There is no excuse now. The 3rd District Court of Appeal has denied the Sacramento County employee retirement board’s petition for a rehearing of the court’s decision last month, ordering the board to make public the names and pension amounts it pays to individual retirees.
The Sacramento Bee and the First Amendment Coalition sued last year for the information and won, first at the trial court level and in the appellate court last month.
Now the appellate court has affirmed its ruling for a second time.
It’s time for the county retirement board to stop stalling and frittering away money that Sacramento County’s retirement fund can ill afford to lose.
That money comes not just from county employees and retirees, but taxpayers, too. Taxpayers have a right to know what they are paying for.
Sacramento County, like local governments across the state, has faced brutal budget challenges for several years. Supervisors have been forced to cut jobs and strip support from the county’s most vulnerable residents.
