The Brief

The spotlight

There are few experiences more soul-sucking than sitting in traffic. According to NPR, the average American lost nearly an hour a week to traffic congestion in 2022. Drivers lose an additional 17 hours per year hunting for parking, USA Today reports — and in the same survey, 34 percent of U.S. drivers said they had given up on a trip because of parking problems.

By contrast: Picture living in a bustling neighborhood where all your friends, basic needs, and even your job are reachable by a quick walk or bike or bus ride. (Something many people experience, possibly for the first and last time, on college campuses.) In such a city, parking areas may have been reclaimed as urban greenways, chance encounters with neighbors might be more common, and small local businesses would proliferate and thrive.

This vision is sometimes referred to as “the 15-minute city,” a concept pioneered by Franco-Colombian scientist and mathematician Carlos Moreno. It means basically what it sounds like: Instead of expecting residents to get in their cars and drive long distances to work, run errands, and take part in social activities, cities should instead be designed to provide those kinds of opportunities in close proximity to where people live, reducing overdependence on cars and increasing local social cohesion.

Paris, Moreno’s home, was the first city to put this concept into practice — part of a larger strategy to reduce air pollution and the presence of cars in the city’s iconic downtown areas. Since 2011, the French capital has reportedly reduced car traffic by 45 percent and associated nitrogen oxide pollution by 40 percent.

“We have been able to observe the concrete effects of proximity, density, social mix, and ubiquity on both residents’ quality of life and the vitality of neighborhoods,” Moreno writes in a new book, The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet, which published yesterday. In the book, his first to be published in English, Moreno chronicles the history of how cities came to be fragmented through zoning policies and highway construction, the origins of his 15-minute city concept, and how the idea is becoming a reality all over the world.

Before and after pictures from Moreno’s book show the transformation of Piazza Dergano in Milan. In 2018, the city reconfigured the space for residents to walk, gather, and play, instead of simply park their cars.

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But, he told me, this book is not a manual for the right way to design a 15-minute city. Every local context is different.

In the U.S., fragmentation is often a direct result of redlining policies that served to racially segregate cities and hoard resources away from lower-income neighborhoods of color. Some critics point out that if urban planners don’t take those histories into account, and let communities lead revitalization efforts, then a concept like the 15-minute city could further exacerbate inequities. However, if it’s done right, the approach could help address those harmful legacies.

“It’s an invitation to reinvent our lifestyles and urban practices to build a better future, where sustainability, equity, and well-being are at the heart of our concerns,” Moreno writes in the book. I spoke with Moreno over Zoom and e-mail about the growth of the 15-minute city concept, some sources of backlash, and whom he hopes to reach with his new book. His responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q. Tell me a bit about how you first got interested in cities and urban design.

A. Very good question. I’m not an architect or urbanist. I am a mathematician and computer scientist. I have developed a lot of different technologies for the intelligent control of complex systems. Just after the emergence of the internet, in the 2000s, I had a lot of requests from mayors for transforming lampposts, lights, doors, windows into smart equipment. I became one of the European leaders of the smart city.

In 2010, I decided to drop off smart technologies to examine a different way — the design of services in cities. I decided to continue to work in cities, but not from the technological angle, because technology is not enough for fighting against climate change, poverty, and social exclusion. We need to develop more local services. We need to develop more local jobs and to have more friendly neighborhoods and greener neighborhoods as well. And to reduce the role of individual cars, to reclaim the public space, to develop local commerce, to develop cultural activities.

I proposed this term “the human smart city” in 2012. And in 2015, the city of Paris hosted COP21, the big conference of countries for signing the Paris Agreement.

Anne Hidalgo was the mayor of Paris at this moment and, along with Mike Bloomberg, decided to convene mayors in parallel to COP21. With this amazing summit of mayors in Paris, cities said, “We are at the center of the problem — and we have the solutions. We need to change not only with technical measures, we need to change our lifestyle.” The cities signed an agreement [to support ambitious climate goals at the municipal level]. A few months after this, in October 2016, for the first time I proposed to cities to change this lifestyle through an ambitious urban plan for developing more local services. And I called that the 15-minute city.

