College district begins to fix erroneous pension reporting

MARTINEZ >> The Contra Costa Community College District and CalPERS are working to correct a situation in which perhaps 100 district retirees may have received pension overpayments between 2001 and 2015, because unused vacation time was allowed to be converted into sick leave during that period.

In the meantime, the college district has contacted CalPERS, the pension fund for some 1.8 million public employees and retirees, to determine what actions, if any, should come next, a college district spokesman said Monday.

There are still many unanswered questions, spokesman Tim Leong said, including exactly how many current employees and retirees are involved, how much money is involved overall and what the district will have to do to make amends to CalPERS and, if necessary, to the retired district employees.

Converting unused vacation time into sick leave serves to bump up workers’ years of service, thus increasing pension amounts. This kind of conversion has never been allowed by CalPERS, agency spokeswoman Amy Morgan said Monday in an email.

“We’re still trying to understand the magnitude of this situation,” Leong said. District officials are trying to be as transparent about it as possible, he added, given so many outstanding questions.

Added Morgan on Monday, “CalPERS was just notified of this error today, so this issue is under review.”

The district will also have a similar issue to resolve with its current CalPERS-member employees who have converted unused vacation time into sick leave, but who have not yet received any pension payments. Employee unions will be involved with those discussions, Leong said. It is believed about 150 current employees are affected by such vacation time conversions, but those numbers aren’t known with certainty.

The college district has asked its attorney to select an independent investigator to determine the extent of the reporting errors, what corrections are needed and how they should be carried out. Discussions will likely take place over the next few months about how retirees, current employees, CalPERS and the district itself can come out of this situation in a fair way, Leong said.

Approximately 500 current college district employees are CalPERS members, Leong said.

This situation was the subject of a special closed session college district board of directors meeting Monday night.

Leong said questions about the situation were raised in 2015, when some district employees reported that CalPERS was taking exception to converting unused vacation time into sick leave. The vacation-time conversions ended that year, Leong said. Morgan said the college district did indeed ask about these conversions; “However, CalPERS was not notified that this was their ongoing business practice,” she said.

Neither Leong nor college district board president Tim Farley could say why the situation lingered for two years or so before it came to light. “Once we became aware of this on (Dec. 14), we directed staff to get to the bottom of it,” Farley said.

Leong said district Chancellor Fred Wood was recently briefed on this issue, “and realized it was a problem that needed to be fixed.”

Representatives of Public Employees Union Local 1, one group that represents district workers, did not return a call Monday seeking comment.