Two California Papers Join Fight for Release of Pension Data

By: Joe Strupp Two California newspapers and the state's newspaper publishers' association are fighting an attempt to block the release of public employee pension data by a former county deputy sheriff.

The Bay Area News Group reports that its Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek, the Los Angeles Times and the California Newspaper Publishers Association are fighting a legal move by a retired Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy to keep the data from being made public.

"The newspapers seek to preserve gains the industry made in a successful case brought by the Contra Costa Times in 2007 in which the California Supreme Court ordered public agencies to disclose as public information the names and salaries of employees," the story said.

The three parties earlier this year filed a Public Records Act request with the Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association for the names of retirees whose gross monthly pension benefits exceed $8,333 in any month in 2009, retirement dates, records of pay and formulas used to calculate retirees' pensions.

The legal battle began in May when retired Contra Costa sheriff's Deputy Donna Irwin filed a petition for a restraining order in Contra Costa Superior Court to block a request for the data by a taxpayer group, The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. It had requested the data as part of a statewide effort to seek the names and pension amounts of former county employees who collect $100,000 or more per year, the story said.

The newspapers' lawyer, Karl Olson, argued that the Supreme Court's opinion in the 2007 case makes a clear case that "counterbalancing any cognizable interest that public employees may have in avoiding disclosure of their salaries is the strong public interest in knowing how the government spends its money."

Some of the state's largest public employee pension systems ? including the California Public Employees Retirement System, California State Teachers Retirement System ? have already supplied or agreed to provide the pension data, the story said.