Tag: Calpers

Letter: Why should taxpayers bear CalPERS risk?

Mary Pat Campbell
Letter: Why should taxpayers bear CalPERS risk?

Excerpt:

The city [Chico] has been receiving more sales tax, property tax, developer fees, and Utility Tax revenues every year as development brings more people to Chico. Instead of maintaining and improving infrastructure, Staff has poured these funds into their pension deficit, $11,500,000 this year, by 2025, $13,000,000. This money is allocated from all the department funds, at the expense of infrastructure and services.

Instead of pursuing new taxes that will hurt our local economy, council needs to switch from CalPERS’ defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, like 401Ks. Why should the taxpayers but never the employees bear the burden of the risks taken by CalPERS? The POB scheme, which Dowell admits is “gambling,” puts ALL the burden on the taxpayers, forever. Any new revenues will go to the pension obligation first.

Author(s): Juanita Sumner, Chico

Publication Date: 26 May 2021

Publication Site: Oroville Mercury-Register

CalPERS Long Term Care Program Bleeds Policyholders Dry via 10X Higher Premiums, Gross Mismanagement, Bad Faith Dealing

Mary Pat Campbell
CalPERS Long Term Care Program Bleeds Policyholders Dry via 10X Higher Premiums, Gross Mismanagement, Bad Faith Dealing

Graphic:

Excerpt:

To justify the rate increases, CalPERS asserts that there is nothing problematic with the program, other than the usual suspects of low interest rates and unexpected policyholder behavior, issues that all long-term care providers have faced. But that is, at best, a half-truth.

While all other long-term care providers have faced the same challenges, there is no evidence that any other insurer in the nation has responded with premium increases like CalPERS. For example, the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program has raised rates as much as 150%. For commercial policies, premiums rose up to 75% for UNUM Group in some states, while in California premiums for Mutual of Omaha policy premiums rose 20%, Transamerica premiums rose 25%, and Thrivent premiums rose about 37%.

During the past two decades, roughly the timeframe of the policies subject to the lawsuit, inflation has risen 49% and the cost of long-term care services about 120%. The chart below shows actual policy rates and the initial policy rate along with inflation and long-term care trends.

Author(s): Yves Smith, Lawrence Grossman

Publication Date: 14 May 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Which Public Pension Funds Have the Highest Holdings of Alternative Assets? 2021 Edition

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/which-public-pension-funds-have-the

Graphic:

All the data for alternative allocation 2001-2020, with key percentiles plotted as lines

Excerpt:

What you see in that graph is a data point for each of the plans I know their asset allocation for, with the median, 25th percentile, and 75th percentiles marked out so you can see the allocations increasing.

That pattern does not make me feel good.

Allocating more to alternatives doesn’t seem to get asset managers higher returns. But the group is generally sliding upwards in their allocations, and I’m very unhappy about this.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 11 May 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Dan Walters, Dean of Sacramento Columnists, Blasts CalPERS’ Corruption-Friendly Secret Lending Bill

Mary Pat Campbell
Dan Walters, Dean of Sacramento Columnists, Blasts CalPERS’ Corruption-Friendly Secret Lending Bill

Excerpt:

Walters’ piece has been picked up by the Mercury News and other in-state papers. Since the bill has yet to go to the Senate, his intervention will make it much harder for Sacramento insiders to simply waive the legislation through and pretend they didn’t know about its rancid features.

We wrote up last week in part because the Judiciary Committee staff took the unusual step of sharply questioning whether CalPERS could and should be trusted with the powers it would provide. CalPERS wants to make loans and be exempt from disclosure…including who got the loan, in what amount, what the terms were (such as interest and collateral). The latter is important not just to determine if CalPERS is making proper credit judgments but also to see if it is handing out sub-market loans to cronies. There’s a proud history of this sort of thing. Remember, for instance, the “Friends of Angelo” scandal, when Countrywide gave out mortgages on extremely favorable terms to powerful politicians including Senate Banking Committee chair Christopher Dodd (D-CT), and Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad.

Similarly, the reason yours truly has not been an advocate of public banks is they were tried in the US and virtually all failed. Most states and even some cities had them. All save North Dakota’s were eventually shuttered due to large-scale corruption and losses. I have not seen any of the proponents of public banks in the US demonstrate any awareness of their history of becoming piggy-banks for local notables, much the less recommend how to stop that from happening again. What CalPERS is proposing is an even more degraded version of the old, crooked, insider-controlled public banks.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 5 May 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Pending bill opens door to pension corruption at CalPERS

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/05/california-pension-calpers-corruption-legislation/

Excerpt:

Assembly Bill 386 sailed through the Assembly Judiciary Committee last week on a unanimous vote with virtually no discussion about its provisions.

