As we rush to come up with a new and inferior pension tier...

...The political process meanwhile moves along independent of what UC does or doesn't do. There could be a mandate for still another tier on the state ballot. Yet we are rolling ahead to come up with a hastily-designed pension tier effective July 2016 that could be overridden a few months later. Yes, it takes a lot of money to get a proposition on the ballot and then campaign for it. But it could happen, particularly if some billionaire sugar daddy takes an interest in such a proposition:

From the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee: (Excerpt)

California pension overhaul advocates move forward after Kamala Harris issues analyses

BY JON ORTIZ

California moved one step closer to a public retirement fight after the state issued official summaries for two pension-change ballot proposals on Thursday – and for the first time neither labor unions nor the measures’ proponents griped that the language was politically slanted or inaccurate.

“It’s not the most positive way to describe the initiative,” said Chuck Reed, the former San Jose mayor who is backing the proposal, “but a least it meets the legal requirement to be accurate.”

Union spokesman Steve Maviglio said his clients wouldn’t criticize the language, but predicted that if a measure reaches the November 2016 ballot, “We’ll throw the kitchen sink at it.”

One proposal would put state and local employees who first join a public pension system on Jan. 1, 2019, or later into 401(k)-style retirement savings plans that guarantee fixed contributions from employers instead of guaranteed retirement payments by government agencies.

The second plan would cap the amount of money government employers could pay for new hires’ retirement benefits to a certain percentage of their salary. For most new employees, employers could contribute no more than 11 percent of wages, or a maximum of 13 percent for police, firefighters and other public safety workers...

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article49033965.html