California pension initiative requires public vote on retirement benefits

[KamaAina]

As ex-San Jose mayor Chuck Reed crawls out from under his moss-covered rock.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article23092623.html

For the third time in four years, advocates for altering public pensions have a plan they want to put to a statewide vote.

But this time the proposal by pension-change advocates Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio has a new twist: Pensions and other retirement benefits would automatically become a matter of ballot-box politics by requiring voter approval any time government officials sought to upgrade benefits.

It also would make “defined-contribution” plans the default retirement program for state and local employees hired Jan. 1, 2019, and later. Employers who wanted to add new employees to “defined-benefit” plans now common in government – but rare in the private sector – would have to get voter approval after that date....

“Chuck Reed is a hypocrite,” said Bruce Blanning, executive director of the state engineers’ union. “He’s not interested in protecting taxpayers. His real target is working men and women who dedicated themselves to public service and then retire. He wants their money to be controlled by the same Wall Street bankers who gave us the Great Recession.”

Measure B worked so well in San Jose that cops are now leaving the police force in droves. We were once the safest large city in the U.S. No longer. Heckuvajob, Chuckles!