The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today announced the appointment of Melanie Moreno as Chief of the pension fund’s Office of Governmental Affairs.
Moreno will manage a staff of legislative analysts and serve as chief legislative advocate for CalPERS State and federal legislative programs. She assumes her role on May 25.
“Melanie is a seasoned legislative consultant who has extensive knowledge about the issues that face CalPERS,” said Anne Stausboll, CalPERS Chief Executive Officer. “Her experience in the Legislature will make her an especially effective advocate for CalPERS, our members, and our employers.”
For the last seven years, Moreno has held senior consultant positions on health care issues for both houses of the California Legislature. Most recently, she served as Principal Consultant for the California State Senate, analyzing statewide policy impacts of legislation before Senate Committees on Health. She also developed legislative proposals, staffed bills before both houses in the Legislature and facilitated negotiations between a broad range of stakeholders. She served in the same role as a senior consultant for the California State Assembly from 2002 to 2007.
Her career also includes research and legislative analyst positions with the San Francisco Department of Human Services, University of California San Francisco Institute for Health Policy Studies, and the California State Association of Counties.
Moreno received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from California State University, Sacramento, and has two Master’s degrees in Social Welfare and Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.
CalPERS, with approximately $174 billion in assets, is the largest public pension fund in the U.S. It administers retirement benefits for more than 1.6 million active and retired State, public school, and local public agency employees and their families on behalf of 2,600 California public employers, and health benefits for nearly 1.3 million members.