost drivers and possibly negotiate lower health benefit rates, therefore improving health plan transparency.

SB 1251 (Huff) provides a narrow exemption to the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA) for the Cities of Brea and Fullerton in Orange County. The bill allows these cities to form a new joint powers authority (JPA) and provide the retirement benefit formulas currently provided by the cities, rather than reduced PEPRA formulas. Without this exemption, the cities argue that they could not transfer existing city employees to the new JPA.