Pensions: Yes on 57

When Richard Nevins retires after 27 years on the Board of Equalization, he will start collecting an annual pension of $181,368. While on the Board, Nevins never earned more than $82,000 a year. Nevins, who had nothing to do with writing state pension laws, is one of 18 state constitutional officers whose pensions, by virtue of a confluence of court decisions and patchwork legislation, are much larger than their salaries and those of their successors. Proposition 57 would correct this inequity, and we urge Californians to support it.

For many years, the pensions of state constitutional officers--the governor and controller, for example--were 40% of the incumbent officers’ salaries. That meant that whenever the active officers were awarded a pay raise, retired officers got a pension increase. After several years of stagnant salaries, in 1963 the Legislature gave the pensions of all constitutional officers annual cost of living increase retroactive to 1954. This was shortsighted, for by adding a retroactive COLA to the pensions, the Legislature ensured that some would receive huge pensions. In 1974 the Legislature changed the formula, but left a number of constitutional officers covered by the old rules. And on Jan. 1, when active constitutional officers get a big pay raise, the pensions of some former officers will shoot up dramatically. The pension of former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, for example, will rise from about $65,000 to $108,000.

Proposition 57 would put these pensioners on par with everyone else. By severing the link between pensions and incumbent salaries, it would freeze their pensions at current levels, though they would continue to collect a COLA. That will save the state about $3.5 million.