Q. How have you seen the idea of the 15-minute city catch on in the past several years?

A. When I proposed this concept in 2016, a lot of people said, “Professor Moreno, this is a good idea, but this is a utopia.” The norm is to have long distances, long commutes. And maybe it is uncomfortable, but people at the end of the month have a wage, and they have the possibility for having a normal life.

As a researcher, I have experienced this concept in three districts in the east of Paris. I have observed that it is possible to change a city. The mayor of Paris [Anne Hidalgo] embraced this concept in 2019 for her re-election campaign. At that moment, we didn’t have a city with this concept implemented. Hidalgo took this concept in 2020, and she announced in June 2021 the big picture for five years in Paris. She proposed a concrete plan with different measures: local shops, local commerce, [safe] streets for kids, to ban cars in front of the schools, to open the schoolyards during the weekend. We have generated new districts: Clichy-Batignolles, La Félicité.

This is the growth of the 15-minute city inside of Paris. But at the same time, during COVID, the C40 Cities embraced this concept. The C40 is the global network of cities for fighting climate change.

We have, today, 293 cities in progress of implementing this concept. But not necessarily under the same name. In Utrecht, Netherlands, it’s the 10-minute city. In Dubai, the 20-minute city. In China, it’s the 15-minute circles of life. We have a lot of different nicknames, but the idea is the same: to develop a happy, polycentric, multiservice proximity. This is my motto.

Piazza Minniti, another square in Milan that was reclaimed for bikes, pedestrians, and play.

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Q. I was also interested in your chapter on small towns. I think there’s a perception that the 15-minute city is only possible in already dense areas. How can small towns or rural areas adopt similar principles — and what are some of the different considerations?

A. The 15-minute city concept for urban areas is also the 30-minute territory for smaller towns and rural areas. It is also successful, although less well-known. Last weekend, I was at a conference in the south of France with small rural towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants, to talk and act in this direction.

In less densely populated areas, distances are generally greater and services less concentrated. The focus could be on efficient alternative methods of transport such as electric bikes, shuttle services, or car-sharing solutions to make travel more convenient without relying solely on the car. Using multifunctional spaces that can serve different purposes depending on the time of day — for example, a space that serves as a market in the morning, a café in the afternoon, and a meeting place in the evening — can be effective. Small towns and rural areas can also benefit from increased use of technology to access services such as telemedicine, online education, and digital government services, reducing the need for physical travel.

Q. I feel like I have to ask — the concept of the 15-minute city was seized on last year by right-wing conspiracy theorists, who painted it as a guise for government control and surveillance. Why do you think it’s been spun that way?

A. Yeah, this is a good question. At the same time, this was a hard period for me, for my wife, for my children. The first point, I think, that the conspiracy theorists have taken up, is efforts to reduce the role of the king car. To dare to attack the king car is, for the conspiracy mongers, an attack on individual freedom. I’m not in a war against cars, but we need to reduce the place of cars. The second point is related. The conspiracy mongers are climate skeptics, climate denialists. Today, scientists are a target of the denialists, because we said we have climate change, and this is irreversible. We have a lot of places with great risk if we continue to live with the same habits, if we continue to have this massive production and consumption.

The third point was about COVID. Because of COVID, we had this lockdown. When I proposed this question of proximity, the climate denialists, the anti-vaccine, the people that said that COVID-19 was a Chinese gun, considered that my idea was proposing a new lockdown. This is totally false, this is totally insane.

We have been living in very dark times. The dark face of humanity has become totally visible. The conspiracy mongers today are, today, with digital technologies, with fake news, with the bubble of false ideas, the denialists of science. I am just a scientist. But for climate denialists, we are the enemy, the scientists.

Q. Who would you say your intended audience for this book is?

A. This book is aimed at anyone interested in cities and ecosystems. It’s a book of work, knowledge, and deepening the concept, but it’s open to all disciplines because it’s written in a language that’s accessible to everyone. As I like to do, it also includes a lot of personal anecdotes, stories from my own life, and elements of the history of cities that even very erudite people don’t necessarily know.

