California leaders swept a $2 billion budget error under the rug for months, according to reports. The errors surround the state’s retirement system, called CalPERS.
Gabe Petek, head of the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, confirmed the mistakes in an email to KCRA 3. “Given the size and complexity of California’s budget, it is not uncommon that we come across errors stemming from calculation mistakes or formula errors etc,” he wrote. “Indeed, part of the role of our office is to serve as a check on the administration’s budget calculations. So, in the case of this CalPERS example, you are correct, we did identify a double-counting error and given that this error is on the larger side, we notified the Legislature of it for their situational awareness.”
“In the broader context of the state budget with a lot of moving numbers, and the coming updates to the revenue forecasts, we expect the issue will be corrected in the May Revision,” Petek added.
Petek’s office sent the information to lawmakers in a memo in February. It described two errors from state officials, one involving double-counting CalPERS contribution rates, and one surrounding incorrect contribution rates upon assessing how much money California would need to contribute to CalPERS in years to come.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration denied any error. “This isn’t a calculation error – it’s revision to better estimate how these payments are made,” H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Finance, stated. “We told legislative leaders and the LAO back in February that we would update how we estimate these payments once this issue was identified. We’ve already made that adjustment, and it will be reflected in the revised budget next month.”
