State computer systems busted their budgets and launched late. Caltrans fired an employee for falsifying test data on the integrity of freeway structures – two years after it learned of the infractions. State labor unions inked contracts – years after their previous deals expired.

Those and other examples of government timeliness inspired the State Worker to make the following 100 percent guaranteed accurate predictions – for the year that is about to end:

• Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown will usher in a new era of state labor peace after unions' epic fights with his GOP predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. No surprise. Labor spent big bucks and put boots on the ground to help Brown win election to the Governor's Office he left nearly 30 years ago.

• Government itself will raise warnings about the cost of government pensions. In February, the Little Hoover Commission will suggest the unthinkable (and likely illegal): Future benefits for current employees must be cut.

That same month, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office will ask: "Can the substantial disparity between public and private sector retirement benefits be sustained much longer?" Its answer: "We think that it probably cannot."

• Brown will give the unions heartburn during May budget talks by offering to put public pension reform on the ballot if Republicans will support a tax measure. The tax-averse GOP won't go for it.

The governor will resurrect the pension plan later, hoping to pair it with a companion tax measure on the November 2012 ballot. This time, majority Democrats will give the idea a lukewarm reception.

• Polls will show voters have warmed up to curtailing public pensions. A union coalition, Californians for Retirement Security, will launch a campaign to argue public pensions are modest, that changing them attacks the middle class and that a Wall Street greed-fueled meltdown – not overly generous retirements – widened the gap between promised payouts and the ability to pay them.

The group also will argue that retirement fund investments always rebound, so pensions are secure in the long run.

• A pension reform group, the aptly named California Pension Reform, will file two measures in November aimed at curbing state and local governments' pension costs.

The LAO will surface again in the pension debate when it says both measures are so wide-reaching that it's difficult to predict their fiscal impact.

The pension group will plan to start collecting signatures in January 2012 after it decides which one would have the most voter support. But as 2011 closes, the group will still be searching for deep-pocketed donors with the $2 million or so to launch a signature drive.

And this column stands ready to predict what will happen in 2012 – but not until the end of next year.

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Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/logs.

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