My aim is threefold: to present the concept as it emerged, by looking back at the history of modern urbanism, looking in the rear-view mirror and learning from many thinkers and doers;
to explain it in detail, using the example of Paris, my city, which popularized it thanks to the commitment of Mayor Anne Hidalgo; and to go around the world, on five continents, with all kinds of examples to show that this concept does not depend on the size or density of places, nor on the political party or local governance — but that it is a humanist path for urban planning based on the quality of life of the inhabitants, faced with the ecological, economic, and social challenge for which it is urgent to change our way of life before it’s too late.

Q. What impact do you hope the book will have in the world?

A. I wrote this book as a bottle thrown into the sea in the image of my life. I wanted to offer the best of myself in a humanistic way, with a broad vision of our problems, without being dogmatic or sectarian about this or that. It is just a look at science, explaining the facts, making observations, and looking to the future, how we live and how we’d like to live differently.

I’ve been asked to register trademarks, patents, and licenses, create manuals, launch a competition. None of that interests me. A book is a profound part of yourself that you decide to share with everyone. It is written to reflect, not to proselytize. As a scientist, researcher, and teacher, I like to delve into the subject, to delve deeper, to pass on my knowledge with passion, commitment, and rigor, but without locking anyone into a single way of thinking.

More exposure

• Read: more about the 15-minute city and how, in the U.S., the suburbs might be a prime place for realizing the concept (The Washington Post)
• Read: a brief history of the hated commute, and how it’s continuing to evolve today (Bloomberg)
• Read: how the 15-minute city was embraced by a group of mayors all over the world as part of a COVID recovery plan (Grist)
• Listen: to a short segment about the 15-minute city, from NPR’s climate solutions week
• Watch: Carlos Moreno’s TED Talk, from 2021
• And read: Moreno’s new book, The 15-Minute City, which published yesterday

A parting shot

This infographic was first shared as part of a press conference that Moreno, Hidalgo, and Paris’ deputy mayor, Jean-Louis Missika, held in 2020. Moreno credits it with sparking international interest in the 15-minute city concept, noting that it has been shared, adapted, and translated into different languages all over the world. As he writes in his book: “It clearly and visually illustrates the 15-minute city’s concept, showing how essential services such as shops, schools, parks, and public transportation can be accessed nearby, making daily life easier for residents.”

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This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Nearly a year after Los Angeles officials approved $2.3 million to build a fence around MacArthur Park, several basic details remain unclear, including the fence’s final design or how it will change the neighborhood.

Those questions have become more pressing after the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission unanimously opposed the project in July, raising concerns about the enclosure of a park that has been a city Historic-Cultural Monument for more than 50 years.

The Department of Recreation and Parks was expected to provide an update at the MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council’s July meeting but did not attend. The department also did not respond requests for comment about the project or the Cultural Heritage Commission’s concerns. 

Here’s what we know so far:

Commissioners approved concept last fall

The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners gave conceptual approval to the perimeter fencing project in October, earmarking $2.3 million for the project. 

The initial proposal called for green wrought-iron fence around both sides of MacArthur Park, with gates at eight existing entry and exit points. The department said fencing the space would allow the city better access to manage the park and oversee the property when it’s closed.

City officials said the project’s final estimated cost was unknown, as was the timing for bidding and construction.

In the last several months, the city provided a more specific timeline. Recreation and Parks General Manager Jimmy Kim told residents that installation of an approximately 8-foot-tall green metal fence was expected to begin this fall and winter, followed by artistic and decorative additions through spring 2027. He said at a June community meeting that residents would have an opportunity to weigh in on those elements.

Kim also said the fence was not intended to remain indefinitely.

“As we stabilize the community and the neighborhood, it’s meant to also come off,” Kim said.

The city has not publicly identified a date for its removal.

The city of Los Angeles plans to install a fence around MacArthur Park in the Westlake neighborhood by fall 2026.

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Preservation commissioners oppose the current plan

MacArthur Park was designated as Historic-Cultural Monument No. 100 more than five decades ago.

The city’s original project report to enclose the park acknowledged that the fence could affect cultural resources and the park’s historic character.

On July 16, Recreation and Parks staff and a consultant from Tetra Tech presented the project to the Cultural Heritage Commission, and a month later, the commission officially opposed the project in an Aug. 17 letter to the Recreation and Park Commission.

