In this episode of On the Job with PORAC, PORAC President Brian Marvel and Vice President Ben Therriault sit down with PORAC Legislative Advocate Randy Perry of Perry Strategies to unpack the findings of PORAC’s new report, “The PEPRA Problem: How California’s Pension Reform Created a Public Safety Crisis,” and the path forward with AB 1383 (McKinnor).

More than a decade after the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act took effect, its unintended consequences are impossible to ignore. PEPRA created a two-tiered retirement system in which two officers doing the same job, in the same department, facing the same risks, retire under vastly different formulas — with new members facing a higher retirement age, capped pensionable compensation, and a requirement to pay half the normal cost of their own benefits.

The conversation walks through how California got here, what 14 years of evidence actually show, and what AB 1383 would change: aligning the pensionable compensation caps with federal limits, adjusting public safety retirement formulas to age 55 on a prospective basis, and restoring the ability of local agencies and their associations to negotiate a formula that fits their community.

Randy, Brian and Ben also take on the criticism head-on — the false comparison to SB 400, the claim that AB 1383 is a state mandate, and the argument that cities and counties cannot afford it — and walk through CalPERS’ own cost study.

With the bill through the Assembly on a 70-2 vote and the Senate ahead, this episode makes the case that PEPRA modernization is not a partisan fight — it is a public safety fight.

Connect and Learn More

Perry Strategies https://perrystrat.com

Brian Marvel

Twitter: https://x.com/BrianMarvel

Instagram: / brianmarvel

Facebook: / brian.r.marvel

LinkedIn: / brianmarvel

Ben Therriault

Twitter: https://x.com/BenTherriault

LinkedIn: / btherriault