Steven Greenhut on California Embracing Pension-Spiking Bonanza

A
decision by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to
engage this week in a pension-spiking
extravaganza is infuriatingly brazen writes Steven
Greenhut. It undermines the governor’s pension-reform law. This
situation — finding creative ways to increase pay as a means to gin
up the salary upon which one’s pension is calculated — is the
classic definition of “pension spiking.” Gov. Jerry Brown had
railed against the practice when he signed the Public Employees’
Pension Reform Act. We’ll soon get to see if he is serious about
defending his own pension law. Sadly, the odds that Brown will
quash the CalPERS pension-spiking bonanza probably are similar to
the odds that newspapers start giving out deadline pay.

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