SACRAMENTO: After tackling pension changes for public employees and teachers, Gov. Jerry Brown is now setting his sights on another big debt: retiree health care benefits.
California faces an estimated $72 billion unfunded liability for more than 800,000 state employees and their families to provide health coverage once workers retire from civil service and for those who have already retired. The benefit, which has been phasing out of the private sector but remains a recruitment tool for government workers, has grown increasingly burdensome to taxpayers. State costs have quadrupled since 2001.
The Democratic governor has announced that he wants to negotiate with state workers to start chipping in half of the cost to bring down that liability. Brown wants new employees to work longer in order to qualify for full retiree health benefits. California has one of the biggest retiree health liabilities, along with New York and New Jersey, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators…