pension

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LAO Critique of Governor’s Higher Ed Budget Proposals

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analysts’ Office (LAO) has a new report out critiquing the governor’s higher ed budget proposals.  It comments on his online higher ed proposals but relative to all the attention paid to that topic at the most recent Regents meeting, it appears that the LAO doesn’t see them as the solution to budget problems for higher ed)  Much of the report involves recommendations that the legislature base future funding increments on meeting performance targets.  Because most of the report deals with all three segments of higher ed, the target discussion largely is focused on concerns involving CSU and community…

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How Ironclad is the Pension Guarantee?

Byuclafaculty

Famous clash of Civil War ironclads There is a risk in even blogging about this topic that someone will start worrying that his/her pension check next month won’t arrive.  So the usual caveats are in order.  1) There is enough money in the UC pension today so that if no one contributed (and in fact contributions are being made and ramping up), 2) and investment returns were zero over the long term (very unlikely), the fund would not run out of money for many, many years.  And even at that point, there could be pay-as-you-go funding.  In addition, the Regents’…

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 15, 2012

Byuclafaculty

Now that the audio file has arrived, we are catching up with the parts of the mid-November Regents meeting not previously posted (not to be confused with the special meeting held yesterday).  Below is a link to the final day of the mid-November meeting. During the public comment period, there were complaints about tuition increases and budget cuts.  There was more about the swap deals – see earlier posts on this matter – in which UC swapped a variable interest rate for a fixed one.  As it turned out, interest rates fell so that the “insurance” against a rise in…

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Social Security Estimator Available

Byuclafaculty

Faculty who are getting up there in years may find it useful to estimate what they will receive in Social Security from the website above at http://www.ssa.gov/estimator/.  Note that some old timers opted out of Social Security when the Regents joined the federal system and that the website will not be applicable for them. You can receive Social Security starting at age 62.  If you wait, your benefits will increase.  (But – and we hate to remind you of this existential fact – the fewer months you will have to receive those benefits.) And a little music while you work…

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Brown Signs Bill Offering Private Pensions (Kind of/Maybe)

Byuclafaculty

As readers of this blog will know, public pensions have been an issue in California and for UC.  Recently, Gov. Brown signed a bill that modified public pensions in the state – with exclusions including an exclusion for UC which modified its own plan in 2010. Democrats in the legislature believe that there would be more public sympathy for government pensions if more private sector workers had defined benefit pensions.  (Of course, most private workers are under Social Security which is defined benefit.)  Private employers, however, have been moving away from defined benefit to defined contribution (“401k-type”) plans.  So a…

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LAO Needs to Join Governor & Legislature on the UC Pension Train

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) yesterday issued a review of the 2012-13 state budget enacted last June.  At one time, LAO asserted that the state had no responsibility for the UC pension plan.  The language on page 19 describing the treatment of the pension this time around is more constrained and does not venture a legal opinion.  That’s progress but LAO is still not where it needs to be.  Here is what it said on the UC pension: Provides Augmentation for UC Pension Costs.  The $89 million augmentation for UC’s pension costs represents the first time in more than two…

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Listen to Regents Retreat on Health & Pension Benefits

Byuclafaculty

In the discussion on health and pension costs at the Sept. 12 Regents retreat, there were a number of disturbing elements.  Some regents seemed to have forgotten their own 2010 decision to go to a two tier pension but retain the basic defined benefits format.  The whole defined benefit vs. defined contribution debate seemed to start up again as if it had not occurred earlier. Erroneous statements were made by one Regent that Stanford and Harvard had no pension plan, when – as was pointed out – what they have is a generous defined contribution plan (although not a defined…

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Food for Thought on Retirement at UC

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today unveiled a survey of human resource executives in higher education.  The full survey can be downloaded from that source and the link is at the bottom of this post.  But start with the observation that much of higher ed operates with defined contribution pension plans such as TIAA-CREF.  Thus, there is no particular incentive for older faculty to retire built into the pension. As can be seen below, higher ed HR execs thus worry that older faculty are not retiring, making it difficult to recruit new faculty.  UC, with its defined benefit system, does have a…

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No “Ramp Jam” at Wilshire/Pension Deal Excluding UC Goes to Brown

Byuclafaculty

Commuters to UCLA will know that the Wilshire ramps to the I-405 have been closed for construction. That project was termed “Ramp Jam” but apparently the jam is gone.  At least some of the causes for traffic jams near UCLA as a result of the construction on the 405 are ending:=== The westbound Wilshire Boulevard onramp to the northbound 405 Freeway and the northbound 405’s offramp to westbound Wilshire will reopen Friday—three weeks earlier than planned, according to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The ramps were closed June 22 in the first phase of a yearlong effort to demolish…

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June Trigger; August Cap

Byuclafaculty

Note: This posting has been updated with a report at the very bottom indicating UC is not included in the pension deal.   First we had a trigger cut as part of the state budget enacted in June.  Now we are about to hear about a pension cap.  According to various news reports, the legislative leaders will announce later today what they are going to do with Governor Brown’s pension proposals.  They have apparently dropped his hybrid idea of a mix of defined benefit and defined contribution and are sticking with defined benefit.  But some kind of cap will also…