“While the Commission is sympathetic to the Department of Recreation and Parks’ operational challenges and safety concerns, the Commission is apprehensive about the concept of closing off a civic monument to the public,” commission President Barry Milofsky wrote.

The letter also questioned what commissioners described as the fence’s “apparent permanency” and said the proposed height ranged from 8 to 11 feet in different sections.

The Cultural Heritage Commission urged Recreation and Parks to explore other options. If the city ultimately decides a physical barrier is necessary, commissioners suggested a lower and more temporary fence, pointing to the chain-link fencing installed around Echo Park in 2021 and removed two years later.

Residents in Westlake say they have received few details about plans to install a fence around MacArthur Park.

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The commission also asked Recreation and Parks to return with a revised design or alternate proposal and said the project should be reviewed by the Cultural Affairs Commission.

Richard Barron, who served on the Cultural Heritage Commission for 22 years before leaving the dais this summer, said Recreation and Parks came to the commission later in the process than he would normally expect for a project affecting a historic monument.

“Recs and Park kind of just came in and said, ‘We’re gonna put up a fence and here’s what it looks like,’” Barron told The LA Local. “And it was like, ‘What? Come on.’”

Barron said the commission has limited authority over projects carried out by other city departments, despite its role in reviewing changes involving historic monuments.

The Department of Recreation and Parks have not responded to the Cultural Heritage Commission’s letter.

What remains unclear

Recreation and Parks has not publicly clarified whether the design has changed since the Cultural Heritage Commission raised its objections.

It is also unclear whether the final fence will be approximately 8 feet tall throughout the park or reach as high as 11 feet in some areas, as commissioners were told in July.

And while city officials have described the fence as temporary, they have not identified an expected removal date or explained what would have to happen before it comes down.

Community involvement remains another question.

The MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council formally called for more transparency and input in March, asking to review design concepts before final plans were approved. The neighborhood council said its members had not been included in the city’s discussions when the project was approved in October. 

Thousands of Americans die every year from a chronically underreported cause: heat.

As summer heat intensifies because of human-driven climate change, the United States' official tally of heat-related deaths does not come close to capturing the full human toll. The data feeding into nationwide death counts is collected inconsistently and rarely thoroughly.

The result is a vast undercount of the number of people who die because of heat. And experts say failing to recognize and address this may cost more people their lives.

So NPR set out to create a more comprehensive national count.

We partnered with Boston University to find the total number of deaths influenced by heat every year in the United States. The investigation took two years and involved building a statistical model that assessed nearly every county in the country. The full analysis will soon be published in a scientific journal.

An accurate assessment of the true scope — as well as understanding who is affected, where and why — is critical for developing lifesaving solutions, says Quinn Adams, a research scientist at Boston University's Center for Climate and Health and the lead partner in the joint NPR-BU investigation.

Beyond the statistical assessment, NPR set out to find people whose deaths slipped through the cracks — those who might not have died if heat hadn't pushed them beyond their breaking point — to understand exactly how heat could be missed as a factor. We will be bringing you their stories in the coming days.

But first, here are three key takeaways from our research — and why it matters.

How big is the undercount?

The scale of the undercount is significant.

The primary keeper of cause-of-death records in the U.S. is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It keeps an annual tally of heat-related deaths in the U.S., which is compiled from state reports based on whether heat is noted on individual death records.

From 2004 to 2018, the national number of heat-related deaths compiled by the CDC was low: on average, around 700 a year. The number has crept up in recent years, averaging around 1,700 but sometimes topping 2,000, as heat risks grow and counting strategies evolve.

But even that number is an underestimate, according to NPR and BU's analysis. On average between 2018 and 2025, we estimate that some 9,000 deaths each year in the country are impacted by heat — a factor of five higher than the official average over that same period.

Some years, heat-related deaths can top 10,000.

The true figure could be even higher, says Adams, because of some limitations in the data and the conservative nature of our analysis.

The dangers from heat are growing every year because of human-caused climate change. The heat wave season has extended by a month and a half since the 1960s. In 50 of the country's biggest cities, the number of heat waves has doubled since the 1980s. Heat domes that settle over the country regularly expose tens of millions of Americans — sometimes well over 100 million at a time — to dangerous heat.

