Lockyer, Chang must nail down pension data

California taxpayers are seeing yet again how our public officials duck their responsibility to run the state in a fiscally prudent way. Instead of aggressively pursuing changes to California's underfunded public pension systems, they'd rather quibble over the politics of the issue.

The latest maneuver is for union-friendly Democrats to attack a Stanford study on the three major public pension systems. It's the old diversion tactic.

The study concluded that the California Public Employees' Retirement System, California State Teachers' Retirement System and the University of California retirement system are between $143 billion and $500 billion short of the funds they will need to pay promised retirement obligations over the next 30 years.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer calls the study propaganda, and says the lead author is a captive of the Wall Street crowd that demonizes public employees and wants to eviscerate public pensions. The treasurer is backed by Controller John Chiang. They are so outraged that they resigned from the Stanford research body's advisory panel after release of its controversial study.

It's too bad they are not similarly outraged over the public pension debacle that California taxpayers have been saddled with.

Even if we ignore the Stanford study, there is no doubt that the pension systems are underfunded, and must be reformed. Gov. Jerry Brown understands this and has proposed a comprehensive public pension reform plan.

The chronic funding crisis that state and local governments face cannot be resolved without significantly reducing pension obligations.

Government retirement benefits are too rich, particularly for public safety workers who typically retire in their 50s with 90 percent of pay or more. Unions that persist in denying that reality seem to be inviting a ballot initiative that could be far more onerous to their members than what Brown has proposed.

Public employees must also understand that their pension systems must be adequately funded. A nice retirement on paper could dissolve if the state does not get its pension funding in line. The stakes are enormous if the state can't figure this out.

Lockyer and Chiang have raised the rhetoric but not shed much light on the issue. If they don't trust the Stanford numbers, they should sponsor their own study — using credible independent actuaries and financial prognosticators.

Lockyer says CalPERS is trustworthy to do this kind of analysis. He couldn't be more wrong. CalPERS has a long way to go to regain credibility after claiming it could cover the costs imposed by the 1999 law that jacked up benefits for public employees.

Lockyer and Chiang have a fiduciary responsibility to nail down the numbers.