PEB Report Continues to Get Press Coverage

The latest news item to cover the aftermath of the Post-Employment Benefits Task Force report is in the Sacramento Bee. No mention of the faculty dissenting report, however, or the $2-for-$1 problem.

UC targets pension benefits (excerpt)

Sacramento Bee, Sep. 11, 2010, Laurel Rosenhall

Confronting a $24 billion unfunded liability in its retirement plan, leaders of the University of California are poised to make significant changes to pension and health care benefits for the system's retirees.

The first step comes Thursday, when UC's governing board of regents is scheduled to vote on a proposal to increase the amount current employees and the university contribute to the retirement plan. The payments would go up over the next two years, so that by July 2012, employees would pay 5 percent of their salaries to the retirement plan and UC would pay 10 percent. That's up from the 2 percent employees pay now and 4 percent paid by the university.

The next steps will come in the months ahead, as UC President Mark Yudof considers a series of recommendations on overhauling retirement benefits for employees who join UC after 2013… "Whatever the regents do, it will not affect accrued benefits of current employees," said Daniel Simmons, a UC Davis law professor who serves as vice chairman of the statewide Academic Senate… Still, Simmons said, "It's a pay hit for everybody," with newer employees bearing the brunt of the burden.

… The union that represents custodians, groundskeepers and cafeteria workers sent an e-mail to the media Friday characterizing the proposed changes as a scheme to "steal from the poor and give to the rich." …

UC executives said the proposals would not hurt low-wage workers more than other employees. Under the proposals, all UC employees would receive retirement income equal to more than 80 percent of their salary, said Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of business operations…

But the claim that employees would receive more than 80 percent of their salaries during retirement includes income from both UC's pension and Social Security. Julian Posadas, a UC Santa Cruz food service worker who is vice president of the AFSCME union, said laborers don't like the idea of banking their retirement income on Social Security. "There is a fear that we won't even have that benefit in the future," he said.

Full article at http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/11/3020639/uc-targeting-retirement-benefits.html