"The frequency and the duration of these heat events has been expanding very rapidly," says Adams. "That's what we can expect moving forward into the next few decades: having more heat waves, and having them last longer, and having them be more intense such that people don't get the escape from the heat that they need to physiologically reset."

The reasons for the undercount are complex. But a crucial issue, says doctor and researcher Sameed Khatana of the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, is that heat's role in a death is often masked by other more obvious causes of death, like a heart attack.

"Heat is what people often call the silent killer, compared to things like hurricanes and typhoons," says Khatana.

Heat, he says, can often be the trigger that pushes someone's health condition — like cardiovascular disease — from manageable to fatal. "The heart starts beating faster and harder," he explains, to shunt blood to the skin to cool the body. And eventually, if someone's heart is already weak, it may not be able "to keep up with the demand that was required of it," he says. That can lead to something like a heart attack.

But often, Khatana says, because heat leaves no obvious mark behind for doctors or coroners to examine, the cause of death gets marked down only as a heart attack. Heat isn't noted on the death certificate, and therefore it is not included in the tallies reported to the municipality, the state and eventually the federal recordkeepers.

Such omissions are understandable, Khatana says. But repeated thousands of times, in all parts of the country, they create a blind spot that obscures the scale of heat's danger.

National risks — even in unexpected places

The NPR and BU investigation found that heat is killing people in nearly every corner of the country.

Our analysis finds that Florida and Texas have the most heat-related deaths overall. That is in part due to their large populations. But those states remain among the most impacted even when adjusted for their size.

But the losses are not limited to states historically considered hot.

Our model finds that more than 100 people die from heat-related causes in Michigan every year, 10 times the official reported numbers. In Massachusetts, official records say only about 5 people die from heat each year, but our estimate suggests that number could be more than 60.

And in Florida, the difference is even more dramatic: We estimate more than 1,900 deaths each year, about 40 times as many as reported.

Heat can be particularly dangerous for people who are not already used to it. And in many parts of the country that were not historically hot, infrastructure to keep cool is less common. Nearly all homes in Alabama have some form of air conditioning, for example. But in Washington state, only 53% of homes do. In Maine, 70% do. Yet the risks of heat exist, and are growing, in those states as well as those where it is a more entrenched problem.

Counts are getting more accurate — but not everywhere

The official national counts from the CDC have trended upward in recent years, rising from an average of roughly 700 between 2004 and 2018 to about 1,700 between 2018 and 2025.

That increase is due in large part to two things: Heat is simply getting worse, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, and also there is better counting of heat-related deaths in some parts of the country.

Arizona's Maricopa County — home to Phoenix — has developed sophisticated protocols for sussing out the subtle influences of heat on people's deaths. Maricopa County trains "death investigators" to look for signs of heat stress, such as asking about the state of the deceased's air conditioning system, their ability to pay electric bills to run ACs, their use of medications that increase heat sensitivity, and more.

But Maricopa County is something of an outlier. In contrast, the counties home to Los Angeles and Houston report very few heat-related deaths. Yet our model finds hundreds of people likely die in each of those counties because of heat each year.

Los Angeles recognizes the problem, says Nichole Quick, the chief science officer at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The county's official numbers "are vast undercounts," Quick says. "The true impact of this is higher than I think a lot of the numbers show."

But solving the counting problem isn't simple. It took Maricopa County years to fine-tune its strategies for more accurately assessing heat's impact on deaths. And many doctors who certify deaths in emergency rooms and hospitals, or for patients who die at home, don't have protocols for confidently identifying heat impacts, says Khatana.

Until such issues are addressed, says Adams, the undercount will remain, and heat's true toll will remain obscured — making it harder for policymakers, planners and families to understand the urgency to protect themselves.

"Most people do not see themselves as vulnerable to heat. They're like, 'Oh, that's someone else. It's not me,'" says Adams. But the data is clear: Heat can take anyone, anywhere in the country. "But then, you know, push comes to shove and it actually is you."

NPR will be continuing this coverage in the coming days, exploring why deaths slip through the cracks and how lives can be saved.

Credits

• This reporting was supported by a Nova Institute for Health Media Fellowship. It was also supported by the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism.
• Nick McMillan contributed to this report.

