Pension

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

Joe Paterno accrued a state pension worth $13.4 million during his coaching career at Penn State, a family spokesman said. Paterno's widow, Sue, will receive an initial payment of $10.1 million by the end of May, with the rest to be paid out over the next two years. The calculations were made through the standard formula for anyone in the State Employees' Retirement System, according to his family. Paterno never began drawing his pension.

Ford Motor Co. will offer about 90,000 U.S. salaried retirees and former employees vested in its pension plan a lump-sum payment to buy them out of monthly benefits. Ford, which also reported lower first-quarter earnings Friday because of losses in Europe and Asia, said the plan was an innovative strategy to reduce its pension obligations. The automaker won't put up any operating cash but rather will make the one-time payments from existing pension plan assets. "We believe this is the first time a program of this type and magnitude has been done in an ongoing pension plan," said Bob Shanks, Ford's chief financial officer.

SACRAMENTO — The California State Teachers' Retirement System will cast its 5.3 million shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. against the reelection of the company's board after allegations of bribery in the retailer's Mexican operations. Citing "a breakdown of corporate governance and lack of oversight," Jack Ehnes, chief executive of CalSTRS, made the announcement Tuesday "CalSTRS believes former and current Wal-Mart executives and board members breached their fiduciary responsibilities," Ehnes said.

Counties in California that could be required to hand over the names of public retirees along with the amount of pensions they draw: •Los Angeles •Orange •San Diego •Alameda •San Bernardino •Sacramento •Contra Costa •San Mateo •Fresno •Ventura •Kern •San Joaquin •Santa Barbara •Marin •Sonoma •Stanislaus •Tulare •Merced ...

Yet another local government agency in California is under fire for the seemingly outsized compensation paid to one of its employees. This time the spotlight is on the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System and its recently retired chief executive, Samuel Downing. The controversy isn't Downing's $150,000 annual pension as much as the $3.9 million in supplemental retirement benefits awarded by the healthcare system's board. Downing's employers defended the supplemental payments, saying that consultants found them to be in line with what "comparable organizations" pay. But as The Times' Sam Allen reported Wednesday, Downing's package was far more generous than those promised to administrators of several larger public hospitals.

David Crane is an unserious man with a serious purpose -- attacking public employees and public employee pensions, as he did in his April 6 Times Op-Ed article, "The $500-billion pension time bomb." Crane repeatedly asserts the grossly misleading claim that public pension costs have risen 2,000% since 1999. To make this assertion he cherry picks 1999 as a starting point, when the state paid the lowest contribution to its pension fund, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)

Re "Despite pension, Parks warns of cost," May 21 I read the article twice with growing disbelief. No wonder L.A. is broke ... the numbers are staggering. No one doubts that Bernard C. Parks and others have earned pensions for their service, but the amount is unbelievable, particularly because he is taking it while earning a second salary. Shouldn't there be a provision that defers the start of a pension if one is still gainfully employed by the same government agency? Is it possible that this man is working on reform?

After losing billions of dollars in recession-wracked investments, public pension funds in California are seeking to pare back the historically generous retirement benefits they provide to government workers, but not without push-back from unions. About 70 local governments, stretching from Redding to Long Beach, are coming up with new, stingier formulas for calculating pension benefits for future hires. This month, proponents turned in more than 75,000 voter signatures to put a measure on the November ballot to require San Francisco city employees to pay more toward their retirement funds.

Then-City Administrator Robert Rizzo designed a supplemental pension plan for himself and 40 other Bell city officials that will provide them far larger taxpayer-financed retirement packages than previously estimated, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Times. The supplemental plan was paid for entirely by Bell tax funds. It allowed Rizzo, who was charged last week with public corruption, and other city employees and all City Council members to circumvent retirement limits set by California.

The top administrator in Huntington Park stepped down this week after city officials learned his employment appeared to violate state retirement rules. Interim City Manager Raul Romero was notified by CalPERS last Thursday that he had exceeded the number of hours retired employees may work while still collecting pension benefits. He resigned Monday. Romero said he had retired from the City of Commerce in 2002 and continued working through his consulting company, R&R Municipal Solutions, over the last decade.