….

Potentially it opens the door to insider dealing and corruption in an agency that’s already experienced too many scandals, including a huge one that sent CalPERS’ top administrator to prison for accepting bribes.

CalPERS, which is sponsoring the bill with support from some unions and local governments, claims that the exemption is no big deal since the money it lends through “alternative investment vehicles” such as venture capital funds and hedge funds is already partially exempted from disclosure.

However, there is a big difference. Using outside entities to invest means they have skin in the game. Direct lending by CalPERS means that its board members, administrators and other insiders would be making lending decisions on their own without outside scrutiny.

Author(s): Dan Walters

Publication Date: 3 May 2021

Publication Site: CalMatters

Financial Institutions Form Global Alliance to Fight Climate Change

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/04/21/financial-institutions-form-global-alliance-to-fight-climate-change/

Excerpt:

On the eve of President Joe Biden’s virtual climate change summit with approximately 40 other world leaders and the fifty-first anniversary of Earth Day, a new alliance of 160 financial institutions was formed to achieve net zero by 2050 or sooner.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) consists of three separate groups representing different sectors of the financial universe — the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), comprising 43 banks from 23 countries including Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley in the U.S.; the Net Zero Asset Managers Alliance of 87 firms, including BlackRock, Vanguard, Allianz Global Advisors, Invesco and State Street Global Advisors and Trillium Asset Management, which joined Wednesday; and the 37-member UN-Convened Net Zero Owners Alliance, which includes the David Rockefeller Fund and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

Author(s): Bernice Napach

Publication Date: 21 April 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

California Judiciary Committee Gives Blistering Assessment of CalPERS’ Fiduciary Duty Failings in Analysis of Fraud-Friendly Private Debt Secrecy Bill

Mary Pat Campbell
California Judiciary Committee Gives Blistering Assessment of CalPERS’ Fiduciary Duty Failings in Analysis of Fraud-Friendly Private Debt Secrecy Bill

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Let’s look at other reasons why allowing CalPERS to make secret loans is a terrible idea.

CalPERS and CalSTRS are already major investors in private debt, via private debt funds, so AB 386 is unnecessary. CalPERS is already #16 in the world and CalSTRS, #30. Both giant funds have demonstrated that California’s disclosure laws aren’t an impediment to making this kind of investment. It should not be surprising that no other California public pension fund is supporting this bill.

There’s no good reason to create an internal team to do private debt investing. Plenty of experts have been urging large private equity investors like CalPERS to bring private equity investing in house for years. First, the fees and costs are so eye-popping, at an estimated 7% per year, that cutting that down to say 2% or 3% means that a relatively newbie investor like CalPERS could still fall a bit short compared to industry average gross returns and still come out ahead on a net basis. Second, industry experts also confirm that there are many seasoned, skilled professional who would trade a less pressured life (particularly the costs and stresses that relate to regular fundraising) for less lavish pay.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date:

Publication Site: naked capitalism

CalPERS Employee Accused of Embezzling $685,000 from Beneficiary Bank and CalPERS Accounts Hasn’t Been Arrested, Much the Less Prosecuted. Why the Cover Up?

Mary Pat Campbell
CalPERS Employee Accused of Embezzling $685,000 from Beneficiary Bank and CalPERS Accounts Hasn’t Been Arrested, Much the Less Prosecuted. Why the Cover Up?

Excerpt:

As you can see from the embedded filing below, CalPERS is suing Gloria Najera, a former employee it says embezzled $685,000 from beneficiaries, including, Wells Fargo style, from a beneficiary’s bank accounts.

The civil claim is sketchy on the timetable, but Najera was a clerical worker responsible for updating beneficiary addresses and bank direct deposit information. That apparently also gave her access to at least the last four digits in their Social Security numbers. Najera used this information to pilfer directly from the bank account of one beneficiary to the tune of nearly $69,000. For nine others, she diverted funds from dormant CalPERS accounts (where CalPERS had reason to think the beneficiary was still alive but had only out-of-date bank deposit information) to bank accounts controlled by Najera and co-conspirators.

Yet despite CalPERS allegedly informing the police about the theft back in January, the perp of this huge embezzlement of beneficiary trust funds hasn’t even been arrested, much the less charged.