Data sources and methodology

Mortality data
We analyzed weekly all-cause mortality from 2018 through 2025 for 530 U.S. counties with populations of at least 50,000. These counties represented approximately 73% of the U.S. population in 2024. We excluded data from 2020 because the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted typical patterns of mortality and health care. For comparison, we also queried the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's WONDER database to compile death data for which "heat exposure" was listed as a primary or contributing cause on the official death record.

Temperature data
We obtained temperature estimates from ERA5-Land, a global weather dataset produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts that combines observations with a weather model to estimate conditions across areas without monitoring stations. For each county and week, we calculated a population-weighted average of daily maximum temperature, giving greater weight to temperatures in more heavily populated areas. Because the same temperature may have different health effects in different parts of the U.S., we additionally ranked temperatures relative to each county's usual climate, allowing us to consider local differences in acclimatization.

Heat-related mortality estimates
We used space-time stratified case-crossover methods to estimate how unusually hot weeks affected deaths in each county during the same week and the following week. We allowed the effect of temperature to be nonlinear, meaning that mortality could rise more sharply at very high temperatures. We then combined county-level estimates within each state to identify the temperature associated with the lowest mortality, commonly referred to as the minimum mortality temperature (MMT). State-level MMT estimates were used because sparse weekly mortality counts in some counties made county-specific estimation of the MMT unreliable. This approach improved statistical reliability while still allowing regional differences in climate and heat adaptation to be reflected. County-level attributable mortality estimates were extrapolated to the full population of the contiguous United States by applying the estimated attributable mortality rate from the included counties to the total contiguous United States population. We defined heat-attributable deaths as deaths associated with temperatures above the state-specific minimum mortality temperature. We conducted all analyses using the open-source cityClimateHealth R package.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Aaron Donald returned to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, ending his retirement after 2 1/2 years to chase another Super Bowl title.

The 35-year-old Donald made his decision after several weeks of discussion and nearly three months of intensive workouts for a star defensive lineman who reigned atop his position in a Rams uniform from 2014 until his retirement in early 2024.

Donald joined a light practice at the Rams’ training complex later Sunday, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with Myles Garrett and the rest of his teammates, both old and new.

While he hasn’t decided whether he will play in the Rams’ season opener against the 49ers in Australia next month, Donald is eager to complete a comeback that seemed improbable only three months ago.

“Do I feel like I can play at a high level? Yes,” Donald said. “Do I feel like I can still be myself? One hundred percent, and if I didn’t feel like that, I wouldn’t be here.”

Donald agreed to a one-year contract, and ESPN reported he will make at least $20 million in an incentive-laden deal.

Donald became one of the greatest defensive players of his era during a decade spent entirely with the Rams in St. Louis and Los Angeles. He won three AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards while earning 10 Pro Bowl selections, eight All-Pro selections and a Super Bowl ring before he retired somewhat abruptly following the 2023-24 season.

After two years of tending to his business interests and enjoying ample family time, Donald began to entertain the notion of a comeback this summer after the Rams traded young lineman Jared Verse in a deal for Garrett, one of Donald’s few peers in contemporary defensive line play.

With MVP Matthew Stafford leading the NFL's top-ranked offense, Los Angeles was already the betting favorite in most sportsbooks to win its second Super Bowl title under McVay even before Donald's comeback.

Along with Garrett, Los Angeles added cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson from Kansas City to a defense that now looks more equipped to keep pace with the Rams' offense, which returns every major contributor around Stafford from last season's elite unit.

Donald's 111 career sacks are the Rams' franchise record and the second most in NFL history among linemen who primarily played on the interior.

The decision resets Donald's eligibility clock for his all-but-automatic induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he's much more interested in seizing the strong opportunity to play for a second ring while lining up alongside Garrett and talented young contributors Byron Young, Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske on what should be an opponents' nightmare of a defensive front.

Donald would have been eligible for the 2029 class in Canton, Ohio.

The ink isn’t dry on an expansion of pension benefits for California police and firefighters — in fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t even signed it into law — but unions are already negotiating contracts as if their members could soon be eligible for more lucrative retirement formulas.

