Courtesy photo

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi

Public Defender Jeff Adachi on Monday filed three versions of his much-anticipated ballot measure with the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Adachi's previous effort, Proposition B, which would have required city workers to contribute more toward their pension and benefits costs, lost by a wide margin at the polls last November. 

But the city's employee costs continue to balloon, and Adachi has made no secret of his plan to try his reform measure again.

He said he plans to sort out the costs and viability of each of the three separate proposals in the coming weeks.

"The reason why there are three is that we came up with alternate solutions based on different formulas," Adachi wrote in an email Monday night. "Version 1 is a pure pension while V2 and V3 are pension and health."

Here are Adachi's summaries of his three proposals:

Version 1 is a pure pension measure which required city employees to only contribute additional amounts to pension when the city's pension costs increase. For example, when the City's cost is below 10% of each pension dollar, the city employee only pays the minimum. For example, when the city's cost goes over say 15%, the employee contributes a percentage depending on their income level.

Version 2 is a pension/health measure that uses a different formula to achieve savings. It requires city employees earning more than $65K to pay 50% of the pension cost. It also has a health care component that requires city employees to prefund the unfunded liability, again depending on income.

Version 3 is Version 1 plus a health component which sets up  would not require contributions until 2016 and would phase the contributions in, beginning with 1% so employees could plan for it.

All three versions include a new benefit package for new employees with a higher retirement age (57 for safety; 65 for others), five year anti-spiking formula and pension caps.

The public defender said he would post the full text of the plans on his website, www.sfpensionreform.com, this week.