Initiative to be Submitted to Voters In California

http://www.iapes-ca.org/pdfs/cal-liope/MarchAprilCalLIOPE2009.pdf

The following is an article from the March/April 2009 issue of Cal-liope, a newsletter for members of an EDD-related professional organization. See attachments for the actual Initiative and Legislative Analyst’s response.

Initiative to be Submitted to Voters In California

In January 2009 “The McCauley Public Employee Pension Reform Act” was registered with the Secretary of State in California and if passed will change the California Constitution Article 1, Sec. 9 to allow state and local governments and taxing districtsto renegotiate public employee pension contracts, including reducing vested benefits for existing and prospective retirees to enable governments to meet public services needs or to meet long term public investment needs.

The proposed initiative requires the collection of 694,354 signatures by June 22, 2009 to get this initiative on the statewide ballot.

The proposer of this initiative believes that past promises made to public employees for future pension entitlements were excessive at the time and have resulted in excessive financial burdens on taxpayers to pay the promised pensions and to meet funding requirements of existing pension contracts causing an unacceptable level of job loss and unemployment.

What does this mean in simple terms? Retirees and future retirees, i.e., all public employees, may have their retirement plan renegotiated and current and future benefits reduced!

What can you do? Do not sign the petition required to get this on the ballot and encourage your friends and neighbors not to sign the petition. If this initiative should get on the ballot, work to get it defeated. The Secretary of State’s tracking number on this initiative is 1350.