It sweetens the perks for public safety employees by allowing them to retire with full benefits at 55 rather than 57, and it allows their unions to bargain for more generous pension formulas by increasing the maximum accrual rate to 3% per year of service from today’s 2.7%.

It also includes a provision that will boost retirement income for all higher-earning public employees by increasing a cap on how much they can receive from their pensions.

The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 33-0. It passed by a similarly overwhelming majority of 70-2 in the Assembly.

“I’m supporting this because the men and women who run toward fire, violent crime and life threatening emergencies are not working ordinary jobs,” said Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, a Republican representing Lancaster.

If Newsom signs Assembly Bill 1383, it will mark the state’s first enhancement of public employee pensions since former Gov. Jerry Brown championed a law that required public employees hired after 2013 to work longer for full benefits and kick in more money from their paychecks to fund their retirements.

Brown’s law followed the back-to-back financial crises of the dot-com bust and the Great Recession, which obliterated tens of billions of dollars of assets in California pension funds and set off fears that they could become insolvent.

California’s largest pension fund has not fully clawed out from its recession-era losses. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System as of July 1 held assets worth $637 billion, or about 85% of what it owes to its 2 million members over time.

CalPERS over the last decade has ratcheted up the rates it charges cities, counties and the state, both by requiring employers to pay down losses faster and by revising its earnings targets to acknowledge that it expects to earn less money from investments. Payroll and employer contributions to CalPERS totaled $14.9 billion in the 2017 financial year; by 2025, the number climbed to $30.2 billion, according to the pension fund’s annual financial reports.

The new retirement bill would require government employers and employees to contribute an additional $282 million to CalPERS to cover the lower retirement age and increased cap on pensionable income. The sum is expected to increase by hundreds of millions of dollars more if all public safety agencies agree to pay the maximum benefits, according to the California Department of Finance.

The finance department, which reports to Newsom, recommended that lawmakers reject the bill.

The measure would also apply to pension systems outside of CalPERS, including 20 that are managed by counties.

Cities, counties fought pension expansion

California local government agencies united in opposing the measure. They’re now hoping Newsom will veto it.

“We want to pay our police and fire and all our employees all we can, but it has to pencil out at the end,” said Napa Mayor Scott Sedgley, who is a retired Napa firefighter.

Unions were confident the measure would pass because it sailed through every vote in the Legislature, with Republicans joining with Democrats in arguing it’s an important investment in public safety.

Some local police and fire unions insisted on including clauses in new contracts that reopen bargaining over retirement benefits if Newsom signs the bill. One was in Napa, where the city recently struck a five-year contract with its firefighter union that includes a reopening pensions connected to the bill that just passed the Legislature.

The unions “don’t want to miss the year, two years, or whatever they’re locked into their agreement,” said attorney Michael Youril of the firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore.

“I would say there’s going to be immense pressure” on local government agencies to increase retirement benefits to the maximum rate allowed, he said.

San Diego Police Department officers arrest a group of protesters who barricaded themselves inside Mayor Todd Gloria’s office at San Diego City Hall in San Diego, on Jan. 23, 2026. The protesters demanded to meet with Gloria to discuss concerns about how SDPD interacts with federal immigration agents.

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Unions are allies to Gov. Newsom

The bill would benefit public safety unions that have been critical allies to Newsom, including California Professional Firefighters and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. Leaders of the firefighter union in particular lobbied for the lower retirement age by pointing to the toxic hazards their members face, which can shorten their careers and lives.

The unions stress that the bill does not fully unwind Brown’s pension law. Until that law took effect, police and firefighters could retire at 50 with even more generous pension formulas. They characterize the current bill as a modernization of the one Brown signed.

Revising the pensions has been the top legislative priority for the Peace Officers Research Association of California, an organization that represents California police unions. The association’s president, Brian Marvel, said the possibility of a Newsom veto worries him.

“We’re really hoping that the governor doesn't want to go down that path because we really feel that this is a great opportunity for him to leave office addressing a huge issue within public safety,” Marvel said.

Recruiting and retention have been a problem, Marvel said.

“We want to make sure that we have the necessary resources to be able to address what the community’s needs are,” he said.

If the bill doesn’t get past Newsom, Marvel said law enforcement groups “would have to have serious conversations regarding his veto” if Newsom seeks the presidency.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.