CalPERS instead is taking the virtually unheard of approach of merely filing a civil suit, rather than letting a prosecutor file criminal charges, even though California law requires that a criminal court order full restitution on behalf of CalPERS.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 22 April 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Peter Roff: Beware the Pension Bailout Hidden Inside COVID-19 Relief Bill

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.noozhawk.com/article/peter_roff_beware_pension_bailout_hidden_inside_covid_19_bill_20210403

Excerpt:

California’s total estimated pension liability is something like $1 trillion. To balance its books, Sacramento had to get money from taxpayers in Florida, South Dakota, Utah and, other, better-managed states (through the COVID-19 stimulus) to close the gap.

Whether it will be enough to stop municipal fire departments from bringing private ambulance and medical services “in-house” is yet to be seen. Hopefully, it will — which would be a good thing for taxpayers and people in need.

Otherwise, the pattern of using federal reimbursements for services provided to cover the losses in underfunded public employee pension plans will continue, much to the determinant of taxpayers.

Author(s): Peter Roff

Publication Date: 3 April 2021

Publication Site: Noozhawk

CalPERS Rejects Reinvesting in Tobacco Again

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/calpers-rejects-reinvesting-tobacco/

Excerpt:

Saying he wanted to boost portfolio returns, California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) investment committee member Jason Perez made a second try at reversing the pension plan’s ban on tobacco stocks. But Perez’s proposal was overwhelmingly rejected Monday night.

At a meeting of the CalPERS investment committee, Perez’s new attempt—his first was in March 2019—attracted only one other vote on the 13-member panel, from Margaret Brown. The ban has been in place since 2001.

The $440 billion pension system would have earned an additional $3.6 billion in investment gains if it kept tobacco stocks in its portfolio between Jan. 1, 2001, and June 30, 2020, according to an analysis by Wilshire Associates, a CalPERS general investment consultant.

Author(s): Randy Diamond

Publication Date: 16 March 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

CalPERS Shoots Itself in the Foot: Undermines Its Position in Insolent Letter Demanding JJ Jelincic Drop His Case Against Secrecy Abuses

Mary Pat Campbell
CalPERS Shoots Itself in the Foot: Undermines Its Position in Insolent Letter Demanding JJ Jelincic Drop His Case Against Secrecy Abuses

Excerpt:

As you can see below, CalPERS issued more ultimatums: drop the suit and provide what amounts to a document retention request to the board member that provided his notes to Jelincic.

And why should Jelincic withdraw his case? The argument is the legal version of a pratfall. Jelincic told he is liable for “aiding and abetting” an alleged breach of fiduciary duty by a a board member and interfering with CalPERS’ contract with said board member.

First “aiding and abetting” exists only in a criminal context. Even if there were actually a there there, please tell me what universe a prosecutor is going to saddle up to go after a CalPERS board member over a dispute over a clearly improperly noticed board meeting….and charge Jelincic too?

Second, the only fiduciary duty the board has is to beneficiaries. The reason California has such strong transparency laws is that its default is that secrecy is bad for the public and is not allowed unless there are compelling arguments on the other side.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 25 March 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Can Fiscal Alchemy Bolster Public Pension Funds?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/finance/Can-Fiscal-Alchemy-Bolster-Public-Pension-Funds.html

Excerpt:

One way to put a quick sheen on pension funds’ balance sheets is to issue municipal bonds at a lower rate of interest than the pension fund is expected to earn. These “pension obligation bonds” (POBs) have a long and checkered history. The first one was sold tax-exempt by the city of Oakland, Calif., in 1985. It stirred up a hornet’s nest at the IRS, which quickly realized that the lower tax-exempt interest rate was subsidized by Uncle Sam in a no-brainer for the pension fund that in theory could just invest in taxable bonds to make a profit, even without risking money in stocks. Congress was prodded to prohibit the use of tax-exempt debt where there is a profit-seeking investment “nexus,” and thus was born a thick book of IRS “arbitrage” regulations. Consequently, POBs must now be taxable, with a higher interest cost.

When interest rates are low, as they are today, the underwriters and many financial consultants come out of the woodwork to pitch their POB deals. The lure is always the same: “Over 30 years, you will save money because history shows it’s almost a certainty that stocks will outperform low bond yields,” even if they are now taxable. I’ve written extensively on the foreseeable cyclical risks of selling POBs when the stock market is trading at record high levels: The underwriters and deal-peddlers will sneak away with their fees from the deal, and public officials will be left holding the bag whenever an economic recession or stock-market plunge drives the value of their pension funds’ “new” assets below the level of their outstanding POBs. The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) has long opposed POBs for this reason, among others. POBs make sense to me only when they are issued in recessionary bear markets.

Author(s): Girard Miller

Publication Date: 16 March 2021

Publication Site: Governing