Pension Amounts Received by Individuals Must Be Disclosed

In Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS) v. Superior Court of Sacramento County (The Sacramento Bee, et al.)(Case No. C065730, May 11, 2011), the Third Court of Appeal held that public agencies must disclose the names of pensioners and the amounts each pensioner receives (“individual pension information”).

The issue of whether or not individual pension information is subject to public disclosure arose after The Sacramento Bee and The First Amendment Coalition (collectively, “The Bee”) requested that SCERS disclose the names of retirees who receive over $100,000 annually, as wellas the gross amount received by each retiree, the department from which he or she retired, the last position held, and the date of retirement. The Bee stated that it needed this information to identify certain abuses of the pension system, such as cashing out vacation time or working overtime in the last year of employment (which would result in so-called “pension spiking”), members receiving both pension and salary in one year (“double-dipping”), and members receiving pension, salary, and unemployment benefits in one year (“triple-dipping”).

In response to The Bee’s requests, SCERS produced a list of “retiree amounts” exceeding $8,333 per month, along with information regarding employing departments, but it refused to disclose the names, dates of retirement, or last employed position of those retirees. SCERS claimed it was permitted to withhold this information under section 31532 of the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937, which provides that “individual records of members shall be confidential.” The Court found that “individual records” did not include all information about an individual, only information provided by an individual. It therefore held that individual pension information did not qualify as “individual records” and could not be withheld from disclosure under section 31532.

SCERS also argued that individual pension information could be withheld under the Public Records Act exception (commonly known as the “catchall exception”) that allows a public agency to withhold information if the privacy interests served by nondisclosure clearly outweigh the public interest served by disclosure. (Govt. Code § 6255, subd. (a).) The Court rejected this argument as well. It found that a public pension is deferred public compensation to which an individual does not have a privacy right. Therefore, information about how much a particular individual receives in pension benefits cannot be withheld under the “catchall exception” of the Public Records Act and must be disclosed.  Go here to read the Court's decision on this case.

The Meyers Nave Advisor

Public agencies may not withhold from public disclosure the name, date of retirement, department retired from, last position held, years of service, base allowance, cost of living adjustment, total health allowance and monthly pension benefit of each retiree.

Public agencies should, however, withhold home or e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and social security numbers of retirees, as such information is considered confidential information to which individuals have a privacy right.