The desert city faces roughly $11.5 million owed in unfunded CALPERS liability.
California City Finance Director Rudy Hernandez presented the three suggestions to the city council alongside Cameron Weist and Eric Scriven, two private financial advisors.
Weist lamented the way CALPERS is able to go back to cities in order to make up the losses on a bad investment, rather than the fund’s investment brokers making it up to the cities. But instead, “CALPERS gets paid first, no matter what—even in bankruptcy,” he stated.
The three plans laid out vary in aggressiveness in the payback, and likely hinge on what the council can make available to put toward the liabilities.
California City’s CALPERS funding ratio is 71.30% and total pension contributions totaled 8.47% of revenue, which place the city on the wrong side of the state average for both figures, though the situation could be much direr.
California City Council ultimately chose to forego any immediate action and will take actions at future meetings.
The full details on the plans can be found here.