Gerry Serrano was a homicide detective sergeant for the City of Santa Ana. In April 2016, Serrano was elected as president of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association.
While serving as president, Serrano was on leave of absence from law enforcement duties. The MOU provided that the City would pay the Association president “full salary including any salary additives” while the Association president was on leave, and that the Association would reimburse the City 100% of the cost of the Association president. The MOU also noted that whether the Association’s president’s compensation was “PERSable” was up to CalPERS. The City continued to pay Serrano his sergeant’s salary and related pay additives that he earned while a homicide detective sergeant: detective premium; bilingual premium; educational incentive; holiday pay; uniform allowance; and a confidential premium – overtime pay.
In October 2020, CalPERS notified the City that the confidential overtime premium was not pensionable for Serrano because he was on leave of absence. The City appealed this determination, which Serrano joined. CalPERS subsequently reviewed the entirety of Serrano’s pay and determined, with the exception of the educational incentive, the pay additives were also not pensionable.
Serrano filed a petition for a writ of mandate. Serrano alleged that the MMBA required the City to give him a reasonable leave of absence to serve as a union representative “without loss of compensation or other benefits.” (Government Code section 3558.8.) Serrano dropped his claims to all add on compensation except confidential premium pay and holiday pay. The superior court denied Serrano’s petition. Serrano appealed.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed the superior court. CalPERS law distinguishes between “compensation” and “compensation earnable”. Compensation earnable includes only the payrate and special compensation. If an item of special compensation is not listed in the CalPERS Regulation 571, then it is not included in the calculation of CalPERS retirement benefits. The Court noted that the MMBA does not define “compensation” or “benefits” and determined these terms would mean the same as defined in CalPERS law. The Court held that the MMBA at Government Code section 3558.8 did not require all of the compensation Serrano earned as a police sergeant to be part of his pension benefit while he served as Association president.
The Court concluded that the confidential premium was not pensionable under CalPERS law because it was a payment for overtime, and not for work during normal work hours. The court found that Serrano’s holiday pay was not pensionable because he was not required to work on holidays, as required by Regulation 571.
Serrano v. Public Employees’ Retirement System, 109 Cal.App.5th 96 (2025)