Sacramento Pension Ordered to Release Details to the Public

(July 15, 2010) — A judge has ordered the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS) to release pension information to the public.

In a ruling this week, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner ordered the release of the names of retirees and how much they receive, highlighting the increasing scrutiny that pensions face — from officials, advocacy groups and the media — as local governments and the state confront growing deficits.

In a ruling against the county system, Judge Allen Sumner wrote that the “the public interest in disclosing this information outweighs any interest in keeping it secret.”

Other funds, such as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), have already released that information. At the state level, pensions above $100,000 a year for CalPERS and the California teachers system, CalSTRS, were posted online by an advocacy group.

The lawsuit this week was brought against the SCERS by The Sacramento Bee and First Amendment Coalition, which are demanding details of pension spending.

Chief executive of the county’s retirement system, Richard Stensrud, said he will recommend the system appeal Tuesday’s decision, asserting that the fund disagrees with the ruling and believes it’s an erroneous interpretation of the law.

“We think it’s clearly correct in light of the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling that public employee salaries are public information,” said Attorney Karl Olson, who represented The Sacramento Bee. “Pensions are a huge issue for our cash-strapped state and local governments, and the records at issue here will shed important light on that issue,” he told the publication.