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Stockpile of Unused Time by Los Angeles City Workers Could Be Costly

"As a snapshot in time, there are currently about 5.3 million hours of unused vacation time, 13.8 million hours of accrued sick leave, and 3.3 million hours of accumulated overtime on the books for sworn and civilian city employees. Those hours are not an immediate obligation of the city, but employees are entitled to the time or pay because of the hours they work."

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Los Angeles Pension Peril

"Right now, Los Angeles spends about $1.2 billion a year to fund its three pension plans. If those plans produce their projected investment return over the next five years, Los Angeles will be paying $2 billion a year in 2017. And that's if the pension funds earn an annual rate of return of 7.75%, which is almost surely unrealistic, especially given that about a third of the systems' investments are in fixed-income assets that are today paying historically low interest rates. To achieve an overall return of 7.75%, the pension funds would thus need returns of roughly 15% a year on the equities they buy. That's preposterous."  MORE >>

More Q&As on the New Los Angeles Paid Sick Leave Ordinance

"The sick time benefits rules apply on July 1, 2017, for employers that qualify for the one-year small business deferral. Both sick time and minimum wage requirements for employers with 25 or fewer employees begin on July 1, 2017.... Unused paid sick leave time accrued by an employee, regardless of front-loading or accrual method, must be carried over and may be capped at a minimum of 72 hours.... To qualify as a 'large employer,' does an employer need to have 26 employees working in the city or 26 total employees anywhere (i.e., nationwide)? ... [An] employer will look to the number of employees who are working or who worked in the city of Los Angeles only."

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Los Angeles County Enacts Paid Vaccine Leave Ordinance

"On May 18, 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors enacted an urgency ordinance that, under certain circumstances, requires all private employers to provide paid leave so employees can receive COVID-19 vaccine injections. This paid leave includes time employees spend traveling to and from appointments and time spent recovering from symptoms related to receiving the vaccine that prevent them from working or teleworking."

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City of Los Angeles Requires Vaccine Leave for Employees Working in the City

"Under the [mayor's] order, employees who work within the City of Los Angeles and have been employed by their employer for 60 days are entitled to paid time off to get vaccinated for COVID-19, including traveling to and from the appointment, as well as recovering from the side effects of vaccination[.]"  MORE >>

Los Angeles Increases Paid Sick Leave Obligations for Large Employers

"[E]mployers with 500 or more employees nationally -- including persons whose wages, hours or working conditions are controlled by the employer, such as temporary employees -- would be obligated to provide up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave to employees who have worked within the Los Angeles city limits during the time period specified in the ordinance."  MORE >>

City of Los Angeles Updates Paid Sick Leave Rules and FAQs

"The revised FAQs provide that an employer's business size is based on covered employees, i.e., individuals who perform at least two hours of work in a particular week within the City of Los Angeles and are entitled to the state minimum wage. Also, the revised FAQs specify that employers can use different sick leave methods for different employee classes ... Per the revised FAQs, at the end of each year, employers -- at their discretion -- can pay out accrued but unused sick leave that exceeds the 72-hour overall cap. Finally, relevant revised regulations address frontloading by small employers, calculating an employee's regular rate when sick leave is used, and using existing paid time off benefits to comply with the law."  MORE >>

Starting July 1, 2016, Employees in Los Angeles Get Three Additional Days of Paid Sick Leave

"An employee will be entitled to the paid sick leave if, on or after July 1, 2016, the employee works in the City of Los Angeles for the same employer for 30 days or more within a year. Employers may provide that new employees may not use paid sick leave for the first 90 days of employment. Employees may use paid sick time for themselves and to care for family members."  MORE >>

Los Angeles Leads Nation in Medicare Spending on End-Of-Life Care: $112,000

"Spending in the last two years of life was about $112,000 per patient in Los Angeles as of 2010, about 60% higher than the national average ... From 2007 to 2010, Medicare spending on end-of-life care rose 15% nationwide."  MORE >>

Los Angeles Should Keep Pension Reform Discussion Going

"With former Mayor Richard Riordan ... suspending his effort to put the pension measure on the May 21 ballot, voters will now get to decide whether to pay more but not whether to ask the city to pay less. [The authors] had misgivings about Riordan's proposal, but its premature disappearance closes off discussion of a genuinely important issue and eliminates a possible solution to L.A.'s budget problems.... Independent study of the plan's costs and benefits was sorely needed, but now that it's off the ballot, that's not in the cards."  MORE >>

