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Articles for category State Employees

Yolanda Solari is remembered as strong and effective

Posted Nov 04, 2013 by    categoryCalPERS categoryCSEA categoryRetirees categoryRetirement categoryState Employees

For more than half a century, Yolanda Solari dedicated much of her life to fighting for the rights of state workers, state retirees and California citizens in general.

She passed away Oct. 30 at the age of 90.

She held several elected offices within CSEA, which currently has about 140,000 members in four affiliates, including California State Retirees.

She was first elected president of CSEA in 1990 – the third woman to hold the position, and the first to serve three two-year terms.

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Governor signs CSR-endorsed bills

Posted Oct 15, 2013 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryLegislation categoryState Employees

Governor signs CSR-endorsed bills

Gov. Brown signed five bills in October that are beneficial to senior citizens and supported by California State Retirees (CSR).

Of the 896 bills the Legislature sent the governor this year before adjourning in September, the governor signed 800 and vetoed 96, according to Ted Toppin, legislative advocate for CSR. The approved bills go into effect Jan. 1, 2014.

 

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CalPERS approves long-term care premium increase

Posted Oct 18, 2012 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryState Economy categoryRetirement categoryState Employees

      The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) Board of Administration Oct. 17 approved an 85 percent premium increase for early purchasers of its Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance Program policies. The increase, to be spread over two years, is being implemented to help stabilize the program’s underlying Long-Term Care Fund and will take effect July 2015.

      Members who opt to cover the increase in a single year will pay only 79 percent. Policyholders affected by the increase purchased two types of policies between 1995 and 2004: policies with lifetime benefits with inflation protection, and policies with lifetime benefits without inflation protection (California Partnership policies will be excluded).

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Legislators take on pension reform

Posted Aug 06, 2012 by    categoryRetirees categoryRetirement categoryState Employees

After a monthlong break, the Legislature returns to work at the Capitol on Monday to take on one of the Golden State's thorniest issues: public employee pensions.

The Senate and Assembly have just four weeks to vote on hundreds of bills before the two-year session concludes at the end of the month, but the main focus will be on changing the pension compensation system.

Just what those changes will entail is unclear. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed increasing the retirement age and creating a hybrid system that includes a 401(k)-style benefit, among other things, but lawmakers have yet to approve those or anything else.
After a monthlong break, the Legislature returns to work at the Capitol on Monday to take on one of the Golden State's thorniest issues: public employee pensions.

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California Highway Patrol officers' union agrees to monthly furlough

Posted Jun 08, 2012 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryState Economy categoryState Employees

For the first time, California's Highway Patrol officers are going to be furloughed.

The union reached an agreement at with Gov. Jerry Brown that furloughs Patrol officers 8 hours per month for one year starting July 1. Officers can bank the hours to take later, but their paychecks will reflect the 5 percent pay reduction regardless.

Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley confirmed the agreement. Jon Hamm, CEO of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, said that the language of the agreement encourages officers to take their banked furlough time before taking paid vacation.

The Brown administration had said that it wanted to avoid a policy that allowed banking furlough hours because that leads to employees taking less paid leave, creating a deferred cost for the state when the leave credits with monetary value are cashed out at the end of an employees' career.

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Votes on public pensions fuel calls for statewide change

Posted Jun 07, 2012 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryGeneral News categoryState Employees

 


Tuesday's landslide pension reform votes in San Diego and San Jose were just the early tremors in what could become a public pension earthquake by the end of this month.

The big question: What does this mean for pension reform legislation at the Capitol?

Gov. Jerry Brown, who has floated a 12-point pension reform plan, told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter on Wednesday that the vote in liberal San Jose was "a very powerful signal" that pension reform is "an imperative" that he's putting "at the top of the agenda." Brown thinks pension reform will make his tax initiative more palatable to voters in November, although he hasn't talked about it much until now.

 

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Gov. Walker survives recall in Wisconsin

Posted Jun 06, 2012 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryGeneral News categoryPolitics categoryState Employees

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a vote to keep his job on Tuesday, surviving a recall effort that turned the Republican into a conservative icon and his state into the first battleground in a bitter, expensive election year.

Walker defeated Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D). That made Walker the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall election; two others had failed.

Exit polls showed that Democrats had captured nearly 69 percent of the voters who made up their minds in the past few days. But it wasn’t enough.

Instead, the night provided a huge boost for Walker — as well as Republicans in Washington and state capitals who have embraced the same energetic, austere brand of fiscal conservatism as a solution for recession and debt. In a state known for a strong progressive tradition, Walker defended his policies against the full force of the labor movement and the modern left.

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California state workers may face shorter workweeks, less pay

Posted May 15, 2012 by    categoryState Economy categoryState Employees

 

Like his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown moved to trim state worker salaries Monday as a way to help cut a ballooning budget deficit.

Although many of the details still need to be hammered out with the unions, Brown proposed that workers lose a day's pay each month in a move that evoked memories of furlough days under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Under Brown's plan, state workers would switch to a four-day workweek, working 9.5 hours a day, or 38 hours a week, instead of the current five-day, 40-hour workweek. The change would cut workers' pay by 5 percent, saving the state $401 million in general fund costs.

Administration officials said they also expect to save money by closing buildings one day a week.

For weeks, the Brown administration has been talking to labor leaders about wringing savings from payroll. Brown did not say Monday whether union leaders had specifically suggested the shorter workweek but did say those discussions were considered in shaping the policy.

 

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Study: Public, private workers' retirement wealth roughly equal

Posted Oct 06, 2011 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryRetirement categoryState Employees

    A new study by the Center for Retirement Research and Boston College refutes the notion that state and local government workers as a group end up a lot richer than their private sector counterparts.  [Read More...]


CalPERS Retirement Payments in 2010 Boost California's Economy by $26 Billion

Posted Jul 13, 2011 by    categoryCalPERS categoryRetirees categoryGeneral News categoryState Economy categoryState Employees

CalPERS benefit payments rippled through the California economy last year, generating $26 billion in economic activity and supporting more than 93,600 jobs across the state, Anne Stausboll, Chief Executive Officer of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, told a Washington, D.C., conference today.
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