uc retirement

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CalPERS Long-Term Care: What Happens Tomorrow?

Byuclafaculty

Although CalPERS doesn’t run the UC retirement plan, at one point CalPERS offered long-term care insurance to UC employees.  It seemed to some folks to be a good idea at the time and they took out policies.  Long-term care policies can be bought from commercial carriers.  The problem is that you have to trust that these carriers will do right by you many years in the future when you may not be in the best condition to assert your rights.  It appeared, however, that having CalPERS – a public entity – providing the policies might be a solution.  Sadly, there…

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Pension/Retiree Health Initiative that Includes UC Just Keeps Advancing

Byuclafaculty

Readers of this blog will know that an initiative has been filed – which appears to have some serious money behind it for a campaign – that would cover UC’s pension and retiree health care programs.  In principle, it would be up to the Regents to make any plan revisions the initiative would allow.  However, they would be compelled to produce an analysis of what such revisions would be and it might be politically difficult to resist implementing such plans, particularly if other state and local entities are doing it. The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has now prepared its analysis…

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Lab Retirees Want Back In on UC Health Plan

Byuclafaculty

There has always been a question about exactly what is the legal obligation of UC to pay for retiree health care.  The position of the university has been that unlike the pension, there is no obligation.  Nothing was really promised for sure.  It’s just a nice thing UC does. Employees of one of the former nuclear labs, once operated exclusively by UC but now administered under a consortium including UC, have been litigating over being cut off from UC retiree health as a result of the administrative transition.  See below: T Two years ago… the California Supreme Court confirmed that…

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Health Plan Change Worries at UC

Byuclafaculty

If he’s worried now, wait ’til he gets his open enrollment package. Chronicle of Higher Ed takes note of UC employee concerns about changes in the UC health plans: The University of California is overhauling its systemwide health-insurance plans to save on costs and better align with the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, but some employees are angry over indications that they’ll be paying more just to keep their existing level of service. System officials say that the changes are needed to avoid looming cost increases and that, in most cases, employees who pick the plan that is right for…

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Promises, Promises on UC Retiree Health

Byuclafaculty

Jim Chalfant pointed me to the item below about retirees at one of the labs (Livermore) suing UC for not providing what they view as promised retiree health care benefits.  They were given a right to sue – which is not the same thing as obtaining a final favorable decision – on appeal.  UC has generally taken the position that while earned pension benefits are a vested right, retiree health care is essentially something nice UC does but doesn’t have to do.    There may be special circumstances in terms of what was said specifically to this group of employees. …

Timely Retirement Investment Info from Wells Fargo

Byuclafaculty

For those making retirement contributions to their 403b and 457b plans – and almost every faculty member at UC should be in that category – below is a chart, courtesy of Wells Fargo, to contemplate: [click on the chart to enlarge] You can interpret it on your own.  The source is: https://www.wellsfargo.com/downloads/pdf/jump/2012_Elections_Report.pdf

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The Great Gazbee

Byuclafaculty

“Gazbee” is how you pronounce GASB, the acronym for the Government Accounting Standards Board.  GASB determines accounting standards for public employers, including public pension plans.  (It’s equivalent for the private sector is FASB – the Financial Accounting Standards Board which is pronounced – you guessed it – “fazbee.”)  From calpensions.com today comes this item: New public pension accounting rules scheduled to be issued next month, once expected by some to reveal massive hidden debt, now seem less likely to trigger a shake-up and are even getting applause from pension officials.  Under the new rules, experts say, most California pension systems…

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Audio of the Nov. 7 Regents Committee on Compliance & Audit

Byuclafaculty

The UC Regents Committee on Compliance and Audit met on November 7, 2011 in advance of the full Regents meeting that was originally scheduled for the following week. The full Regents meeting was postponed due to concern about possible violent demonstrations. This blog has been making available audios of the Regents meetings. A link to the audio can be found at the bottom of this blog entry. During the public comment section of the Committee meeting, the first speaker made a satirical speech for privatizing UC on behalf of the 1%, as opposed to the 99%, as per the Occupy…

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More pension hearings?

Byuclafaculty

We posted audios from the legislature’s public pension hearings on December 1. Apparently, according to the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee, there will be more hearings to come. Although the special pension committee was supposed to have concluded its work by January, …”This cannot be a two-hearing answer,” said Democratic Sen. Gloria Negrete-McLeod, co-chair of the panel. A spokeswoman for Democratic Assemblyman Warren Furutani, also a co-chair, said the committee will probably end up holding at least four hearings in all “in order to get through all of the information.” … Whatever the motives of the committee, if…