Brown Signs One Pension Bill, Vetoes Another
October 11, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – California Governor Jerry Brown has signed one pension bill intended to strengthen government ethics and vetoed another.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the governor signed Assembly Bill 873, which extends how long former board members and some employees at the state’s two largest public pension funds – the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) – must wait to lobby the state for business. The toughest provision puts a 10-year moratorium on high-level officials accepting compensation as so-called “placement agents” who do business with the two systems.
The California governor vetoed Senate Bill 439, which would have prohibited board members and executives at the pension funds from accepting gifts in excess of $50 per year from anyone doing business with CalPERS or CalSTRS. Current law sets the limit at $420 per year, according to the Bee.
The measure, Brown said, would “create a special set of rules that will apply exclusively to CalPERS and CalSTRS” and complicate an already complex reporting system without much benefit to government transparency, according to the report.