NBC: Jerry Brown's Plan for Pension Reform Might Not Have the Teeth to Tackle California's Unfunded Liability

NBC Bay Area New's "Reality Check" video segment recently questioned whether the Governor Jerry Brown's pension reform legislation will make a dent in the state's unfunded pension liability. The piece featured commentary from California Common Sense.

Governor Jerry Brown wasted little time upon his return to Sacramento pushing a pension reform plan that, in his own words, would change the landscape of California’s pension woes. 

“These pension reforms will go a long way toward making our pension system more sustainable and more fair to the taxpayer and to the employee,” Brown told a group of reporters last October.

Fast forward a year, and California has enacted pension reform legislation that contains many of the governor’s chief proposals: a cap on benefits for future hires, a later retirement age, a rolled-back pension formula and higher contributions from some state employees.

But will the highly-publicized reforms actually make a dent in the state’s mushrooming unfunded liability, and if so, can Californians expect substantive change?

“I think it goes in the right direction, but it definitely does not go far enough,” said Mike Polyakov, research director for the non-profit group California Common Sense in Los Altos.

(Read the full article at NBC Bay Area News.)