California’s public pension and retiree health and dental care expenditures have quintupled since fiscal year 1998-99, from about $1 billion to $5 billion this year. Retirement spending is expected to triple again – to $15 billion – within the next decade.
Since 1998, California’s state workforce has grown by 31 percent and taxpayers now pay for more than 356,000 state workers.
Since 2008, California has added over 13,000 employees to the state payroll during this recession.
California taxpayers are paying pensions that exceed $100,000 a year to over 12,000 former state and local government workers, including more than 9,000 state and local employees covered by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and over 3,000 former school administrators or teachers covered under the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS).
In the 1960s, just one out of every 20 California state workers received “public safety” pensions. Now, one out of three state workers receives the lavish public safety benefits originally intended for the firefighters and police officers who put themselves in harm’s way.
California taxpayers pay 85 percent of the health care premiums for most active state workers, 100 percent of the health care costs for most state retirees and 90 percent of health care costs for their families.
CalPERS reported a loss of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009. CalSTRS posted a loss of $43.4 billion in 2009. California taxpayers are on the hook for funding shortfalls not made up by pension fund performance or employee contributions, so taxpayers will be paying more to make up for these pension investment losses.
The public pension benefit increases passed in 1999 via SB 400, which offered retroactive benefit increases to government workers, were supposed to cost $650 million in 2010. That figure was based on CalPERS’s assessment of its “superior return on system assets.” The actual costs of SB 400 to taxpayers: $3.1 billion this fiscal year and $3.5 billion next year. SB 400 passed by a 70-7 margin in the Assembly, and unanimously (39-0) in the Senate.
California is the only state in the nation that uses just one year – an employee’s final year salary – to determine their long-term pension benefits. Most states use three- or five-year periods to determine pension benefits, making their systems less susceptible to pension spiking.
SB 2465, which implemented the one-year final salary rule in 1990, has cost taxpayers more than $100 million a year. It was supposed to cost “only” $63 million per year.
http://reason.org/news/show/fix-california-pension-crisis
Reagan was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975. It’s obvious that he is responsible for all of California’s problems in the last 35 years. Well, at least it’s obvious to a couple of people. I think the logic goes something like this: Reagan drove all the liberals crazy, so when they got back in power, they did crazy things that they should not be held responsible for because Reagan made them crazy. Can’t blame the liberals, I think.

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They have chosen to give certain groups ever larger pieces of the pie each year to the detriment of higher education and infrastructure.

But those decisions that have gutted funding for higher education and infrastructure have kept them in power…which is really what it’s all about…sadly.

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How about chasing after the lieing polititians, rather than taking the means from working families?

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” If we don’t increase taxes, we will cut the budget where it hurts the most”

The buraucrats do not offer to cut any of the other 60+ boondogle special agenda’s. The game is cutting Education,Infastructure,Parks and our basic needs.

It’s an old game and it seems to be working just fine here in Sonoma County.

There are huge cuts to be made elsewhere. I say reform the defined benifit pension system and shed the un-needed departments.

I disagree with Mr.Niles that as a society we have srewed up in a big way, wanting it all and basicly bankrupting the system. This I offer, was not our society as a whole, but one selfish liberal debt ridden generation of our society.

It’s time to step up, own the actions and make difficult corrections.
Whining for more taxes and stealing from the next generation is just pitiful.

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Schools, like the rest of state government, don’t have a revenue problem. They have a spending problem.

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If you’re supporting your own kids, and the kids of your employees, why should you whine?

Anyone with 3 or more kids is on welfare, paid by me.

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This isn’t about “what’s best for our kids”.
It’s about “how do we get the sheeple to vote for a tax increase?”!

Cutting spending on something only politicians care about would be pointless.

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Are teachers the only people with mortgages or do some other property tax payers have them too?

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But what if the problem is not dollars per child, but accountability per teacher? Instead of giving poor and mediocre teachers the same tenure as good and excellent ones, what if teachers were financially rewarded for the success of their efforts and financially punished for consistently failing to inspire and educate their students? That would make me more inclined to support any additional funding for education.

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