The California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA) requires a public retirement system, as defined, to modify its plan or plans to comply with the act and, among other provisions, establishes new retirement formulas that may not be exceeded by a public employer offering a defined benefit pension plan for employees first hired on or after January 1, 2013. Existing law, the Joint Exercise of Powers Act, generally authorizes 2 or more public agencies, by agreement, to jointly exercise any common power, which may include hiring employees and establishing retirement systems.

Existing law authorizes a joint powers authority formed by the Cities of Brea and Fullerton, and a joint powers authority formed by the Belmont Fire Protection District, the Estero Municipal Improvement District, and the City of San Mateo, on or after January 1, 2013, to provide their employees the defined benefit plan or formula that those employees received from their respective employers prior to the exercise of a common power, to which the employee is associated, by the joint powers authority to any employee of specified cities and districts who is not a new member and subsequently is employed by the joint powers authority within 180 days of the city or agency providing for the exercise of a common power, to which the employee was associated, by the joint powers authority.

This bill would authorize the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, a joint powers authority, to provide a defined benefit plan or formula to an employee of a member agency of the joint powers authority or of another public agency, as defined, who is not a new member and who is subsequently employed by the joint powers authority within 180 days of the effective date of the retirement plan contract amendment. The bill would authorize the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, on or before April 1, 2026, to select a defined benefit plan or formula offered by one of its member agencies prior to the exercise of a common power which the member agency offered to its employees on December 31, 2012, and designate that formula for its employees, as described above. The bill would provide that it would not exempt a new employee or a new member from the requirements of PEPRA.

Existing law also authorizes a joint powers authority to offer defined benefit plans or formulas that are not PEPRA plans or formulas, provided that the plans or formulas were those the employees received prior to the creation of the authority, the employees are not new members under PEPRA, and they are employed by the authority within 180 days, as specified.

This bill would authorize a joint powers authority, after obtaining approval from a retirement system, to offer those defined benefit plans or formulas to a member agency that is a nonfounding member of the joint powers authority, for employees who are not new members under PEPRA and are employed by the joint powers authority within 180 days of the agency becoming a member agency.

This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency.

This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 7522.02 of the Government Code proposed by SB 853 to be operative only if this bill and SB 853 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.