Gov. Brown telling pension-hammered cities they’re on their own

Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent declaration that local governments are on their own in dealing with the huge costs of overly generous pensions has a surface logic to it. These cities and districts weren’t forced to approve pensions that ended up being hugely costly and bear responsibility for their decisions.

Nevertheless, it was the state government’s actions in 1999 that directly led to the pension tsunami now eating up 15 percent or more of the budget in many cities, forcing cuts in library and park hours and increasingly squeezing public safety. That year, the state Legislature and, to his subsequent regret, then-Gov. Gray Davis, bought the astounding claim of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System that the then-booming stock market would keep booming in perpetuity and approved a retroactive pension boost of 50 percent for state employees. This led many local governments to believe they too could sweeten pensions without consequence, as documented in a League of California Cities report.

Brown isn’t responsible for CalPERS’ perfidy. But the modest pension reforms he got passed in 2012 haven’t had nearly the positive effect he promised. The governor should have kept pushing the Legislature and CalPERS for pension policies that are much fairer to taxpayers. That would be far nobler than dismissing the huge pension nightmares faced by cities across the state with a shrug.