EDITORIAL: Litigation to open up the pension books

Jan. 22—Watchdog group Transparent California is fighting to force the California Public Employees' Retirement System to release records showing which retirees are collecting disability pensions. This important lawsuit has broad implications for transparency and accountability throughout government.

Several appellate rulings in 2011 established that the public has the right to know the salaries and pensions paid to public employees, but when Transparent California made a public records request to CalPERS for the disclosure of data about disability pensions, the pension agency refused.

Transparent California wasn't requesting medical records, just the type of pension that each individual was collecting. The group filed a lawsuit to get the records.

The particular data point sought is routinely released by the retirement systems in Los Angeles and Orange County, and many others. It's an important check on potential fraud. A decade ago, the Orange County Register examined similar data and published an investigation exposing pension fraud by some firefighters and police officers.

According to aggregate data for the 2019 fiscal year released by CalPERS, 69,253 retirees are collecting disability pensions, more than one in 10 of the 615,402 people receiving pensions. This includes both ordinary disability retirements (30,086 miscellaneous retirees and 1,491 public safety retirees) and industrial disability retirements related to on-the-job injuries (1,005 miscellaneous retirees and 36,671 public safety retirees).

CalPERS is seeking to keep the information out of public view. CalPERS prevailed in Sacramento County Superior Court when Judge Laurie M. Earl ruled that an employee's disability pension status is confidential. Lawyers for Transparent California say that decision is in conflict with earlier appellate court rulings.

Judge Earl's ruling opens the door for more public records to be concealed from the public if the information sought is any way related to information in personnel files. That's a problem, because investigations into misconduct or fraud could be stymied by an overbroad interpretation of confidentiality. We applaud Transparent California for waging this fight and hope the Court of Appeal rules in favor of the public's right to know.

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