Score: +1
(1/3/0)
Santa Clara County Grand Jury
• 2016-2017
• Agency Response
Response to:
2017 Update from the Town of Los Altos Hills
Los Altos Hills Received Californ Feb 062017 January 31, 2017 Civil Grand Jury Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury*
Published: January 31, 2017
4 pages
⚠️ Aviso de traducción: Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
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Agency Responses 1
Government agencies' official responses to this report's findings and recommendations. Click on a response to see the structured breakdown.
▶
2017 Update from the Town of Los Altos Hills
January 31, 2017
•
4 pages
• 10 responses
•
Score: +1
(+1, 3, 0)
View Details ▾
10 responses to findings and recommendations
R1
The Cities should adopt pension plans to extend the retirement age beyond current retirement plan ages. 2011-2012 Response: The recommendation has been implemented. The Town of Los Altos Hills has created a second tier to its retirement plan which increased the retirement age for new employees from 55 to 60. We acknowledge that this is still five years earlier than most private sector employees, but is the oldest age eligible allowed under CalPERS' current plans. 2016-2017 Response: The Town's c...
Response: Implemented
Score: 0
The recommendation has been implemented. The Town of Los Altos Hills has created a second tier to its retirement plan which increased the retirement age for new employees from 55 to 60. We acknowledge that this is still five years earlier than most private sector employees, but is the oldest age eligible allowed under CalPERS' current plans. 2016-2017 Response: The Town's current pension plan includes Tier 2, with retirement age at 60 and Tier 3, with retirement age at 62. Tier 3 is the PEPRA tier established by CalPERS in accordance with State pension regulation. The State pension regulation ...
R2A
Santa Clara County and the cities of Cupertino, Los Altos, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, Mountain View, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga and Sunnyvale should work to implement second tier plans. 2011-2012 Response: Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
R2B
For Gilroy, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Palo Alto, which has not implemented second tier plan for MISC and Public Safety second tier plans should be implemented for both plans. 2011-2012 Response: Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
R2C
All Cities' new tier of plans should close the unfunded liability burden they have pushed to future generations. The new tier should include raising the retirement age, increasing employee contributions, and adopting pension plan caps that ensure pensions do not exceed salary at retirement 2011-2012 Response: The recommendation has been implemented for two of the three specific suggestions included in
Response: Implemented
Score: 0
The recommendation has been implemented for two of the three specific suggestions included in
R3
The Cities should adopt policies that do not permit Benefit enhancements unless sufficient monies are deposited, such as in an irrevocable trust, concurrent with enacting the enhancement, to prevent an increase in unfunded liability 2011-2012 Response: The recommendation has not yet been implemented, but the Town intends to adopt such a policy in fiscal year 2012-13. 2016-2017 Response: The Town did not adopt said policy in 2012-13. The City Council and Finance and Investment Committee are risk ...
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
R4A
The Cities should require all employees to pay the maximum employee contribution rate of a given plan 2011-2012 Response: The Town partially agrees with the recommendation as it applies to pensions and, as noted above, implemented it for new (Tier 2) employees last year. While the Town's current policy is to continue to pay both the employer and employee pension contribution for Tier 1 employees, Tire 2 employees do pay the CalPERS employee rate of 7%. The Town anticipates that the State of Cali...
Response: Will Implement
Score: +1
The Town partially agrees with the recommendation as it applies to pensions and, as noted above, implemented it for new (Tier 2) employees last year. While the Town's current policy is to continue to pay both the employer and employee pension contribution for Tier 1 employees, Tire 2 employees do pay the CalPERS employee rate of 7%. The Town anticipates that the
State of California may require the employees pay their share as part of the governor's pension reform. Should the governor's reform efforts fail, Town management will re-evaluate the employee pension contribution for Tier 1 employees...
R4B
The Cities should require employees to pay some portion of the Past Service Cost associated with the unfunded liability, in proportion to the Benefits being offered. 2011-2012 Response: The Town has not separately distinguished Past Service Cost from Normal costs, per se. However through the reaction of a second tier for our Pension benefit plan, the Town believes that it has followed the Grand Jury recommendation by requiring employees of the second tier to pay 7% of eligible salary toward the ...
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
The Town has not separately distinguished Past Service Cost from Normal costs, per se. However through the reaction of a second tier for our Pension benefit plan, the Town believes that it has followed the Grand Jury recommendation by requiring employees of the second tier to pay 7% of eligible salary toward the cost of the benefit. This is the maximum allowed by CalPERS. For retiree medical benefits effective October 12, 2007, we have sharply reduced the benefit for new employees to the PEMHCA minimum and required annuitants who are or will receive the previous benefit package to pay a larger...
R5
The Cities, should immediately work toward implementing policy changes and adopting measures aimed at making full OPEB ARC payments as soon as possible. 2011-2012 Response: The recommendation has been implemented. As noted above, the Town has amended its plan to limit annuitant medical benefits for employees hired after October 11, 2007 to the PEMHCA minimum. In addition, the Town has done an actuarial evaluation of its OPEB plan and for each of the last two fiscal year has contributed more than...
Response: Implemented
Score: 0
The recommendation has been implemented. As noted above, the Town has amended its plan to limit annuitant medical benefits for employees hired after October 11, 2007 to the PEMHCA minimum. In addition, the Town has done an actuarial evaluation of its OPEB plan and for each of the last two fiscal year has contributed more than the ARC in attempt to reduce the unfunded liability and stabilize future payments.
2016-2017 Response: The Town continues to contribute full OPEB ARC payments and pays out of pocket for current retiree medical benefits, even though the Town may elect to only offset the A...
R6
The City of San Jose should eliminate the SRBR program or amend the SRBR program to prevent withdrawal of pension trust money whenever the pension-funded ratio is less than 100%. 2011-2012 Response: Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
Not applicable 2016-2017 Response: Not applicable
R7
The Cities should transition from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans as the new tier plans are implemented. 2011-2012 Response: The recommendation has not yet been implemented, and we agree that most governments may need to "transition" away from defined benefit plans. But rather than a defined contribution plan, we believe that, in the near term, a more realistic and maybe even politically possible objective would be some sort of hybrid plan. The hybrid plan would continue a mu...
Response: Unknown
Score: 0
The recommendation has not yet been implemented, and we agree that most governments may need to "transition" away from defined benefit plans. But rather than a defined contribution plan, we believe that, in the near term, a more realistic and maybe even politically possible objective would be some sort of hybrid plan. The hybrid plan would continue a much more modest defined benefit plan that could provide a relatively safe and secure base retirement income, but would then supplement that plan with a defined contribution plan and/or Social Security. In addition, this new defined contribution p...
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.