California's public pension fund said yesterday that the bankrupt city of San Bernardino has a lot more cash than it had previously disclosed and more than enough money to pay off its debts to the retirement system, Reuters reported yesterday. San Bernardino declared bankruptcy on Aug. 1 last year and immediately suspended its $1.2 million biweekly payments to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). When it declared bankruptcy the city said that it was overwhelmed by pension debt and could barely make payroll, and did not have the cash to keep current on its payments to CalPERS, America's biggest public pension system with assets of $256 billion. But a CalPERS attorney asserted in a court hearing yesterday that the city had $26.8 million in the bank as of January of this year—far more than the $4.2 million that the city said that it had on hand. Last month, the city council voted to resume paying its employer contributions to CalPERS from this July—but will continue to renege on payments to other creditors, including the holders and insurers of $50 million in pension bonds.
