Countywide : Pension Initiative Signatures Gathered

Public employees, worried that lawmakers might again raid their pension fund to balance the state budget, turned in 31,000 Ventura County signatures on Tuesday for an initiative that would ban such future transfers from public pension funds.

“All pension funds should be protected, public or private, and (the initiative) is a first step to protect all pensions,” Noby Reidel, a member of the California State Employees Assn., said during a news conference.

The signatures were part of an estimated 1.2 million that were gathered statewide by backers of the initiative, Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) said at a news conference outside the County Government Center on Tuesday.

The number of signatures gathered statewide is twice that required to qualify the constitutional initiative, O’Connell said.

Supporters said they started the initiative in response to the decision by Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature last year to siphon $1.9 billion from the California Public Employees Retirement System, known as CalPERS, to balance the state budget.

If voters pass the measure, the California Pension Protection Act would bar elected officials from tapping into the $64.3-billion CalPERS, the $30-billion State Teachers Retirement System and more than 100 other city, county and special district pension funds.

More than 1.35 million public employees depend on CalPERS and the teachers’ fund for their pensions.

Ruth O’Connell Kent, O’Connell’s 67-year-old mother and a retired nurse from Camarillo State Hospital, also spoke out for the initiative at the news conference.

“As a senior citizen living in frightening economic times, it would be difficult for me to make ends meet without my (retirement) allowance,” she said.

If it does qualify for the November ballot, the initiative would not prevent the California government from raiding the retirement funds during this year’s budget sessions.

Facing a possible deficit this year of between $6 billion and $10 billion, California legislators should look elsewhere for the dollars, O’Connell said. “The money is not there, and we have to make the budget cuts,” he said.