UCRS retirement

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Retiree Health Changes

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday, this blog noted the upcoming UC open enrollment period and changes in the various health care options. Among them were what appeared to be rather drastic changes for retirees living outside California. One wonders whether the court ruling noted below might have some relevance for the ability of UC to make such changes.  Any legal scholars want to chime in?  Comments welcome. A superior court judge overturned a freeze on retiree health care for Los Angeles city attorneys this month, citing some of the same case law that made public pensions a vested right that can only be cut…

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Dirks’ Perks Irk

Byuclafaculty

Much of the news media coverage of the appointment of the new UC-Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks involved the fact that his salary would be $50,000 more than that of his predecessor (albeit an increment paid by private funds).   You can find the salary comparison used to justify the pay level to the Regents at: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/c1.pdf The governor, the lieutenant governor, and one regent was unhappy with the salary and the news media picked up the complaints.  See, for example: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22074232/uc-berkeleys-new-chancellor-under-consideration-by-regents http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/11/cost-cutting-wont-come-easy-to-uc/ Probably, however, if there was to be controversy, it might have been over an item in the footnotes…

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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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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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Audio Recording Indicates that UC Needs to Talk With Legislative Leaders on Pensions

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday’s State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee carried a story about remarks by California State Senate President Darrell Steinberg on public pensions.  It includes a link to a recording of Steinberg’s remarks on pensions at a press conference of 1-26-2012.  Good luck with that link; the IT guy at the Bee must have gone home for the weekend.  Nevertheless, yours truly has come to the rescue and you can hear it without hassle by clicking on the link below. There is a back story which state politicos will understand regarding Steinberg’s remarks.  Last year, the legislature kept waiting for…

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Listen to Audio of Regents Meeting of 9-16-10 (Approval of Increased Pension Contributions)

Byuclafaculty

The Regents provide a live audio stream of their meetings but they don’t place the recordings online afterward. However, yours truly recorded the Regents meeting of earlier today. It involved preliminary discussion of the retirement system – pension and retiree healthcare – and the raising of the employer and employee contributions to the pension. Also approved was an augmentation of the members of the Investment Advisory Board to the pension fund. See the earlier post on this blog on that subject. I had to convert the audio into videos (just a still picture on the screen) so that it could…

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Little Hoover Commission on Public Pensions in California

Byuclafaculty

The State’s “Little Hoover Commission” is holding hearings on public pensions in California. There was a hearing yesterday on legal issues and one today 6-24-10. There does not appear to be any direct participation of UC in these hearings. Whether the UC pension is included in some background reports for the hearings is unknown (to me). The agenda is at: http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/activestudies/pension/Public_Notice_06-24-10.pdf UC’s unique pension situation tends to be lost in state discussions of the much larger CalPERS and CalSTRS systems. Note: A radio discussion of public pensions – including yours truly – can be heard at:http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201006180900 A Sacramento Bee report…