SCA 10: Public employee retirement benefits.

Existing statutory law establishes various public agency retirement systems, including, among others, the Public Employees Retirement System, the State Teachers Retirement System, the Judges Retirement System II, and various county retirement systems pursuant to the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937, and these systems provide defined pension benefits to public employees based on age, service credit, and amount of final compensation. The California Constitution permits a city or county to adopt a charter for purposes of its governance that supersedes general laws of the state in regard to specified subjects, including compensation of city or county employees. The California Constitution establishes the University of California as a public trust with full powers of organization and government, subject only to specified limitations. Under their respective independent constitutional authority, charter cities and counties and the University of California may and have established retirement systems. The California Public Employees Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA) generally requires the retirement systems to which it applies to modify their provisions to conform with its requirements. PEPRA excepts from its provisions the retirement systems established by charter cities and counties and the University of California. PEPRA requires the retirement systems that it regulates and that offer defined benefit plans to provide specified defined benefit formulas, and prescribes requirements regarding employer and employee contributions to defined benefit pension plans.

This measure would prohibit a government employer from providing public employees any retirement benefit increase until that increase is approved by a ²/₃ vote of the electorate of the applicable jurisdiction and that vote is certified. The measure would define retirement benefit to mean any postemployment benefit and would define benefit increase as any change that increases the value of an employees retirement benefit. The measure would define a government employer to include, among others, the state and any of its subdivisions, cities, counties, school districts, special districts, the Regents of the University of California, and the California State University.