Public Pension Drumbeat Continues. UC Needs to Begin Planning for Staying Out of Planned Initiative

On Saturday, we alerted blog readers to the coordinated campaign to get some kind of public pension “reform” initiative on the California ballot.  At issue on Saturday was a Stanford-Hoover MOOC, ostensibly about retirement investing, but which culminates in a program on public pensions.

The pension drumbeat continues, at this point by articles on the issue.

For example, a recent op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune goes on about various municipal bankruptcies but contains a suggestion for a constitutional amendment in California.  The legislature is not about to put such an amendment on the ballot so it could only by done by initiative.  See:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/oct/12/fixing-california-why-cities-go-broke/

As such op eds and stories make the rounds, they are echoed in other sources.  For example, today Calpensions.com, a web source that follows public pension issues in the state, carries a story about the initiative effort.  See:
calpensions.com/2013/10/14/pension-reform-initiative-would-empower-cities/

There have been leaks of the initiative draft but no one outside those behind the effort will know for sure what the final version will be until it is filed.*  As we noted on Saturday, the main concern for UC is to stay out of it, as we did with the governor’s pension law.  Our rationale then was that the Regents made changes in our pension back in 2010 which were similar to the governor’s law.  Originally, UC was going to be covered by the governor’s proposal but it was quietly dropped out of the coverage.  Once an initiative gets into circulation, there is no room for changes and amendments.

UC needs to start planning pronto for what it intends to do.  Does Janet Napolitano even know of this issue?  Do the Regents?

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*For a blog story on the leaked draft, see http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/09/possible-pension-initiative-which-would.html