Ballot Measure May Replace Pensions with 401(k)s at Los Angeles City Hall

"Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan plans to submit language Friday for a May 2013 ballot measure that would eliminate government pensions for newly hired workers at City Hall, replacing them with 401(k)-style retirement benefits. Riordan's proposal also would freeze the size of pensions for existing employees even when their salaries go up -- unless they are promoted to a higher-paying job. The plan is designed to save hundreds of millions of dollars annually by 2017 and would apply to every city worker, including police officers, firefighters and employees of the Department of Water and Power[.]"  MORE >>

Los Angeles City Council Backs Pension Cuts for New Workers

"[T]he Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to roll back pension benefits and boost the retirement age to 65 for new civilian employees.... Under the new plan, spouses of retired workers will no longer be eligible for city-funded healthcare. City employees will see their take-home pay reduced in years when their retirement fund takes a hit in the stock market. And workers who retire at the age of 55 after 30 years of city employment will receive pensions that are roughly one-third the amount provided to existing employees."  MORE >>

Los Angeles City Council Considers Two Tax Increases and a Pension Change

"For months, analysts and elected officials have been signaling that both tax increases and an overhaul of the employee pension system will be needed to keep the city afloat. On Tuesday, faced with the latest deficit forecasts, the City Council moved toward putting two tax increases on the March ballot and raising the retirement age for new employees, among other changes to the pension formula."  MORE >>

Retirement Costs Soon Will Take a Larger Share of Los Angeles Budget, Estimates Show

"Taxpayers in Los Angeles will see retirement costs for police officers and firefighters climb by 56% over the next four years, even after voters approved a March 2011 ballot measure that trimmed the pension benefits paid to new hires, according to projections released by city budget officials. Pensions and retiree healthcare costs for sworn employees are projected to consume $789 million of the city's general fund budget in 2016, up from $506 million this year[.]"

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Public Safety Pension Costs Steadily Growing in Los Angeles

"Taxpayers in Los Angeles will see retirement costs for police officers and firefighters climb by 56% over the next four years, even after passage of a ballot measure that trimmed the pension benefits paid to new hires, according to projections released by city budget officials. Pensions and retiree healthcare costs for sworn employees are projected to consume $789 million of the city's general fund budget in 2016, up from $506 million this year[.]"  MORE >>

City of Los Angeles Doubles Employees' Sick Leave Entitlement Effective July 1, 2016

"The Los Angeles Ordinance will provide employees working in the City of Los Angeles with the ability to accrue and use up to 48 hours of sick leave, twice the amount provided by state law. Enacted as an urgency matter, the new sick leave obligations become effective for employers on July 1, 2016 ... Los Angeles' law does not have a lower cap for small employers.... [E]mployers may provide the entire 48 hours of sick leave in a lump sum, or the employer may use an accrual method."  MORE >>

Los Angeles Mayor Revises Existing, and Issues New, Order Requiring Paid Sick Leave for Absences Related to COVID-19 Vaccines

"The new order requires all employers to provide covered employees with ... paid time off to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, including time an employee spends traveling to and from an appointment, and time to recover from vaccination-related side effects that prevent the employee from being able to work or telework.... [This] Order is retroactive to January 1, 2021."  MORE >>

Los Angeles County Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Ordinance Covers Employers in Unincorporated Areas of the County

"The County's ordinance applies only to businesses in unincorporated areas of the County and to employees who perform any work within the County....The ordinance, which went into effect immediately due to an urgency clause, requires covered employers to provide up to 80 hours of additional paid sick leave to full-time employees, and part-time employees to receive an amount no greater than the employee's average two-week pay over the period of January 1, 2020, through April 28, 2020."  MORE >>

Los Angeles Adopts Rules to Implement Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Order

"The rules address which paid time off benefits qualify for purposes of the exemption for employers that annually provide at least 160 paid leave hours.... [E]mployees can choose to use [supplemental paid sick leave (SPSL)] 'periodically' until, overall, they use whatever amount of SPSL the order requires employers to provide. The rules do not provide the employer with discretion."  MORE >>

Pension Reforms Begin in San Diego and Los Angeles

"The state's three largest cities, which have their own independent retirement systems, are like many other cities hard hit by pension investment losses and generous retirement benefits boosted in good times.... Most cost-cutting pension reforms only cover new hires.... [P]ensions promised current workers are a 'vested' right, protected by contract law, that can only be cut if offset by a benefit of equal value.... The three largest cities, which are not in CalPERS, are using different strategies in their attempt to cut the pension costs of current workers."

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