Meet the CalPERS 2025 board candidates for the upcoming election
.JPG "The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, headquarters buildings in downtown Sacramento are photographed in 2021.")
Friday marks the first day of voting for two seats on the California Public Employees’ Retirement System Board of Administration.
All active and retired CalPERS members are eligible to vote for two of the six candidates vying for member-at-large positions on the 13-person board, which oversees an investment portfolio of over half a trillion dollars and health benefits for over 1.5 million retirees, public employees and their families.
The incumbents, David Miller and Jose Luis Pacheco, are each facing two challengers in their respective races for to retain a seat on the Board of Administration. Elected candidates will begin their four-year terms in January 2026.
The CalPERS board is responsible for establishing how much employers, like the state of California, contribute to the fund and for determining the allocation of the fund’s investments. Members sit on various committees, including the pension and health benefits and investment committees, to review programs and provide recommendations to the board.
The board’s composition includes: six elected officials who are selected by various groups of CalPERS members; three appointed members chosen by the governor and Legislative leaders; and four “ex officio” seats, which are held by state officials such as the state treasurer and state controller.
All CalPERS members can vote by ballot, phone or online. Paper ballots and virtual votes must be received by CalPERS by Sept. 29 at 11:59 p.m.
CalPERS will host a candidate forum, which will be broadcast online, on Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 1:00 p.m. at the agency’s headquarters in Sacramento.
Position A Candidates
David Miller
Incumbent David Miller, 65, has served on the CalPERS board of administration since 2018. Miller emphasized in an interview his dedication to protecting member benefits and CalPERS’ long-term sustainability.
“I’ve been here for public employees my entire career in California and I want to continue on that path,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty distinct contrast as to some of the other members that I’ve served on the board with and certainly with my opponent who as far as I know I had never heard of him in regard to CalPERS issues.”
Part of protecting the pension fund involves looking at the long-term impact of investment choices, outside of geopolitical factors, he said. Even though he’s received calls and letters from people who want CalPERS to divest from various companies for social or political reasons, Miller said that the board needs to prioritize a fully-funded pension over the “politics of the moment.”
“We have to really look at it from that big picture, from the long-term picture, and what’s practical for us as a very large fund with a tremendous number of investments that include tens of thousands of individual holdings that are in various funds,” Miller said.
A scientist with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Miller said that the board role is one of a acting as a representative for members and less about managing the pension financially.
Miller, who lives in Rio Linda, also talked about his efforts to create a more transparent board at CalPERS, even at the cost of efficiency, he said. According to Miller, the CalPERS board aimed in recent years to improve materials for the board and stakeholders in preparation for decision making. While the presentation materials may take longer to form, the public can see and formulate questions in a more accessible way, he said.
“I think it’s a philosophy that I’ve had long before I was at CalPERS,” he said about transparency between the board and members. “Our members deserve to have confidence that their retirement is sustainable and safe and that we’re doing it to ensure we’re loyal to them. We’re doing our due diligence.”
Miller has received $45,300 in contributions this year for the board race, based on the most recent reports from the California Secretary of State.
Dominick Bei
A fire captain for the City of Santa Monica Fire Department and former union president, Dominick Bei, 41, wants to use his experience to encourage an incentive system to attract and keep talent at CalPERS.
The challenger explained that turnover for CalPERS’ chief investment officers cycles quickly, with five chiefs in eight years — and said his goal is to change that.
“If we want CalPERS to deliver above average returns and get closer to 100% funded status, we need to have one of the best, most elite teams,” he said in an interview. “Their incentives to win have to be aligned with our incentives as taxpayers and retirees.”
He suggested that a hybrid shareholder strategy could be an incentive, directly linking the investment team’s compensation to CalPERS’ performance.
Bei, who is also the founder of Proof of Workforce, a nonprofit that aims to educate people on bitcoin, said that while he has experience with cryptocurrency, his primary focus is to ensure incentives in place will motivate for the best investments.
“I don’t need to bring that to the fund,” he said. “But it is very interesting.”
As a firefighter for 16 years, Bei said he’s had personal experience with the rising costs of healthcare and the injuries he’s experienced in his career. Bei’s experience negotiating contracts on the union board can transfer to negotiating health care benefits for retirees, he explained.
“We have to be aggressively negotiating for our retirees and be willing to kind of move our business elsewhere,” Bei said.
He added that while he hopes to implement his ideas in the role, he ultimately wants to encourage engagement in the CalPERS election process.
“I want to make a positive change and I will either be successful at that or not,” he said. “There’s nothing standing in the way between achieving that other than just doing my best and bringing everyone on board to have input and boost engagement.”
Bei has received $50,026 in contributions this year for the board race, based on the most recent reports from the California Secretary of State.
Steve Mermell
Former City Manager of Pasadena Steve Mermell, 59, said in an interview he spent most of his 33 years in public service dealing with budget and pension issues for the city.
“I’ve always believed in public service,” he said. “I’m still interested in giving back and I want to do something to support my public sector colleagues by looking out for them and looking out for their pensions.”
Mermell said one of his primary concerns about CalPERS is a lack of transparency with the board. More specifically, he said there should be audits monitoring spending like third-party management fees. As of the 2024-25 fiscal year, CalPERS spent about $1.7 billion on investment external management fees.
He added that in-person meetings should be held across the state. Currently, CalPERS board meetings take place in its headquarters in Sacramento. Mermell lives in Porter Ranch.
“California is a big place and so you need to geographically go where the people are,” Mermell said. “You need to help educate the members because making decisions about your health care and other things related to your retirement can be very confusing and daunting.”
