California court: public employees can't 'spike' pensions

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2011, file photo, Gov. Jerry Brown gestures to a chart showing some of his proposals to rollback public employee pension benefits during a news conference at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. California's decades-old protections for public employees' retirement benefits are not enough to bar state lawmakers from enacting reforms designed to prevent abuses such as "pension spiking," the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday, July 30, 2020. The state's high court last year unanimously upheld the 2012 pension reform law championed by Brown that stripped away public workers' option to pay for more years of service to increase their pension benefits once they retire. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)