The 2025-26 Budget: Concession Bargaining

May 19, 2025 - Most state employees earn a pension. The pension that an employee receives in retirement depends on the pension formula they earned during their career. The specific pension formula that an employee earns depends on their job and when they were hired.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5047

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 6 (Corrections)

Sep 7, 2023 - (CalHR informs us that the state briefly contributed a small specified dollar amount to excluded employees ’ Savings Plus accounts in the early 2000s.) In 2017, we issued a report evaluating the Savings Plus program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4800

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 8 (Firefighters)

Aug 19, 2025 - Employees in different bargaining units who have similar jobs (for example, public safety classifications like peace officers and firefighters) earn compensation packages with similar components. For example, while the specific structure of the benefit varies, public safety employees generally earn pension benefits that are designed to offer a higher annuity to retirees at an earlier age.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5066

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 9 (Professional Engineers)

Jun 27, 2025 - Under state law, vacation or annual leave is considered a form of wages that is vested when earned. As such, employers cannot adopt a “use it or lose it ” policy for earned employee vacation and annual leave whereby unused vacation or annual leave above a certain level is forfeited at the end of the year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5061

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 12 (Craft and Maintenance)

Jun 27, 2025 - However, the benefit earned by the employee is based on their full (not reduced) salary. Accordingly, during furloughs, the state systematically underfunds its pensions —contributing to larger unfunded liabilities.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5060

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 5 (Highway Patrol)

Aug 23, 2024 - State-employed peace officers earn their benefit under one of two plans: Peace Officers and Firefighters (POFF) or Highway Patrol. While all other peace officers employed by the state earn the POFF benefit, CHP officers earn the Highway Patrol pension benefit.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4920

The 2023-24 Budget: Total Compensation Studies

May 24, 2023 - For example, the retirement benefits earned by state employees varies significantly depending on an employee ’s date of hire. A compensation study should compare wages but also should attempt to quantify the value of most of the ancillary benefits earned by employees in an effort to compare the value of total compensation earned by employees.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4773

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 10 (Professional Scientists) and 18 (Psychiatric Technician)

Sep 9, 2025 - The study found that the state’s total compensation earned by the two smaller occupations, chemists and epidemiologists, is above market levels by 15 percent and 23 percent, respectively. …But Largest Occupation Compensated Below Market.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5073

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 16 (Physicians, Dentists, and Podiatrists)

Jul 14, 2025 - However, the benefit earned by the employee is based on their full (not reduced) salary. Accordingly, during furloughs, the state systematically underfunds its pensions —contributing to larger unfunded liabilities.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5064

Refocusing the Workers’ Compensation Subsequent Injury Program

Jul 10, 2025 - (Discounted value is a measure of the value today of costs that will occur in the future, adjusted for the fact that a dollar now is worth more than a dollar years from now.) Total SIBTF Liabilities Now Exceed RAND Estimates and Set to Rise Over the Coming Years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5062