{"id":393114,"date":"2026-07-10T07:25:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T07:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393114\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T07:25:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T07:25:30","slug":"ca-lawmakers-embrace-pension-increase-for-police-firefighters-calmatters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393114\/","title":{"rendered":"CA lawmakers embrace pension increase for police, firefighters- CalMatters"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Ashton<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

The Legislature wants to make putting on a California police or firefighter uniform more lucrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three bills are moving forward that would either raise pay for state firefighters<\/a> or boost retirement benefits<\/a> for public safety personnel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their supporters say the measures are meant to compensate people who risk their lives for others and who by the nature of their jobs are exposed to career-shortening hazards<\/a>. The proposals are sailing through the Legislature with bipartisan support and overwhelming majorities of lawmakers voting for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day has a cost, and it’s one that we pay with our lives,\u201d Darrell Roberts, president of the union California Professional Firefighters said at a recent hearing where he spoke in favor of a bill that would let public safety employees retire at 55<\/a>, two years earlier than currently allowed. \u201cThis job is physically and mentally demanding in the extreme and asking us to work until 57 is pushing us not just to our limit but beyond it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposals carry significant price tags and could potentially drive up annual spending by hundreds of millions of dollars. They could also swell the state\u2019s long-term liabilities by billions of dollars. That could make them a tough sell to Gov. Gavin Newsom given that the state anticipates deficits in the near future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two retirement bills in particular are rekindling memories of California\u2019s pension crisis<\/a> in the Great Recession, when major funds lost tens of billions of dollars. At the time, taxpayer advocates drew attention to sweetened benefits that former Gov. Gray Davis signed into law<\/a> just a few years before the crash, when the stock market was booming.<\/p>\n

Marcia Fritz, an accountant and longtime Californmia pension watchdog, said the current push to expand public safety retirement benefits is similar to the law Davis signed. During Davis\u2019 tenure, California\u2019s pension funds were flush from a soaring stock market fueled by tech companies, and lawmakers believed the good run would continue.<\/p>\n

Today, the two largest pension funds \u2014 CalPERS and CalSTRS \u2014 have not fully recovered<\/a> from their recession losses. But they have been beating their earnings targets<\/a>, thanks in part to a stock market again propelled by the tech sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Fritz, the lawmakers advancing the bill are \u201cdrinking the Kool Aid that the markets are never going to go down,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re the ones paying for it with reduced services.\u201d<\/p>\n

California scaled back benefits for workers hired after 2012 when former Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law<\/a> that compelled employees to work longer before earning a full pension and required them to kick in more money to fund their own pensions.<\/p>\n

CalPERS has estimated that Brown\u2019s pension reform saved government agencies $4 billion in its first 10 years and projected it would reduce their expenses by another $24 billion over the next decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To taxpayer advocates like Fritz, that\u2019s a sign tthe law is working and should continue as is. To the public safety unions, that means the government agencies have capacity to increase benefits without fully unwinding Brown\u2019s law.<\/p>\n

The bills moving forward would:<\/p>\n

Allow public safety employees to retire at age 55 rather than 57. Assembly Bill 1383<\/a> also would allow unions to negotiate more generous retirement formulas that would give public safety employees up to 3% of their income for each year in uniform. And it would boost the cap on annual pensionable earnings by almost $60,000 to $249,000 a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Create a new deferred retirement program for California Highway Patrol officers and Cal Fire firefighters. AB 1054 <\/a>is meant to give officers and firefighters an incentive to keep working later in their careers by allowing them to accumulate money that they could cash out in a single lump sum check when they retire.<\/p>\n

Increase Cal Fire firefighters\u2019 pay by recommending a new formula for their raises. AB 2129<\/a> would encourage the governor\u2019s office to bring their compensation closer to \u2014 but not necessarily equal to \u2014 the average of what 20 local fire departments pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How much do they cost?<\/p>\n

