I figure I might as well try to sex this up as much as the Weather Channel is trying to sex up a snowfall in February. (Nemo? Really? I hope you get rid of this marketing ploy next winter. Or as soon as possible.)
San Bernadino is bankrupt. They are telling Calpers to get in line with all the other creditors. Calpers doesn't like this (they are used to being at the head of the line, after all, and getting their 100%. Vallejo didn't mess with Calpers when it had its own bankruptcy issue. Thing is, San Bernadino is in a bigger world of hurt than Vallejo was.)
Calpers has been trying to make themselves a bit more priveleged in proceedings, and they've not been too successful:
Negotiations between the bankrupt California city of San Bernardino and the state's public pension fund over the city's unprecedented suspension of pension payments have failed to produce an agreement ahead of a crucial court hearing, officials say.
Senior officials at the California Public Employees Retirement System, the biggest U.S. public pension fund and San Bernardino's biggest creditor, have met with city budget officials and held telephone conversations with the city's mayor over the past several weeks, a Calpers spokesman said.
San Bernardino still has not provided crucial financial information, or proposed a plan for resuming its twice-monthly, $1.2 million payments to the fund, the Calpers spokesman said.
The judge overseeing San Bernardino's request for bankruptcy protection told the city in December that it must provide more financial information to its creditors. Calpers says its efforts to help the city produce the information have produced nothing, setting the stage for a contentious court hearing on Feb. 12.
So we have that to look forward to next week.
At the Dec 21 hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury ruled against an attempt by Calpers to bypass the federal bankruptcy court and collect San Bernardino's pension arrears in state court. But the pension fund's attorneys reserved their right to go to state court anyway, potentially setting up a showdown over whether federal bankruptcy law trumps state law when it comes to government employee pensions.
