L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pushes pension reform

With two of the state's largest cities voting to roll back pension benefits for workers, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Thursday for Los Angeles officials to speed up his proposal for reducing pensions for new city employees.

In a letter to City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, Villaraigosa asked that his proposal to increase the retirement age, require larger contributions from workers and a cap on benefits move ahead as quickly as possible.

Voters in San Diego and San Jose on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved separate proposals designed to rein in pension costs.

In San Diego, voters said they wanted to freeze all salaries for six years and require new employees to be switched over to a 401(k) type pension system.

In San Jose, voters called on current employees to increase their pension contributions or agree to accept reduced benefits.

Villaraigosa said L.A. needs to directly address pensions, one of the biggest expenses the city faces in its $7.2 billion budget.

"A critical component of the budget I proposed for next year is a pension reform plan for new civilian employees," Villaraigosa said, adding he wanted a report to the Executive Employee Relations Committee as soon as possible to try to get the reforms in place by July 1.

Voters already have approved reforms for the police and fire pension systems. Changes to the civilian system, however, only require action by the City Council.

The

mayor's proposal includes raising the retirement age from 55 to 67 and increasing employee contributions to the pension system. He's also looking at controls on health care costs.

The mayor said he is concerned that future pension costs could be 30percent of every dollar the city spends on employee salaries.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said Villaraigosa should strike now with so much public interest in the issue.

"This is the biggest appetite for pension reform that I've seen," Coupal said. "I do think if he's going to do it, it should be a substantive proposal and not just window dressing."

Also, Coupal said the city should expect the unions to file legal actions to challenge any changes in court.

"The city cannot let that stop any reforms," Coupal said.

Cheryl Parisi of the Coalition of L.A. City Unions said an agreement was reached last year with the city to reduce pension costs by 13 percent.

"That's $63 million in this year's budget," Parisi said. "This is too complicated an issue to rush through without more detailed study and making sure workers end up with a pension that keeps them out of poverty."

Parisi said city workers need to rely primarily on their city pension after retirement, since most are not able to draw on Social Security.

rick.orlov@dailynews.com

213-978-0390

twitter.com/rickorlov

navy jet crash virginia beach crash