Earlier this decade — before Gov. Jerry Brown launched his successful 2012 push for state pension reforms in Sacramento — the leaders of Los Angeles and San Francisco executed retirement-benefit reforms that they said would keep the pension tsunami at bay.
In 2011, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa won a hard-fought deal with the Los Angeles police and firefighters unions that targeted “pension spiking” — late-career maneuvering that allowed individuals to push up their final pay and thus their annual pensions. It also reduced the minimum pension available after 20 years of service. All employee unions also made concessions reducing retirement benefits for newly hired workers that year. And after the 2011 contracts, all new hires had to share in the costs of health care benefits. Taxpayers had previously covered the whole tab.
04/20/2024