Under little-noticed legislation a decade ago, the nation’s second largest public pension fund, CalSTRS, became what is now advocated by several reformers — a “hybrid” combining pensions with a 401(k)-style individual investment plan.
CalSTRS was not cited as an example earlier this year when switching public employees to hybrids was proposed by Gov. Brown, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst and the watchdog Little Hoover Commission.
That’s not surprising. The California State Teachers Retirement System has rarely, if ever, called itself a hybrid. But that changed last week when the term was used during a CalSTRS board meeting and again the next day in a news release.
“It might be a surprise to hear us refer to our system as a hybrid plan, because we haven’t discussed it that way in the past,” Peggy Plett, CalSTRS deputy chief executive, told the board. “But we really do have a hybrid plan.”
