Higher pension contributions ahead for a few thousand California state workers

Starting next month, state workers who are in a lower-contribution, lower-benefit California state retirement plans will have to pay more money into their pension accounts.

The increase affects nearly 6,400 “Tier 2” CalPERS members who have been paying 3 percent of their pay toward their pension benefits. The new rate as of July 1 will be 3.75 percent – still less than half the rate paid by most state workers.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson opened the second tier pension program in the early 1990s to lower benefits for new state employees, who paid nothing toward their retirement. A 1999 law allowed employees to switch to the traditional pension plan. Most did.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013 pension law required the relatively few second-tier members remaining to begin contributing toward their retirement accounts.