LOS ANGELES — The California Public Employees' Retirement System board deemed as precedential a decision to cut the $457,000 annual requested pension of former Bell Police Chief Randy Adams by more than half.
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The board of CalPERS, the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S., also issued on Thursday two other decisions cutting the pensions of former officials of the cities of Bell and Vernon.
In the Adams case from Bell, the board had previously decided that because Adams and the city had effectively hidden his true salary from the public, his pension would be based on the $235,000 salary he received as Glendale, Calif.’s police chief before accepting the position in Bell.
They determined this based on the fact that his salary in Glendale was readily available to the public while his salary in Bell was not.
"The administrative law judge who decided the case in the first instance held that Bell and Adams had affirmatively hidden Mr. Adams' compensation from the public," according to CalPERS.
His annual salary as the police chief for the smaller city of Bell was $457,000. Glendale has a population of 200,167 people while Bell had 35,477 residents as of the 2010 census.
In a separate case involving former Bell City Councilmember George Mirabal, the board adopted an administrative law judge's decision reducing the final compensation that Bell had reported for Mirabal from $8,083 per month to $673 per month, which reduces the pension he can receive.
In a case involving the city of Vernon, the board adopted an administrative law judge's decision almost halving the requested pension that Robert Toering’s benefits are based on from a final compensation of $20,000 per month to $10,929 per month.
