California Gov. Jerry Brown, when asked by reporters why pension reform was missing from his so-called "honest budget," told us to go to his Web site and look at his pension reform plan. His Web plan isn't too bad, but Californians need reform included in the state budget -- not interesting material to read on campaign Web sites. Brown is punting on pension reform -- something made all the more clear after learning that the Brown team left out of the budget deal some modest, noncontroversial reform items that could have easily saved millions of dollars.
Here's a section from my Sunday newspaper column:
Here's a section from my Sunday newspaper column:
On Jan. 13, some of the state's most prominent tax fighters attended a summit in Sacramento sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. In a luncheon talk, I detailed the depth of the state's pension crisis, along with Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, the group best-known for publishing a database revealing how many state employees receive pensions of at least $100,000.
Fritz ... gave Brown a list of several minor things he could do to save money on pensions - the low-hanging fruit that wouldn't elicit much blowback from the unions. He could easily have included these elements in his plan and saved millions of dollars. Yet he chose not to include any of them. Fritz is an auditor, and when she audits companies she says she looks for little things to know whether the company is serious about getting its books in order. Looking at these little things - or rather the way Brown and Co. refused to take even the tiniest step toward pension reform in the budget - she is convinced that Brown is not serious about pension reform. ...Brown has shown a willingness to defy conventions. For instance, his plan to eliminate the state's corporate-welfare-laden, eminent-domain-abusing redevelopment agencies was a welcome breath of fresh air. So I can't believe that he didn't think about the more pressing pension-reform issue. He clearly chose not to do anything about it. He told the League of Cities that he will soon introduce a pension reform plan. But why wasn't it part of the budget? The news is not too encouraging.
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