California Officials, Union Leaders Reach Tentative Deal To Reduce State’s Retirement Health Care Costs

California officials and union leaders have reached a tentative three-year deal that would incrementally increase state engineers' contributions toward their retirement health care benefits from .5% of their salary in 2017 to 2% by 2019. In addition, the state would pay 80% of the average health care premium for new employees during retirement, compared with 100% for current workers. The deal -- which is the first labor agreement to address rising retiree health care costs since Brown made it a goal this year -- is subject to approval by the Legislature and the full union.

• "Deal Requires State Workers To Pay Ahead for Retiree Health Care" (Cadelago/Ortiz, "Capitol Alert," Sacramento Bee, 9/1).
• "State Government Union Reaches Deal on Retiree Health Care" (Megerian, "PolitiCal," Los Angeles Times, 9/1).