Re "Treating a spending addiction," Opinion, April 30 I suggest that City Councilman Bernard C. Parks - who receives both a salary for his current job and, as a retired Los Angeles police chief, a pension - put his money where his mouth is and give up his double-dipping. Beyond that, Parks should really perform "public service" by proposing a ban on double-dipping. If an individual feels the need to spend his career in public service, it should be sufficient to retire on one pension.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System is suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executives and board members, accusing them of using bribery and corruption to gain approval from Mexican government officials to build new stores. Late Thursday, the board of CalSTRS, the country's second-largest public pension fund, filed the so-called derivative lawsuit seeking changes in the corporate governance of the world's biggest retailer. "CalSTRS is seeking to remedy the damages sustained by Wal-Mart as a result of alleged gross misconduct by Wal-Mart's executive officers and directors," CalSTRS Chief Executive Jack Ehnes said.

Ford Motor Co. will offer about 90,000 U.S. salaried retirees and former employees vested in its pension plan a lump-sum payment to buy them out of monthly benefits. Ford, which also reported lower first-quarter earnings Friday because of losses in Europe and Asia, said the plan was an innovative strategy to reduce its pension obligations. The automaker won't put up any operating cash but rather will make the one-time payments from existing pension plan assets. "We believe this is the first time a program of this type and magnitude has been done in an ongoing pension plan," said Bob Shanks, Ford's chief financial officer.

The Senate passed a bill aimed at salvaging the United States Postal Service, which is hemorrhaging millions of dollars a day as fewer people send letters and conduct business by mail. The legislation would allow the postal service to reduce its pension and retiree benefit costs and pave the way for service changes. The bill passed by a vote of 62 to 37 Wednesday, after two days of voting on amendments. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the bill's sponsors, said it would put the postal service back on course to financial health.

SACRAMENTO — Federal securities regulators sued a former chief executive and a former director of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, accusing them of scheming to defraud an investment firm of $20 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that former CEO Federico Buenrostro Jr., 62, and former director Alfred J.R. Villalobos, 68, fabricated documents requested by Apollo Global Management, a New York private equity firm. Apollo had hired Villalobos, a close friend of Buenrostro, as a so-called placement agent to secure billions of dollars of investments from the country's largest public pension fund.

Re "Kalish, City Reach Settlement," March 19: We live in a world that when something goes wrong -- in this case the city, county and state budget problems -- someone invariably says that someone failed to "connect the dots." Well, here are some dots that need to be connected. You state that Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief David J. Kalish will receive his full pension of nearly $10,000 a month. On March 17, you ran "Sales Tax Hike for Police Gains Support." The median income in the city of Los Angeles is $36,687, as of the last census.

Re "Flawed Social Security Plans," editorial, May 17: Any plan to revise and improve Social Security payouts can only use a very small percentage of the input taxes, and such a plan needs to be developed over time, in the open, by people who have more than their political futures in mind. Al Gore wants an instant fix, not for the good of the country but to give him a target to shoot at for his political gain. George W. Bush is being careful. He has already disclosed that the ultimate plan should not change anything except the way approximately two percentage points of the input may be considered for investment.

They called it the zombie walk. After midnight, when the coffee and Red Bull had worn off, Sari Gennis and her co-workers would take a brisk stroll to make it through their graveyard shift. For four months straight, often seven days a week, a team of visual effects artists worked 12-hour shifts to complete the 3-D conversion of movie blockbuster "Titanic. " Gennis said the long hours aggravated a severe arthritis condition. She'd already had both knees replaced, and needed a third surgery, but couldn't afford to take time off for the operation.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the major studios have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract that averts a potential showdown. The so-called basic agreement covers about 35,000 members who belong to IATSE's Hollywood locals and includes camera operators, set decorators, grips and others who work behind the scenes on movies and TV shows. Under the proposed deal reached late last night, IATSE members would receive a 2% annual wage increase over three years — in line with raises negotiated by other entertainment unions.