Mermell also voiced concerns about CalPERS’ investment strategies. While acknowledging the organization’s overall positive performance, Mermell noted that CalPERS is increasingly pursuing high-risk investments, a strategy he believes will ultimately lead to long-term consequences for the pension fund.
“CalPERS has been taking on risk and when the market turns, and it will turn, a lot of that risk is going to come back to haunt the system,” he said.
While the CalPERS election for board members is a statewide election, Mermell raised concern about low voter participation.
“I’m hoping that more people will vote because people need to understand that these elections have consequences,” Mermell said. “So I would hope that whether people vote for me or not, that they do vote.”
Mermell has received $18,448 in contributions this year for the board race, based on the most recent reports from the California Secretary of State.
Position B Candidates
Jose Luis Pacheco
Running for a second term on the board, Jose Luis Pacheco, 58, said voters should look to CalPERS’ relatively strong returns last year as evidence of his successful stewardship of their retirement benefits. He noted that the pension fund increased its funded status by four points, meaning CalPERS now has 79% of the money to cover its financial obligations.
“My biggest accomplishment is making sure that the pension has been stabilized,” Pacheco, a Campbell resident, said in an interview. “I’ve been a leader in that to make sure that that happens.”
To protect those gains moving forward, the retirement system needed to continue going through the “asset liability management process,” Pacheco said. That process, which occurs every four years, aims to ensure future investment returns are in line with anticipated cost of payments to members. Pacheco said he looked forward to more discussion about this process.
Pacheco has worked as an IT professional and administrator with the San Jose Evergreen Community College District since 2015.
Pacheco said while he has served on the board, CalPERS has successfully provided public employees and their families with quality healthcare and taken steps to reduce associated costs. Pacheco pointed to the recent deal between CalPERS and CVS Caremark to manage members’ pharmacy benefits, which aims to stabilize premium costs.
“We’re the largest purchaser of health benefits in the state of California,” he said. “Because of that, we have an incredible, enormous purchasing power to help navigate those costs to become more manageable.”
The incumbent has earned a number of endorsements, including from both California State Retirees and the Retired Public Employees Association, two groups that represent former state workers.
But Pacheco’s fellow elected board members have coalesced around his opponent, Troy Johnson.
When asked for comment about these endorsements, Pacheco said the allotted time for his interview with The Bee was over and hung up. Pacheco’s campaign declined to make him available for further comment.
Pacheco has received $152,940 in contributions this year for the board race, based on the most recent reports from the California Secretary of State.
Troy Johnson
In the Southern California school district where he works, Troy Johnson, 51, has seen firsthand how high healthcare costs have impacted his colleagues. Some of them have opted for a healthcare plan with providers based in Mexico where treatment is cheaper. But to access it, you have to cross the international border.
The rising cost of healthcare is top of mind for Johnson, a senior administrative assistant at the Sweetwater Union High School District.
Johnson is hoping to unseat incumbent Pacheco and use his spot on the board to wrangle down drug prices and premiums.
“CalPERS just has incredible leverage and strength at the negotiating table, and they just need to utilize that more in order to drive some of those costs down,” Johnson said in an interview.
While campaigning, Johnson said he spoke with retirees who shared how rising premiums have eaten into their retirement security. As a board member, Johnson said he would put pressure on CalPERS staff to negotiate better deals for retired public employees.
Johnson touted endorsements from six current CalPERS board members and the California School Employees Association, which endorsed Pacheco in the last board election. Johnson said those endorsements demonstrate that he gained the trust and respect of his would-be fellow board members.
As a member of CSEA’s board, Johnson said he already has experience as fiduciary overseeing that organization’s retiree and healthcare funds. He said he’s aware of the weight that comes with serving on the CalPERS boards and the need to ask difficult questions of staff to ensure the pension system can continue moving towards a fully funded status.
“As a fiduciary, your number one responsibility is to make sure that the funding status keeps growing,” Johnson said. “Every investment has to be made through that lens of long-term security.”
He recommended investments in U.S.-based assets and recession-resistant sectors as ways to protect the fund with potentially difficult economic conditions ahead.
Johnson has received $67,125 in contributions this year for the board race, based on the most recent reports from the California Secretary of State.
Sam Hasan Akkad
While Sam Hasan Akkad, 65, isn’t calling for CalPERS to divest from companies that have questionable labor practices or environmental policies, but the board candidate thinks the pension fund should take a closer look at the potential financial risks of investing in industries that have been the subject of divestment demands.
“If I were to be elected, I would ask for a resolution to direct staff to prepare some kind of report which analyzes the cost, risk and benefits of handling, selling or buying shares in companies such as Tesla, Meta, Amazon or Google,” Akkad said in an interview.
Akkad said he also had concerns about CalPERS’ investments in companies that have moved away from diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Akkad is making a long-shot attempt at a board seat after retiring from a three-decade career with the California Department of Transportation in January. The El Dorado Hills resident served as a section president of the Professional Engineers in California Government and a state contract manager for Caltrans, where he oversaw the efficient use of taxpayer dollars, Akkad said.
On the cost of healthcare, the former state worker acknowledged that some inflationary forces are out of CalPERS control. Akkad said CalPERS could be renegotiating contracts and studying new ways to try to keep premiums from increasing as much as they have in recent years.
Akkad admitted that he didn’t have the financial support and endorsements of his opponents. He has reported no campaign contributions, according to the California Secretary of State.
Instead, Akkad said he is devoted to protecting the retirement benefits of his fellow public employees, current and future.
“My daughter is a state employee and my other daughter is applying to become a state employee, so to me, it’s a personal commitment too as it is to state employees at large,” Akkad said.
This story was originally published August 29, 2025 at 10:41 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of time David Miller has been on the board.
