Court upholds Calif. pension credit buying law
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
A state appeals court has upheld a 2013 California law that eliminated a pension benefit for hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees in an effort to reduce the pension system’s mounting deficits.
The lawmakers’ action in eliminating the right of public employees to buy additional retirement credits was “wholly reasonable” and did not violate any binding promises made to the employees, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said Friday.
A lawyer for a firefighters union that challenged the law said it would probably seek review by the state Supreme Court, which has already agreed to consider another case cutting back on public pensions.