Official Seeks to Bar Planned ‘Scandalous’ Pension Hikes

Windfall pension increases for former state officeholders would be blocked under a constitutional amendment proposed Thursday by a legislator who denounced the pending benefit hikes as “scandalous.”

The big boosts in retirement benefits, slated to take effect next year, were triggered by the Legislature two years ago when it quietly passed a major pay raise bill for state officials. The pensions will go up because they are tied to current salaries, plus a liberal cost-of-living formula.

As it stands, for example, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown’s pension next year is scheduled to rise from $62,300 annually to $107,880.

Other pension figures supplied by the Public Employees’ Retirement system show that the $28,818 that President Reagan receives annually for his two terms as governor would increase to $48,792. Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston’s pension entitlement as a former state controller would go from $57,492 to $98,076. Another former state controller and U.S. senator, Beverly Hills attorney Thomas Kuchel, would get a boost from $54,000 to $92,136.

“This is highway robbery. We ought not to stand for it,” state Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) said in proposing his constitutional amendment to block the pension hikes. “This is scandalous.”

Breaking the Link

Some of those in line for hefty pension increases because of their former state offices currently are drawing salaries for other government jobs, such as President. Reagan earns $200,000 a year at the White House. Cranston’s Senate salary is $72,600. Former Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk is paid $119,769 for being a member of the state Supreme Court.

These officials, in addition to the pension checks they receive from former positions, ultimately will receive pensions from their current jobs as well. Unlike practices in private industry, most elected officials become eligible and start receiving pension checks depending on how long they were in the job rather than purely on age.

The amendment, still in the drafting stage, would break the link between present pensions and current salaries paid to officeholders. That link was severed for retired legislators several years ago.

Approval by the Senate and Assembly would be required in order to place the measure on the ballot for a vote in November. Deddeh said he thinks other lawmakers are as outraged as he is. And he predicted the amendment “will fly through both houses.”

Deddeh’s measure rivals a proposed ballot initiative being circulated by anti-tax crusader Paul Gann, who has said he does not trust legislators to control the pay raises and pensions of state officials.

Gann’s proposed constitutional amendment, for which he must obtain more than 600,000 signatures of qualified voters in order to bring it to a vote in November, would limit the pay of public officials, and along with it the pensions of retired officials. It would wipe out the big pay raise slated to take effect next year for state officials.

Gann is using the hefty pension increases that retired officials are in line to receive as a rallying point for his initiative drive.

“They are fleecing the taxpayers,” Gann recently said of the political Establishment--governors, legislators and judges. He pointed out that the present liberal pension system has evolved from a stream of law changes and judicial decisions by those who benefit from the escalating benefits.

Relatively little opposition developed when the pay raise legislation moved through the Legislature two years ago, largely because current salaries of the constitutional officers now are so low that some members of their own staffs earn more through the Civil Service pay structure.

Under the new pay levels effective next year, the annual salary of the governor will rise from $49,100 to $85,000. The pay of the attorney general will jump from $47,500 to $77,500 and the controller and other constitutional officers will get boosts from $42,500 to $72,500.

Ballot Spot

Deddeh already has won a spot on the June primary ballot for a measure that would prohibit anyone from receiving a pension higher than the salary being paid to the current incumbent. But it would not affect present pensions.

Deddeh found sympathy for his position from former Gov. (Pat) Brown.

The 80-year-old retired chief executive said he thinks the pension windfall is “extraordinary.” Brown, father of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., said he had not foreseen such huge increases when he signed the pension bill in 1966 that allowed for a so-called “super escalator” that has driven retirement pay above current salaries.

Brown, who practices law in Los Angeles on a limited basis, said of the $107,880 pension he is scheduled to receive: “Old former governors should not live in poverty, but that is too great a pension even for old former governors.” Brown said his pension was only $18,000 a year when he left office in 1967, and he considered it appropriate.

Other Pensions

Other pension figures released show that Rep. Glenn Anderson (D-Calif.), a former lieutenant governor, would see his current pension of $45,072 go up to $76,896 next year. Bert Betts, a retired treasurer, would get a boost from $57,948 to $98,856; Virginia Knight, wife of the late Gov. Goodwin J. Knight, would go from $26,856 to $92,988; Harold Powers, lieutenant governor under Knight, from $59,016 to $100,692.

Not all former officials receive the “super escalator.” Reagan signed legislation changing the pension law and he, along with officials who took office after 1967, do not receive benefits using 1954 as a base year to compute annual cost-of-living increases; thus their pensions are smaller.

Even so, they are in line to receive hefty boosts in their monthly checks because of the salary increases, with benefits depending on length of service and other factors.

Thomas Lynch, former attorney general, would get a boost in his lifetime pension from $34,524 a year to $43,164, and Evelle J. Younger, another retired attorney general, would go from $28,632 to $38,196.