The California Public Employees Retirement System, in a move sure to provoke the anger of retirees, plans to launch an online database posting details of nearly 500,000 pensioners in an effort to improve transparency.
The searchable online database will include retiree names, monthly gross pension payment, final compensation and some employment history. The database is expected to go live as early as next week.
In a notice to retiree organizations, the country's largest public pension fund cited legal requirements for public disclosure as the driving force behind the database. In that letter, CalPERS acknowledged the move would incur rancor from retirees.
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"CalPERS receives and fills many requests for public information, including comprehensive inquiries from news organizations that literally seek information about every retiree in the system," it said in the letter.
CalPERS defended the action by saying the information would be safer kept on its own website than that of news organizations or other external organizations.
A past target for interest groups, some websites already link to various retiree databases, including www.fixpensionsfirst.com, which made headlines with its "100K pension club."
A few clicks on this site make it easy for anyone with an Internet connection to read the names of the more than 12,000 CalPERS retirees taking home more than $100,000 in annual pensions.
The $260-billion retirement system administers benefits for 1.6 million state and local government workers. It plans to post data of nearly 500,000 retirees, but not beneficiaries or survivors who receive payments.
A recent study from California Common Sense, a non-partisan watchdog group, pegs California's major retirement systems unfunded pension liability at $222.2 billion, a 5 percent increase in the last four months.
This figure has almost doubled from $110 billion in 2007-2008. CalPERS makes up a big chunk of this public pension system, which also includes the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the University of California Retirement System and other smaller entities.
This news comes on the heels of Gov. Jerry Brown signing the state's third "on-time" budget just weeks ago.
In approving the state's $96.3 billion spending plan, the governor said the state's finances were in "very solid shape" following years of deficits. However, even while touting California's new era for fiscal responsibility, Brown acknowledged that the state's pension obligations represented sizable long-term liabilities.
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