Pension Contracts Frequently Asked Questions

Public agencies that have not amended their CalPERS pension contract since January 1, 2013, are encouraged to amend their contracts to include PEPRA provisions. This applies to all participating public agencies whose contracts do not currently reflect these provisions.

Amending your contract to include PEPRA provisions:

• Promotes clarity and transparency regarding applicable benefit structures
• Ensures alignment between your contract language and current statutory requirements
• Reduces the risk of misinterpretation of member eligibility and benefits

While public agencies are not currently required to proactively amend their contracts, they are strongly encouraged to do so.

We are now required to contact agencies whose contracts do not reflect PEPRA provisions to work with them to complete these updates.

Proactively amending your contract helps ensure alignment with current law and can prevent delays in future contract actions.

No. Adding PEPRA provisions to your contract will not incur additional costs or impact your agency's UAL.

Yes. If your agency is currently amending your contract:

• PEPRA provisions will be automatically included as part of that amendment.
• Additional permissible benefit changes may be included, subject to statutory limitations.

No. Adding PEPRA provisions to your contract does not change benefits for classic members. Classic benefits remain governed by pre-PEPRA law.

A contract amendment is a prospective revision to the benefits elected by a contracting agency (refer to Optional Benefits Listing (PDF) for the full list).

Estimated timelines:

• Three to four months for amendments not requiring actuarial valuation
• Up to six months if an actuarial valuation is required

Timing depends on factors such as: 

• Type of amendment
• Agency governing board meeting schedules

Your agency may initiate the process or ask questions through any of the following:

• Contact the CalPERS Employer Contact Center at 888 CalPERS (or 888-225-7377)
• Contact your assigned CalPERS Contract Analyst (if applicable)
• Email the Pension Contracts general inbox at pensioncontracts@calpers.ca.gov
• Submit a request through myCalPERS

The Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL) allows for two methods of employees sharing additional cost (cost share) of the employer contribution:

• “Informal” cost share under Government (Gov.) Code section 20516(f), allows employers that lawfully agree with represented employees to have those employees pay an additional percentage above the normal employee contribution toward the employer rate separate of CalPERS involvement. There is no requirement for this type of cost share to be included in an agency’s contract; as a result, the additional employee contributions are not reportable to us and are not credited to the employee’s account(s).
• “Formal” cost share under Gov. Code section 20516(b), allows employers that lawfully agree to have its represented and unrepresented employees pay a specific percentage above the normal employee contribution toward the employer rate. Formal cost share requires an amendment to the agency’s pension contract to include Gov. Code section 20516 with the identified cost share percentage and applicable group. Amending the pension contract to include cost share allows the employer to report the additional member contributions to us and is credited to the member’s account.

Contact our team to address questions related specifically to your agency.

With the enactment of the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA), classic benefits packages were ‘frozen’ as of December 31, 2012. PEPRA precludes any changes made to classic benefits packages.

1. For public agency employers, the agency must first amend its contract to include, if it doesn't already, Government Code section 20903 within its contract.
2. School employers are permitted to enact a Golden Handshake via section 20904.
3. The initiation of the process can be accomplished via myCalPERS, or by contacting the Pension Contracts Team at pensioncontracts@calpers.ca.gov.

An inactive agency in the CalPERS system is an agency who has contracted with us to provide pension benefits to its employees, but currently doesn’t have any active employees in all their pension plans with CalPERS.

Yes, a pension contracting agency is required to make the Normal Cost if an active member is hired and Unfunded Accrued Liability (UAL) contributions as determined by the CalPERS actuary on an annual basis. The CalPERS Actuarial Office will continue to issue the annual valuation report.

For an inactive agency, the unfunded liability shall be amortized over a closed amortization period of no more than 15 years at the discretion of the plan actuary. This may result in a higher UAL contribution for an inactive agency.

If an agency contracted with another agency to perform all its operations and doesn’t have any active employees, then it's considered an inactive agency in the CalPERS system. However, we may request documents to review the employer-employee relationship of affected workers.

No, we will work with the successor agency to merge the contracts. Pursuant to California Government Code section 20508, when a contracting agency is succeeded by another CalPERS agency, the contract of the former agency shall be merged into the contract of the successor agency. The successor agency will be liable for all the pension obligations of the former agency.

Pursuant to California Government Code section 20508, when a contracting agency is succeeded by an agency who doesn’t have a contract with CalPERS, the successor agency may contract with us. The contract of the former agency shall be merged into the contract of the successor agency once the successor agency becomes a contracting agency with us. The successor agency will be liable for all the pension obligations of the former agency.

If the successor agency doesn’t want to contract with us, then the former contracted agency will be considered an inactive agency. However, the successor agency will be liable for all the pension obligations of the former contracted agency. We will continue to issue the annual valuation report to the successor agency. The successor agency is responsible to make payments to us on the annual basis to fund the pension obligations of the former contracted agency.

The successor agency also can work with us to terminate the contract of the former contracted agency. The successor agency is liable to pay for the termination costs in full at the time of termination.

The contracting agency can remain in the CalPERS system as an inactive agency, if there is another entity who is willing to take on the responsibility to make the annual payment to fund the contracting agency’s pension obligations.

If there is no successor agency for the non-profit contracting agency, we will work with the contracting agency to close out and terminate its contract with us. The contracting agency is responsible to pay the termination costs in full at termination.