Laserfiche WebLink
95 retirees). This ratio increases the percentage of the City's unfunded liability <br /> that belongs to retirees, which in Pleasanton equates to 65% for the <br /> Miscellaneous Plan and 68% for the Police and Fire Safety plans. This <br /> essentially means that the City has to pay more into the system annually to offset <br /> retiree obligations. <br /> e Continuation of Various Rules that Increase Pension Liabilities — Safety <br /> Personnel's use of industrial disability retirements (IDR) have increased cities' <br /> unfunded pension liabilities because there is no minimum period of employment <br /> required to receive an IDR and the minimum pension benefit is equal to 50% of <br /> the employee's salary. Thus, neither the employer nor employee have <br /> necessarily been adequately contributing to PERS to cover IDR pensions. In <br /> addition, the automatic cost of living adjustments of up to 2% for retirees is <br /> another cost factor that contributes further to the growth in unfunded liabilities <br /> and annual payments to CaIPERS to fund the system. <br /> OTHER RELATED MATTERS <br /> In 2012, the state legislature enacted the Public Employee Pension Reform Act <br /> (PEPRA) to address the escalating pension costs faced by the state and other public <br /> jurisdictions that provide pension benefits. PEPRA included the following pension <br /> reforms: <br /> e Pension payments based on average of three highest paid years eliminating the <br /> single highest paid year. <br /> e Less generous pension formulas along with extended retirement ages for <br /> employees2 hired after January 1, 2013. <br /> GO Eliminated pension spiking provisions such as using overtime and vacation pay- <br /> outs in the calculation of final pension compensation. <br /> e Purchase of air time is prohibited. <br /> e Employees must pay their pension contributions. <br /> Unfortunately, these reforms did not adequately address the unfunded pension liabilities <br /> in the short-term. Rather, the PEPRA reforms will substantively affect unfunded <br /> liabilities in 20 to 30 years (long-term) when the PEPRA retirees begin to constitute a <br /> larger portion of the CaIPERS retiree population. So while the reform was necessary <br /> and important, it did very little to benefit the system in the short-term. <br /> As a result, to address the City's growing pension expenses, the City's labor <br /> agreements all include provisions for the employees to pick-up the employee's share of <br /> pension contributions. In addition, since FY 2011/12 the City has provided a total of <br /> $25.4 million towards prefunding the City's pension liabilities through a combination of <br /> strategies, including the use of year-end surpluses, paying-off of pension side funds, <br /> and leveraging reserves to buy-down the City's unfunded status. <br /> 2 New employees hired after 2013 that were not previously in CaIPERS or reciprocal retirement plans. <br /> Page 3of6 <br />