Columnist accuses CalPERS of creative accounting

Daniel Weintraub, of the Sacramento Bee says the apparent improvement in CalPERS' financial health is rather Enron-esque in nature.

After years of bad news about public pensions, California taxpayers caught a break last week when the public employees' retirement fund announced that the state's obligation to the pension system would decline by nearly $200 million in the coming year.
But don't start celebrating yet.

Unfortunately, that reduction didn't come from gains in the pension fund's investments, or from more efficient management of the program.

Instead, the discount was the result of accounting changes that might eventually come back to haunt us all.

More.