pensions

Pension Principles

Byuclafaculty

Dear FA at UCLA Members, The University is in the process of developing a New Pension Tier, withlower benefits and higher contributions, which would be offered to all newemployees as of July 1, 2013. Current employees in UCRP may be given achoice between staying in UCRP or choosing the New Pension Tier, but forthose who stay in UCRP, the contributions will increase and likely be higherthan those offered in the New Pension Tier.  For more information, go towww.uclafaculty.org and look under Post Employment Benefits Taskforce. The current development phase of pension redesign offers faculty and allemployees an opportunity to respond…

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More Focus on the Outside Political Scene Needed When We Review Retirement Options?

Byuclafaculty

Uncomfortable Question: Are we too focused on internal UC politics in evaluating the various pension and retiree health care proposals? Is it a form of UC GroupThink? That issue was raised in a conversation with an administration official. We have tended to worry about what President Yudof thinks, what the Regents think, what various UC officials think, what Academic Senate leaders think, what UC unions think, etc. But in fact we could come up with a plan that somehow balances all these views but fails a public sniff test. Below is a straw in the wind from the San Diego…

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Audio of UCLA Academic Senate Forum on Post-Employment Benefits: 10-14-10

Byuclafaculty

Audio is now available of the UCLA Academic Senate forum on Post-Employment Benefits and the various options for the pension system and retiree health care. Cellphone photo from the forum is at the left. The audio (video with a still picture) is divided into seven parts due to time limits of Yahoo-video. Participants were Chancellor Block (welcoming remarks), Senate Chair Ann Karagozian, Chair of the campus Council on Planning and Budget David Lopez, Chair of the campus Committee on Faculty Welfare Shane White, and VC for Finance, Budget, and Capital Programs Steve Olsen. Click on the various parts below. PEB…

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The Final Brown-Whitman Debate: 10-12-10

Byuclafaculty

Audios of the Jerry Brown-Meg Whitman debate are available below. (They are videos with a still picture). The audio is divided into 5 parts due to time limits at video-Yahoo. Click where indicated on the image for Part 1. Click on the urls for the other 4 parts. Of special interest was Meg Whitman’s comment that pensions for faculty and staff at UC were driving out students. The statement occurs in Part 2. In Part 2, the pension discussion starts around the 9 minute mark. The comment on UC is around 11:45 minutes. Brown-Whitman debate 10-12-10 Part 1: Public sacrifices,…

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Spillovers to UC from the SEIU Deal with the Governor?

Byuclafaculty

Are there any spillover effects for UC from the deal between SEIU Local 1000 and the governor as part of the budget enactment? There had been prior deals with some other state unions but Local 1000 was the biggie. The contract has yet to be ratified by union members. Directly, the contract has no effect on UC employees since none are covered by the agreement. Other unions represent UC employees. But indirectly there might be some effects, either positive or negative. Let’s look at the terms as described by the union on its website – actual contract language is not…

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Duelling PEB Reports

Byuclafaculty

When the Post-Employment Benefits (PEB) Task Force finished its deliberations, it published a majority and minority report. See earlier postings. UCOP responded to the dissenting report with a rebuttal. The dissenters replied to that response. In turn, UCOP responded to that response. Depending on when you looked at the UCOP webpage on PEB, you may not have seen the full back and forth. So here is the menu as of today: The full report of August 30 is at http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/files/2010/08/peb_finalreport_082710.pdfThe minority dissenting report of August 30 is http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/uncategorized/files/2010/08/peb_dissenting_082510.pdf The UCOP response to the dissent of Sept. 14 is at http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/files/2010/09/peb_dissenting_response_0910.pdf…

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Upcoming Events of Interest

Byuclafaculty

The final gubernatorial debate between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 12, 6:30 PM. Channel 4 – KNBC – will carry it. UPDATE: Local public radio stations as of the morning of the debate are not listing on their websites whether or not they will carry the debate. KQED radio in San Francisco will carry the audio and its programs are streamed on line at http://www.kqed.org/radio/listen/ FURTHER UPDATE: Apparently KCRW 89.9 will carry it. There will be a campus-level forum on the Post-Employment Benefits (PEB) Task Force report on Thursday, Oct. 14, Royce Hall. See…

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Chop, Chop: The Budget With the Governor’s Line-Item Vetoes (Including a UC Pension-Related Veto)

Byuclafaculty

The previous post on this blog gave the LAO’s description of the newly-passed state budget. It provided reserve at the end of the current fiscal year that I described as within the range of white noise. The governor has now exercised his line-item vetoes, raising the reserve projected for June 30, 2011 to $1.3 with roughly a billion dollars in vetoes. So for the current year, revenue and transfers remain as in the previous post at $94.2 billion. But expenditures drop by a billion to $86.5 billion, leading to an operating surplus of $7.7 billion. The governor’s budget document is…

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PEB Options vs. CalPERS New Hire Plan? UC vs. CSU? What’s in It for Me?

Byuclafaculty

The governor made pension reform part of the proposed budget deal. Some state unions negotiated two-tier plans with bigger contributions by employees. Under two-tier, new hires get a lower pension; incumbent workers stay in the old plan. However, the big missing piece was the contract with SEIU Local 1000 which has now been negotiated. (The deal has to be ratified by members and approved by the legislature.) The workers involved are under CalPERS and as the deal spreads across other state workers under CalPERS, it might cover CSU. But in the state budget proposal, CSU gets an even more generous…

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Out of Time? How Detailed a PEB Review Will UCLA Have on October 14?

Byuclafaculty

UC-Santa Cruz’s Academic Senate presented its program on the recommendations of the Post-Employment Benefits (PEB) Task Force. As noted in a prior posting, UCLA has its session scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 14, 10 AM, Royce Hall. The Santa Cruz program apparently featured a detailed and extensive set of slides, available at http://senate.ucsc.edu/PEB/CFW%20PEB%2017CFWslides0920.pdf If you click on that link, you will see that the slides are complicated as they work through the implications of the various pension options. They could not have been presented in a brief time period and must have been accompanied by a detailed oral narration. It is…