CalPERS Offers Benefit Funding Toolkit for Local Elected Officials

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) last month released a primer on the funding of public employee pension and retiree health benefits, specifically geared toward local elected officials to aid them in understanding how public employee retirement benefits work.

The toolkit includes sections on:

• Retirement Plans, including a comparison of defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans and a description of the CalPERS defined benefit plan.
• Funding Retiree Retirement and Health Benefits, providing information about actuarial funding basics of defined benefit plans and the CalPERS California Employers’ Retiree Benefit Trust.
• Contracting for Benefits, identifying issues to consider when contracting for the CalPERS pension plan, how to contract and amend a CalPERS pension contract, and employer responsibilities.

Click here for the free toolkit.

Workers’ Compensation

SB 457 (Calderon) - Oppose
As Amended on May 4, 2011

SB 457, by Senator Ron Calderon, would require the Workers Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) to allow a lien in excess of the Official Medical Fee Schedule (OMFS) when it is found that a health care provider, a health care service plan, a group disability policy, a self-insured employee welfare benefit plan, or a hospital service contract provided benefits outside of the workers’ compensation system. 

The OMFS was put in place to avoid abusive fees and billing practices by medical providers, and CSAC is concerned that freeing reimbursement practices from the OMFS could dramatically increase workers’ compensation costs for local governments.SB 457 could also create a perverse incentive for individuals to receive treatment outside of the workers’ compensation system, and then require his or her health care trust to lien the full costs, leading to increased gaming of the workers’ compensation system. 

SB 457 will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 9.

SB 863 (Lieu) – Support
As Amended on April 14, 2011

SB 863, by Senator Ted Lieu, would begin the process of reforming how liens are handled in the system’s adjudicatory process.

In January 2011, the Commission on Health Safety and Workers’ Compensation released its “Liens Report” (Report), a culmination of the work performed by a broad stakeholder group which was convened to characterize the lien problem so that policymakers can target proposed solutions and to quantify the problem so that the effects of such proposals can be estimated. According to the Report, approximately 350,000 workers’ compensation liens were filed in 2010 and over 450,000 more are expected to be filed in 2011. Medical treatment liens, the Report states, account for more than 60 percent of the liens filed and 80 percent of the dollars in dispute. Litigation over these liens is one of the fastest growing cost drivers in the workers’ compensation system.

SB 863 attempts to address these problems by taking five recommendations identified in the Report that will accomplish the following:

• Create a statute of limitations, effective prospectively based on date of services to bar any lien unless the service is billed in accordance with regulations and the lien is filed within a defined time following that service.
• Establish a statute of limitations to bar any lien for service, regardless of date of service, which is not filed within three years of the date of medical service.
• Eliminate implied liens for medical treatment or medical-legal expenses.
• Impose automatic dismissal by operation of law for any lien which is not activated for hearing within a finite time.
• Allow additional time for medical insurers to file liens for the reimbursement of sums paid for covered treatment.

SB 863 will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 9.

Personnel Commissions

AB 455 (Campos) - Oppose
As amended on March 31, 2011

AB 455, by Assembly Member Nora Campos, would provide that when a local public agency has established a personnel commission or merit commission to administer personnel rules or a merit system, the public agency employer and the employee organization recognized as the exclusive or majority bargaining agent would each be required to designate half of the members of the commission. 

AB 455 will be heard in the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee on May 9.

Collective Bargaining

SB 931 (Vargas) - Oppose
As Amended on April 25, 2011

SB 931, by Senator Juan Vargas, would provide that all public agencies are forbidden to use taxpayer dollars to pay for outside consultants or legal advisors for the purpose of counseling the public employer about ways to minimize or deter the exercise of public employee union activities. SB 931 was amended to state that these provisions would not apply to payments for representation of a public sector employer before any court, administrative agency, or tribunal of arbitration, or for payments for engaging in collective bargaining on behalf of the employer with respect to wages, hours, or other terms and conditions of employment. However, the bill substantially interferes with public agencies’ attorney-client privilege and unreasonably limits their legal counsel.

SB 931 will be heard on May 9 in the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee.

Compensation Transparency

AB 148 (Smyth) – Watch
As Amended on April 14, 2011

AB 148, by Assembly Member Cameron Smyth, would add compensation setting guidlines to the definition of “ethics laws” for the purpose of ethics training for local government officials and employees. Additionally, AB 148 would require a local agency to post on its website the ethics training records of all its elected members and submit a copy of the records to the State Controller within 90 days of receiving them. This bill also requires a local agency that has adopted a written attendance compensation policy or a written reimbursement policy to post such on its website and submit a copy to the State Controller.

AB 148 will be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 11.