California Business Roundtable (CBRT) President Rob Lapsley calls out the Retired Public Employees Association’s push for a $350,000 forensic audit of CalPERS. This activist group – representing less than 1% of CalPERS’ members – is raising money to hire “forensic pension investigator” and former SEC lawyer Ted Siedle, who has a controversial track record in multiple states, and undermine CalPERS’ highly successful investment strategies.
Don’t Believe the Politically Motivated CalPERS “Transparency” Push
By Rob Lapsley
The California Brief
September 2, 2025
As President of the California Business Roundtable (CBRT), I represent major companies across all sectors of our economy that provides leadership on major issues to drive innovation and grow jobs.
As part of our agenda, we recognize the critically important investment role that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) provides to our state’s economy.
CalPERS is no ordinary pension fund. Its billions of dollars in investments shape capital markets, fund infrastructure, and hold stakes in countless California companies. Its financial decisions directly impact our state’s budget and labor market—which in turn help determine whether businesses can scale and grow jobs or must move to find investment in another state.
As a result, we are watching closely how a small group of activists within the Retired Public Employees Association of California (RPEA) are crowdfunding for a $350,000 forensic audit of CalPERS, claiming concerns over transparency and private equity investments. The RPEA consists of 22,000 members which is less than 1% of CalPERS’ total pension members,
The RPEA argues their request is about transparency, (which CBRT strongly supports on all state issues). However, in this case, the RPEA has an ideological opposition to the use of private equity investments in CalPERS, even though private equity investments are a proven performer that are vital to CalPERS economic health and pension returns for its 2.3 million members.
The solvency of the funding ratio of the CalPERS pension fund is an important economic indicator that we track closely. Under the outstanding leadership of CEO Marcie Frost, CalPERS has improved from a 72% funding ratio to 79% in 2025, despite global market volatility. Private equity’s strong long-term performance played a major role in this result as compared with other asset classes.
Private equity has been CalPERS’ top-performing asset class over the past 20 years, delivering a 12% annualized return, outpacing stocks, bonds, and real estate. Recent data underscores this success. In fiscal year 2023-24, CalPERS’ private equity portfolio achieved an 11.3% return, surpassing the State Street Private Equity Index and ranking first among the nation’s 30 largest pension funds for one- and three-year returns. Since its 2022 strategic overhaul, CalPERS has boosted private equity from $50 billion to $92 billion, diversifying into venture and growth equity while reducing reliance on large-cap buyouts. This shift has delivered a 1.25x total value to paid-in ratio, outshining pre-2023 strategies. These results reflect smart, strategic management investment decisions with a forward-thinking approach that’s paying off for retirees and the state.
RPEA’s effort also conveniently ignores CalPERS’ already robust oversight. In fact, just last year the Global Pension Transparency Benchmark ranked CalPERS third out of the top 75 largest global pension funds on public disclosures. A 13-member board, including elected retiree representatives, governs the fund, supported by rigorous independent auditors who ensure full regulatory compliance and public transparency.
But RPEA chooses to ignore these facts while they single-mindedly pursue their ideology. For example, RPEA has already failed in their attempts to pass legislation requiring a state audit by the inspector general because lawmakers recognize CalPERS’ current regulatory requirements are sufficient.
The next step for the RPEA is to hire “forensic pension investigator” and former SEC lawyer Ted Siedle, who has a controversial track record in multiple states.
In 2014, North Carolina’s Treasurer Janet Cowell criticized his pension analysis for playing “fast and loose with the facts.” Additionally, Rhode Island’s then-Treasurer Gina Raimondo called out Siedle’s “bait and switch” after the state’s AFSCME chapter hired and paid him to investigate Rhode Island’s pension funds.
Siedle’s work was also profiled earlier this year by an op-ed in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, which stated, “the former SEC lawyer has made a career out of profiting from the whistleblower-industrial complex,” and discredited his reports on the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System. In 2024, Siedle alleged that Minnesota’s Teachers Retirement Association underperformed by $39 billion over 30 years, yet even the report he cited ranked Minnesota among the top-performing pension funds.
While our state’s economy continues to deal with a period of significant economic uncertainty, we do not need to be eroding confidence in a fund that’s delivered a 67% value increase from 2016 to 2024, representing $556.2 billion for our state pension members. California can’t afford to let a vocal minority’s anti-private equity ideology jeopardize this progress. RPEA needs to follow the message from the Legislature, which has clearly stated that the current transparency requirements at CalPERS are more than sufficient, and end this politically motivated effort.
Read the full article here.