BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 785
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Date of Hearing: April 10, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, RETIREMENT AND SOCIAL
SECURITY
Rob Bonta, Chair
AB 785 (Weber) - As Introduced: February 21, 2013
SUBJECT : Public Employees' Retirement System: Board of
Administration: direct mailing assistance.
SUMMARY : Requires the California Public Employees' Retirement
System (CalPERS), when requested by an employee organization
that provides representation and other services to retirees, to
provide assistance in performing a direct mailing to annuitants.
The organization requesting the direct mailing is responsible
for paying all costs associated with the mailing. Specifically,
this bill :
1)Allows an organization that provides employee representation
or membership services to annuitants of CalPERS to submit a
request to CalPERS for assistance in performing direct
mailings to annuitants of the system who are members of the
organization or eligible to become members of the
organization.
2)Requires CalPERS, upon receiving a request, to provide a
direct mailing to the annuitants of CalPERS who are members of
the organization or eligible to become members of the
organization, as specified.
3)Requires CalPERS to provide the data for addressing envelopes
for the direct mailing to a mail processing center under a
secure data sharing agreement under which neither the
organization nor any other entity shall have direct access to
any names or addresses.
4)Specifies that the mail processing center must be mutually
agreed upon by CalPERS and the organization making the
request.
5)Clarifies that CalPERS would not be required to notify an
annuitant whose data is released to a mail processing center
in connection with a direct mailing made pursuant to this
bill.
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6)Prohibits the direct mailings from supporting or opposing any
political party, ballot measure, or candidate in any election,
including any election within the organization, but allows the
mailings to be for any other lawful purpose.
7)Requires the requesting organization to provide CalPERS with
copies of all materials that will be included in the direct
mailing.
8)Requires the requesting organization to pay any and all
reasonable expenses of the mailing.
9)Makes a legislative finding that providing this assistance is
in the interest of administering the CalPERS System in a
manner that will assure prompt delivery of benefits and
related services to the participants and their beneficiaries.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS : As of March 2013, more than 3,000 public employers
in California contract with CalPERS to provide pension benefits
for their approximately 1,102,440 current and former employees,
and their 551,627 retirees, beneficiaries, and survivors
receiving a monthly allowance. All of these individuals trust
CalPERS with their personal information, including birthdates,
full names, addresses, beneficiary information, salary and
benefit information, and Social Security numbers. In fact,
existing law prohibits CalPERS from releasing a retiree's or
beneficiary's address, home telephone number, or other personal
information except for use by a public employer, which must also
treat the data as confidential, or to an authorized
representative of the member. Only a retiree's name, prior
employer, and benefit amount may be made available to the
public.
Currently, the State Controller's Office (SCO) maintains the
ability to place information in the monthly benefit warrants and
warrant statements mailed to CalPERS retirees, referred to as
warrant inserts. CalPERS employers and employee organizations
occasionally seek approval from CalPERS for warrant inserts
featuring employer-sponsored benefits available to retirees,
such as vision and legal service plans, and information on
various organizations representing CalPERS retirees.
On January 16, 1991, the CalPERS Board of Administration (Board)
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adopted a policy that reserved, for its own action, the final
decision regarding warrant inserts proposed by employers or
employee organizations. To be eligible for Board consideration,
requestors must meet all the following standards:
The inserts must pertain to Board-administered programs;
A draft of the inserts must be submitted at least 90
days prior to the tentative mail out date;
All costs associated with producing the inserts must be
borne by the requesting organization; and
The requesting organization must be an employer or
employee organization.
On June 16, 1999, the Board approved the request of the
Statewide Coalition of Retired Employees (SCORE) to include an
insert with September 1-dated warrants in odd-numbered years.
The insert is provided to each retiree and seeks a response from
members who might have an interest in one or more of the
organizations of the coalition. In October 2004, the Board
approved SCORE's request to move this insert to the March
warrant of each odd-numbered year. This warrant insert is the
only known existing insert of this type currently approved by
the Board.
According to the author, "Through these blind mailings, the
employee organizations will be able to inform retirees of the
organization for which they are eligible to join and the
additional benefits that they could be eligible to receive. In
addition, it allows bona fide retiree organizations to help
retirees protect and improve pension and health benefits.
Building these organizations also allows retirees to connect
with and socialize with friends and colleagues from their
working days."
According to supporter, "AB 785 simply authorizes CalPERS to
adopt a practice that is already utilized by numerous retirement
systems across the nation. AB 785 does not redirect any of the
systems assets or increase the administrative cost of the system
for this purpose, since AB 785 requires the eligible
organization to pay for any and all of the reasonable expenses
related to the direct blind mailing."
"The blind mailing system established with in AB 785 also
protects the privacy of retirees within the CalPERS system. It
does not allow for the eligible organization to receive a copy
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of CalPERS membership list directly. The bill allows only for a
blind mailing, which means that the eligible organization never
receives the list but works through a CalPERS approved mail
processing center that conducts the actual mailing."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(Sponsor)
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Karon Green / P.E., R. & S.S. / (916)
319-3957