Report: Officials Masked Big Pension Hike

Marin officials echoed the approach of state officials, who quietly passed that landmark 1999 legislation without a full public airing. In his 2010 testimony before the state Senate regarding a proposed pension-reform measure, Crane said CalPERS claimed at the time that “no increase over current employer contributions is needed for these benefit improvements.” Yet CalPERS recently boosted costs to local and state agencies by around 50 percent — and few legislators were concerned enough about the impact to seriously revisit pension reform — or look at ways to more thoroughly account for the level of debt today.