Association fights attack on pensions
The nation’s largest association representing public pension systems – The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) – has gone to court to fight against San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and others’ efforts to eliminate constitutional protections for California’s public employee retirement benefits.
NCPERS represents more than 550 public pension funds in the U.S. and Canada – including virtually all of California’s state and county public retirement systems and several major city retirement systems. NCPERS’ California member funds administer benefits for approximately 2.5 million current and retired public employees in California.
“The nation’s largest association representing public pension systems is weighing in on the battle over pensions in California, filing an amicus brief in the Sacramento County Superior Court in support of state Attorney General Kamala Harris and her title and summary for San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s ballot initiative,” Steven Maviglio points out in a recent posting on PublicCEO.com.
What Reed and his fellow petitioners are attempting to do “is to propose a significant change to our state constitution, then shield the voters from knowing the truth about what (Reed and his fellow petitioners) seek to accomplish,” NCPERS assertws in its amicus brief. “Petitioners’ objections…are merely an effort to hide the truth about the Initiative from voters.”
If the change is approved by the voters it will eliminate constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree health care benefits for current public employees, including teachers, nurses, and peace officers, for future work performed.”
Read the story and do what you can to make sure this proposal never gets on the ballot.