CalPERS Board Member Contests Attorney General’s Conflicts Position
Friday, April 24, 2015

You know about J.J. Jelincic, a long-term CalPERS employee who was elected for a four-year term to the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees Retirement System (aka CalPERS). Following Mr. Jelincic’s election, CalPERS’ Board voted to release him from his duties as a CalPERS employee so that he could work full-time as a board member.  However, he continues to receive a salary based on his erstwhile employee position at CalPERS.  As an employee, Mr. Jelincic reported directly or through others to CalPERS’ Chief Investment Officer.  Given this unique position as a once and presumably future CalPERS employee, Mr. Jelincic did not vote last September on the appointment of Theodore “Ted” Eliopoulos as CalPERS’ Chief Investment Officer since that would have put him in the position of possibly voting for his own boss.

Thus, I was surprised to see Sacramento Bee report Jon Ortiz report that Mr. Jelincic is now engaged in a wortwechsel with the California Attorney General Kamala Harris over whether Mr. Jelencic may participate as a Board member in performance evaluations of CalPERS’ Executive Officer or any member of the Investment Officer staff, including the Chief Investment Officer.

CalPERS And Carbon Emissions

CalPERS jubilated last week over the passage of a shareholder proposal requiring greater climate risk disclosure by BP.  In an earlier press release, CalPERS trumpeted that it had spoken “in person” in support of the proposal at BP’s annual meeting in London.  If CalPERS dispatched a state employee to speak at the meeting, a few questions might be raised:

  • Why was it necessary to fly a state employee to London to make a statement – especially when BP itself supported the proposal and its passage was a foregone conclusion?

  • I don’t know how long it took to make the statement, but usually shareholders are only given a few minutes.  What was the cost per minute of the statement after adding in costs of airfare, lodging and meals?

  • How much carbon was emitted in flying to London?

Ironically, the CalPERS’ Board meeting agenda for April included approval of trips by Board member Priya Mathur in May to Paris, France to attend (I’m not kidding) a climate change conference, in June to Cambridge, England and in September to London, England.  The agenda doesn’t disclose the carbon costs of these three trips.

 

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