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Text of CalPERS Circular Letter 200-016-20: COVID-19 Impacts to CalPERS Reporting (PDF)

"Will CalPERS grant extensions for submitting and posting regular earned period payroll reports due to potential closures caused by COVID-19? ... If contributions, payroll, or retired annuitant data is reported late during the COVID-19 pandemic, will CalPERS consider waiving fees and/or interest? ... If a membership enrollment is reported late during the COVID-19 pandemic, will CalPERS consider waiving administrative fees and penalties? ... If we put a full-time, eligible member on Paid Administrative Leave because their work-site is shut down due to COVID-19, is their pay still considered reportable compensation? ... Can an employer make an advance estimated payment on contributions?"

CalPERS Paid Lawyers $7 Million in Bankruptcies

"CalPERS has paid two law firms more than $7 million in the Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino bankruptcies, even though a federal judge doubts that it has the legal standing to object to city pension cuts.... In the Vallejo bankruptcy, CalPERS from 2008 to 2012 paid $526,356 to the law firm of Felderstein Fitzgerald Willoughby & Pascuzzi. Then CalPERS switched law firms and from 2012 through last November paid K&L Gates $3.2 million for the Stockton bankruptcy and $3.3 million for the San Bernardino bankruptcy. Peter Mixon, the CalPERS general counsel for 11 years, left CalPERS in 2013 and became a partner in K&L Gates last October."

Bankruptcy Judge Says CalPERS Pensions Can Be Cut

"[U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein] said during the trial in May that one of his options was ruling on whether CalPERS pensions could be cut without necessarily finding that Stockton pensions should be cut. Part of his analysis ... that CalPERS pensions are not state 'governmental or political powers' protected under federal bankruptcy law is that while state workers are in CalPERS by statute, cities choose to join CalPERS. Klein said California cities have the option of forming their own pension systems, joining a county pension system, hiring a private pension provider or withdrawing from CalPERS, if they can afford to do so. He concluded that benefits not prescribed by state law are not 'governmental or political' powers protected by the federal bankruptcy law, but instead are unprotected 'business powers.'"

CalPERS Fact Sheet: Pensionable Compensation Rules (PDF)

"How was pensionable compensation impacted by the Public Employees' Pension Reform Act (PEPRA) of 2013? ... Did PEPRA limit pensionable compensation only to base pay? ... Did the recent action by the CalPERS board add 99 items to pensionable compensation? No.... Is Governor Brown opposed to CalPERS regulations dealing with pensionable compensation? ... Will CalPERS regulations undermine the anti-spiking provisions of PEPRA? No.... Did CalPERS include pensionable compensation in its cost analysis? Yes."

CalPERS' Bonus Bonanza?

"To traders who eat what they kill, seeing America's biggest public pension fund dole out twice as much in bonuses to their senior investment officers after recouping losses suffered during the recession doesn't make any sense at all. Most people would agree with him, why pay out big bonuses for recouping massive losses? CalPERS talks about the need to compete with Wall Street pay but nobody on Wall Street would still have a job if they experienced the losses CalPERS experienced during the recession."

CalPERS and Transparency

"Earlier this month CalPERS stunned retirees by announcing that it would soon publish their names, annuities, cost of living adjustments, years of service, retirement date and final compensation to a public online database.... The pension fund figured that if the information was going to get out anyway, it might as well try to control the presentation.... This, however, was a bridge too far for CalPERS's 500,000 retirees.... It's no small irony that the opaque pension fund has itself become a target of activist taxpayers demanding greater transparency."

When CalPERS Meets Greece?

"[If CalPERS] manage[s] to secure pension payments ahead of unsecured bondholders, it could potentially rock the municipal bond market, making it more expensive for cities to borrow money. But if CalPERS loses this case, it opens up a Pandora's box as other municipalities will follow San Bernardino and suspend their pension payments. If that happens, CalPERS will have to make difficult choices, like drop or terminate city pensions. This isn't in anyone's best interest."

CalPERS Reports 1% Return: 'What If' Charts at Various Compound Annualized Rates-of-Return Going Forward

"Let's pretend that CalPERS is 100% funded.... [W]hat will CalPERS underfunding look like at various compound plan performance rates? CalPERS currently has $233 billion in assets. CalPERS assumes 7.5% annual growth. What if CalPERS only returns 5%? or 2.5%?"

CalPERS Reports Preliminary 2011-12 Fiscal Year Performance of 1 Percent

"The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) today reported a 1 percent return on investments for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2012, falling short of its benchmark that returned 1.7 percent. CalPERS assets at the end of the fiscal year stood at more than $233 billion.... CalPERS' 1 percent return is below the fund's discount rate of 7.5 percent, a long-term hurdle lowered recently in response to a steady decline in inflation and as part of CalPERS routine evaluation of economic assumptions. CalPERS' 20-year investment return is 7.7 percent."

CalPERS Releases First Report on Its Environmental, Social and Governance Work

"The report explains the fiduciary framework [CalPERS has] adopted to integrate sustainability across the total fund, illustrates achievements from the last few years, and outlines [the] vision for the future. [Contents include] CalPERS views on Sustainable Investing; The '3 Ps' of the CalPERS program: Priorities, Performance and Procurement; How CalPERS integrates ESG in its own operations; [CalPERS] strategic themes of alignment of interest, climate change and human capital[.]"