ZeroHedge: Back in September, we noted that, in a surprisingly logical decision particularly for a state like California which is typically devoid of all reason, a court upheld the rights of Marin County (and it’s taxpayers) to reduce final year salary levels utilized to calculate pension payments. The ruling was meant to protect taxpayers against “salary spiking,” a practice whereby union employees artificially drive up their final year salary, by taking cash vacation payouts or 1x bonus payments for example, in an effort to game the annual pension payment they’ll then receive in perpetuity.
Now, according to Pension & Investments, a second California court in San Francisco has made a similar ruling, finding that while a public employee does have a “vested right” to a pension it is only to a “reasonable pension.”
A second California appeals court panel has said that vested pension rights can be reduced or eliminated in California as long as employees still receive a pension that is “substantial” and “reasonable,” court filings show.
The Dec. 30 decision by a three-member panel in San Francisco affirmed a state pension reform law that went into effect in 2013 and eliminated the right of participants of the $302.4 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, to enhance their pension by buying retirement credits. A lower court in Alameda County in 2015 had ruled that the pension enhancement benefits could be eliminated.
The enhanced benefit, known as an airtime service credit, allowed CalPERS participants to increase their retirement benefit by up to five years by making additional contributions from their salary.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco court cited the Marin Country decision from August which found that employees have a right to a pension but “not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension.” The August decision in Marin County was pivotal because, for the first time, it brought into question a 5-decade California rule which held that pension benefits could not be cut. MORE
What a disappointment. The lede “In Massive Blow To California”
I was hoping for something more devastating than a court ruling on union pensions.
Most of those public employees are spoiled rotten. They’re used to someone else taking care of them after all those years, as long as they voted for democrats. Like most dead people do. Many of them are going to take some very painful haircuts. The only way for them to collect what was promised, not earned, is to have their taxes increased about 500%. Dumb asses.
Let them go bankrupt.