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Since proposing his revenue increase ballot measure, Gov. Brown has been working to convince several groups to drop duplicate or additional revenue increase measures from the 2012 General Election ballot.
One of the longest holdouts - the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) - finally agreed to a compromise with Gov. Brown after months of debate.
The revised ballot measure will now raise sales tax by a mere quarter cent, as opposed to the half cent increase proposed in Brown's original plan.
In addition, the revised measure includes slightly higher taxes on high income households - in particular the top 1% of all earners in California.
Your ACSS is dedicated to supporting Gov. Brown's revenue increases - and those revenue increases alone - in order to avoid catastrophic cuts to education and further layoffs within CDCR.
Your ACSS has received an urgent message from CalPERS related to an upcoming hike in additional retirement service credit - also known as "airtime" - purchase costs.
According to CalPERS, If you are considering purchasing airtime in the near future, you may want to put in a request before March 15th.
For requests received after March 15th, CalPERS has stated that the cost to purchase airtime could be as much as 13% higher (on top of a 23% increase in 2010).
You may obtain additional information at www.calpers.ca.gov or by logging in at www.mycalpers.com
Disclaimer: Please note that this information and the suggestion to purchase airtime now was provided by CalPERS, and is not intended as an official recommendation to do so by ACSS.
Join ACSS at the Capitol on March 14th for our 12th annual Ice Cream Social.
All members of the public are welcome to attend this free event.
ACSS Ice Cream Social
Wednesday, March 14th 3:00 PM Capitol Building Basement Cafeteria
Democrats have introduced legislation that would require private sector employers to take slightly better care of their employees.
Senate Bill 1234, introduced by Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-L.A.), would require businesses with five or more employees to enroll them in a defined benefit program or offer a comparable alternative plan.
Supporting legislators, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg and Assemblymember Warren Furutani, agree that private sector employees are in need of the same retirement support that special interest groups seek to eliminate for public employees.
"I hear a lot about 'pension envy,'" said Assm. Furutani.
The legislation dropped shortly after a group of Republican legislators submitted a "cut-and-paste" version of Governor Jerry Brown's aggressive pension reform scheme.
You can expect the debate on your earned benefits to heat up even further as your peers address legislators at ACSS Lobby Day in March.
Furloughs were devastating to all state employees. That is why your ACSS - along with organizations like SEIU - fought so hard for so long to overturn them.
In the end, SEIU procured back pay for rank and file employees at five agencies by agreeing to drop all ongoing furlough litigation. Your ACSS and other organizations then successfully fought to get the settlement extended to excluded employees in the impacted agencies.
So why isn't your department on the list of those that received back pay?
An appellate court decision dictated the criterion for exclusion from furloughs:
The court declared furloughs legal for all state agencies except those that did not receive "an item of appropriation" from the annual budget act. The five agencies in the settlement - First 5 California, Prison Industry Authority, California Earthquake Authority, California Housing Finance Agency, and California State Lottery - represent the agencies that receive no money through the budget act. Essentially, these five agencies fall outside the budget process and can therefore compensate employees without impacting the state's General Fund.
Source: SEIU Furlough Litigation Settlement FAQ
GOP leaders have co-opted Governor Brown's twelve point pension plan and introduced it as legislation, despite their refusal to support pension reform in 2010.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called the "cut-and-paste" tactic of Republican legislators "clever," but lacking in critical analysis.
According to Republican Senator Bob Huff, the legislation reproduces Brown's plan verbatim.
The plan is being introduced as Senate Constitutional Amendment 18 (Huff), Senate Bill 1176 (Huff), Assembly Constitutional Amendment 22 (Smyth), and Assembly Bill (bill # pending) (Smyth).
ACSS members from around the state will urge their legislators to oppose damaging pension reform as part of Lobby Day 2012 in March.
UPDATE: As of Friday, Feb. 17th, furlough back pay has officially been extended to excluded employees at all five affected agencies. ACSS is still working with the agencies to determine how the reimbursement will proceed.
As reported in the Sacramento Bee, two non-general fund agencies announced this week that they will extend furlough back pay to all affected employees, not just rank and file workers.
The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) will award nearly $8 million in back pay to about 570 employees. The only employees that are not currently set to receive back pay are members of Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) and California Association of Professional Scientists (CAPS), as those organizations are still pressing furlough litigation.
The other agency to award back pay to excluded employees - the First 5 California Commission - employs approximately 35 state workers. First 5 estimates that 50 current and former employees will receive back pay.
As the fight for your pension heads to the legislature, CalPERS has released a detailed chart comparing California Pension Reform's (CPR) two recently dismissed initiatives with Governor Brown's current 12-point pension reform plan.
The chart helpfully breaks the comparison down by the sweeping pension changes that may affect only new hires, those that would affect only current employees' pensions, and those that would affect all employees and potentially retirees.
As Governor Brown's plan moves through the legislature, dozens of groups will be attempting to influence your senators' and assemblymembers' perception of pension reform.
If you're concerned about protecting your pension, join ACSS at the Capitol this March for Lobby Day 2012. It's our chance to show legislators how their decision will really impact Californians like you.
Get registered before the Feb. 17th deadline: www.acss.org/lobbyday
The assault on state employee pensions took a hit this week as an investigative report from the Bay Area NBC affiliate uncovered some shocking facts regarding San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's campaign against public employees.
The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit uncovered internal documents which reveal that projected retirement pension costs for San Jose have been greatly exaggerated.
Mayor Reed has cited repeatedly a projected 2015 pension cost of $650 million in his very public campaign to slash pensions. It is now apparent that Mayor Reed's estimate was artificially inflated to more than twice the actual projected cost that the city will face in 2015.
Read more and watch the embedded NBC story after the jump.
There are dozens of reasons why you should attend ACSS Lobby Day 2012, but some breaking news on pension attacks makes the presence of hundreds of supervisors and managers in the Capitol all the more important.
California Pension Reform (CPR) announced that they are abandoning their anti-pension initiatives and instead refocusing their fight to decimate state employee pensions from the ballot to the legislature.
"We will continue to push our elected representatives to reform our broken pension system and if they fail we will focus on qualifying an initiative for 2014," CPR President Dan Pellissier said in a prepared statement.
CPR will attempt to convince state legislators that you should be retiring later, and with even less.
So how can you fight these new attacks on your pension?
Get involved. Get registered for Lobby Day before the Feb. 17th deadline.
Join your peers at the Capitol in March and tell legislators how important your earned benefits are to you and why California's pension system works, before it's too late.
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