Keeping you up-to-date on our work to increase your salary, improve and protect your benefits, and aggressively represent your professional interests in every forum where they are at stake.
CASE BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ UPDATE
Newsom Proposes 2023-24 Budget. Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday morning unveiled a 2023-24 State Budget proposal that anticipates $297 billion in spending and $35.6 billion in reserves. If the Governor’s forecast holds, General Fund revenues will be $29.5 billion lower than this year’s budget anticipated, creating an estimated funding gap of $22.5 billion next year that lawmakers must confront.
“What’s consistent is the inconsistency of our revenue,” Newsom said during his budget presentation, because the State relies heavily on personal income taxes that fluctuate with the economy and markets.
Newsom’s budget plan includes $487.5 million for employee compensation increases (including those in CASE’s latest Memorandum of Understanding), health care costs for active state employees, and retiree health care prefunding contributions for active employees. The figure does not include the costs of any compensation increases the Newsom Administration negotiates between now and the July 1 start of the fiscal year. Fourteen state bargaining units entered 2023 with agreements that expire this summer.
The proposal allocates $10.4 billion in contributions to the state pension system, CalPERS. Of that, $8.5 billion would pay the State’s statutorily required annual contribution, and the remaining $1.9 billion would pay down CalPERS’ unfunded liabilities.
During his presentation, Newsom took a moment to underscore his budget’s commitment to gaining efficiencies and savings through state employee telework, reducing and reconfiguring office space, and cutting statewide travel costs. The Governor’s proposal sets the baseline for the next six months of negotiations with legislators to reach a balanced budget agreement by June 15.
Weathering the storms. We hope you are safe and dry in this season of stormy California weather. CalHR reminded employee organizations that, given the current weather-related emergency order, departments have been directed to maximize telework to the extent feasible this week.
Additionally: “Any employee who is teleworking and experiences power outages or an evacuation order will be provided Administrative Time Off (ATO) until power is restored. If power goes out in a state office, employees who can telework should do so and those who cannot telework should be provided ATO until power is restored. For employees who cannot telework, a reasonable amount of time should pass with no electricity prior to sending them home and it should be established that power will not be restored for an extended period of time.”
CALPERS CORNER
Compensation limits updated. CalPERS has issued its annual letter updating 2023 compensation limits for classic and PEPRA members. The limit for classic members (those hired before January 1, 2013) is $330,000, up from $305,000 in 2022. For PEPRA members (those who first entered state service after January 1, 2013), the limit for social security participants is $146,042 and $175,250 for non-social security participants (up from $134,974 and $161,969, respectively, in 2022). The contribution limits do not limit the salary employees earn, rather they limit the amount of compensation that can be considered under CalPERS’ defined benefit plan. Click here to read the full 2023 CalPERS letter.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
News of Interest to Unit 2 Legal Professionals:
- California faces budget deficit of $22.5B, Gov. Newsom says – ABC News 10
- California to get share of $5 billion opioid settlement against CVS – San Francisco Examiner
- Tesla fails to push racial discrimination lawsuit into arbitration – The Register
HOUSEKEEPING
New Year, New Email Address? We’ve recently discovered a delivery problem for members with AT&T, PacBell, or SBC Global personal email addresses and have switched CASE Files delivery over to your work email. Want to provide us an updated personal email address? Just reply with your preferred address and we’ll make sure you receive your weekly issue of CASE Files.
REMINDERS
Didn’t Use Your Holiday ITO? If you did not use your Holiday Informal Time Off (ITO), it can be carried over. Holiday ITO may not be cashed out upon retirement, but it does follow an employee from department to department. “If administratively feasible,” the ITO should be used prior to June 30, 2022. For more information, visit the CalHR Manual or contact CASE.