The bill that would allow police and firefighters to retire earlier carries the biggest potential cost, requiring an additional $282 million in annual contributions to the California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement system and increasing its long-term liabilities by $4.8 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its price tag would increase if cities, counties and other local government agencies agree to offer more generous pension formulas to police and firefighters, as the bill would allow. If that happens, CalPERS estimates it would cost an additional $353 million in annual contributions and further swell the fund\u2019s long-term debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those estimates do not account for the 20 county-run pension systems<\/a> that are separate from CalPERS.<\/p>\n

The potential costs are one reason California cities and counties oppose the measure. \u201cWe do definitely support strong retirement benefits, but those benefits must remain sustainable and fiscally responsible for our local agencies,\u201d Johnnie Pina, a lobbyist for the League of California Cities, said at a recent Senate hearing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s less clear what the other two measures will cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supporters of the bill that would give CHP officers and Cal Fire firefighters access to an alternate retirement investment program during their last five years of service say it is intended to be cost neutral, although similar plans offered by cities and counties have driven up expenses. The bill requires CalPERS to assess the program every five years, which union representatives say would allow lawmakers to make adjustments if they see unintended drawbacks.<\/p>\n

The measure that would nudge Newsom to raise pay for Cal Fire firefighters has an uncertain cost because it\u2019s written in a way that would allow flexibility for the governor\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It encourages the governor to bargain \u201cin good faith\u201d toward bringing Cal Fire compensation closer to what local governments pay, but does not mandate it. A 2023 state compensation survey<\/a> found that local fire departments pay firefighters between 11% and 29% more than Cal Fire.<\/p>\n

“Instead of being the lowest paid, we will inevitably be somewhere in the middle” if the bill becomes law, firefighter union lobbyist Terry McHale told lawmakers at a hearing earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Last year, Newsom rejected a similar measure that was more explicit in demanding an increase in Cal Fire pay. Newsom wrote in a veto message<\/a> that it would \u201ccreate significant cost pressures for the state and circumvent the collective bargaining process.\u201d Officials estimate it would have cost between $373 million and $609 million in its first year.<\/p>\n

Cal Fire\u2019s firefighter union essentially wants what only one other group of state workers has: Raises based on what other government agencies pay. CHP officers receive annual raises<\/a> based on what several other large California police departments pay; every other state worker union has to negotiate compensation with the governor.<\/p>\n

\""A\"Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses the media during a press conference unveiling his revised 2026-27 budget proposal at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento on May 14, 2026. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters<\/p>\n

What will Newsom do?<\/p>\n

All three measures face a major obstacle later this month in the Senate Appropriations Committee<\/a>, which has the power to sideline bills over cost concerns. If they clear that committee, the bills have a good chance of reaching Newsom\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

At the most recent hearing, lawmakers said increasing incentives to recruit and retain first responders was so important that they\u2019d cut other programs to make room for the additional spending. They commended emergency personnel who rushed to a chemical spill in Orange County in May not knowing if the danger would harm them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still get goosebumps for these firefighters and their families that had to know that they’re that they’re they were putting their lives online to save that explosion from happening, which they actually end up doing,\u201d Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican representing Huntington Beach, said at the hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t put a price tag on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The unions have also been a steady presence in the Capitol throughout Newsom\u2019s tenure. Firefighter unions have contributed $6.2 million to lawmakers and legislative campaigns since 2019 and the law enforcement organization known as PORAC has spent $4.5 million over that time, according to CalMatters Digital Democracy database.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve also been reliable allies to Newsom. California Professional Firefighters and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association were two of the largest donors in helping the governor defeat a 2021 recall campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the unions\u2019 support for Newsom and other lawmakers doesn\u2019t guarantee that he\u2019ll sign the bills. Newsom was mayor of San Francisco during the Great Recession, and he backed a successful ballot measure that required city employees to put more of their own money toward their pensions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Adam Ashton, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The Legislature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6980,7,9288,9,8,457,845,734,53553,5476],"class_list":["post-393114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-cal-fire","tag-california","tag-california-budget","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-labor","tag-law-enforcement","tag-pensions","tag-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}