California’s largest public pensions include rare six-figure and even $400,000-plus payouts, highlighting how a few outliers fuel anger over government fairness while most retirees get far less.
Story Highlights
- A former CalPERS investment chief received about $418,000 in 2019 pension pay.
- CalPERS says most retirees get $3,500 or less per month; high-end cases are rare.
- Current rules after 2013 curb very large pensions for new hires.
- Pension amounts come from set formulas, not ad hoc decisions.
What the records show about very large pensions
The Sacramento Bee reported that Curtis Ishii, once a senior investment leader at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, received about $418,608 in 2019 pension payments after retiring in 2018. That figure dwarfed the reported statewide average of about $37,000 a year. Transparent California has also highlighted historic outliers, such as a former city manager first listed above $500,000 before later reductions, underscoring how a few cases draw outsized attention.
California’s pension systems report that most retirees receive modest checks. California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) says 59 percent of service retirees get $3,500 or less per month, and only 7.7 percent get more than $9,000 monthly. That distribution suggests six-figure pensions exist but are not common. It also warns that headlines built on a handful of very large benefits can paint a skewed picture of the whole system’s payouts.
How pensions are calculated and why outliers happen
CalPERS describes a fixed formula that drives every benefit: service credit multiplied by a benefit factor multiplied by final compensation. Planning guides explain that the benefit uses the member’s years of service, age at retirement, and highest average pay over a set 12- or 36-month period. That means a very high pension usually reflects high pay, a long career, and a formula that rewards later retirement ages. It is not an arbitrary award chosen by a board on a whim.
State rules changed after the Great Recession to reduce extremes. The 2013 Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act tied new pensions to tax-code limits and raised employee cost-sharing for those hired after January 1, 2013. Human-resources guidance says employees and employers both contribute, and rates are set through actuarial work and approved by the CalPERS Board of Administration. These guardrails aim to stop repeat cases of the largest legacy payouts while keeping promises to current retirees.
Why this debate resonates across politics
Taxpayers and retirees both see risk. Workers want the benefits they earned. Taxpayers worry about costs, debt, and fairness when a few benefits seem far above the norm. CalPERS notes that benefits are defined by statute and contracts, and are funded by member contributions, employer contributions, and investment returns, not by a single blank check. That structure matters, but it does not erase concern that past rules allowed outsized promises that today’s workers and taxpayers must support.
Public trust hinges on transparency and scale. Today’s confirmed facts show that very large pensions exist but are outliers, while most retirees get far smaller checks. The strongest next steps are data the public can check: counts of six-figure pensions by hire date, system, and formula; clear separation of base pensions from add-ons; and actuarial estimates of the real taxpayer share. Those details would help voters judge cost, fairness, and whether reforms after 2013 are working.
Sources:
calpers.ca.gov, nypost.com, hrmanual.calhr.ca.gov
