{"id":851659,"date":"2026-09-18T03:20:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851659\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T03:20:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:20:51","slug":"calpers-ceo-gets-a-million-dollar-bonus-a-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851659\/","title":{"rendered":"CalPERS CEO gets a million-dollar bonus, a record"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\t\t\t\t\""Marcie\"
\n\t\t\t\tMarcie Frost, CEO of CalPERS, at the regional office in Sacramento on June 26, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters<\/p>\n

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

CalPERS Chief Executive Marcie Frost snared her first seven-figure bonus, a milestone that follows a period of leadership stability and high investment returns at the nation\u2019s largest state pension fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System board awarded a $1.15 million performance incentive to Frost, who has led CalPERS since 2016. Last year, her bonus was $766,000.<\/p>\n

The money is in addition to her base salary of $601,000. The board gave her a raise, too, bringing her salary to $641,000.<\/p>\n

Frost joined the pension fund at a low point, when its assets were worth 65% of what it owed to members following its losses in the Great Recession. Since then, CalPERS began requiring\u00a0 employers to pay more<\/a> toward their workers\u2019 retirement plans, and it recently hit a three-year run of beating its investment earnings target.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fund last year notched a 14.8% investment return<\/a>, more than doubling its goal. Its portfolio, valued on June 30 at $637.1 billion, now is worth 85% of what it owes over time to members.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarcie Frost is a CEO on top of her game and delivering excellent results for CalPERS members,\u201d CalPERS board President Theresa Taylor said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Two of the board\u2019s 13 members voted against Frost\u2019s bonus, Mulissa Willette and a representative for State Controller Malia Cohen.<\/p>\n

Board members met Tuesday in a closed session to discuss Frost\u2019s performance and her incentive. Cohen\u2019s delegate, Deborah Gallegos, read a statement before the final vote Wednesday that said the controller believed the compensation package did not reflect the full spectrum of views on Frost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe views of the board members with dissenting views were dismissed,\u201d Gallegos said on behalf of Cohen. \u201cI cannot stand behind a motion which does not equitably take into consideration all relevant factors, particularly in light of the current structural deficit in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several retirees also spoke against Frost\u2019s bonus. They were affiliated with the group Retired Public Employees Association, which is led by former CalPERS board member Margaret Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something fundamentally wrong when public service compensation begins looking like Wall Street compensation,\u201d Brown told the board.<\/p>\n

Frost is not the highest paid official at California\u2019s largest pension plans, CalPERS and the California State Teachers\u2019 Retirement System. The funds\u2019 chief investments officers, Stephen Gilmore at CalPERS and Scott Chan at CalSTRS, earn more in pay and incentives<\/a> than the chief executives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But by the quirks of the pension board meeting calendars, Frost is the first of the four to have her bonus disclosed each year. CalSTRS does not disclose its incentive pay until November.<\/p>\n

Gilmore earned a total of $2.2 million in total compensation last year while Chan earned $1.4 million, according to records at the State Controller\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

In some ways the rockiest period in Frost\u2019s tenure was a five-year window when CalPERS had three chief investment officers<\/a>. That position sets CalPERS\u2019 overall investment strategy, aiming for an annual 6.8% return. Gilmore joined CalPERS<\/a> in 2024 and ended the turnover at the top of the fund.<\/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 Marcie Frost, CEO of CalPERS, at the regional office in Sacramento on June 26,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,65376,5722,147,530],"class_list":["post-851659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-california-budget","tag-pensions","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}