Orange County's policing splits two ways. Deputies and the rest of the County of Orange workforce are OCERS members; the cities that kept their own police departments are CalPERS employers. Contract cities are policed by the Sheriff, so the patrol car with a city's name on the door may be driven by a county employee. Which side of that line you are on changes your formula, your deferred comp, and your options on a lateral.
Where police officers and sheriff’s deputies are in Orange County
The Orange County Employees Retirement System is a 1937 Act county system — the same statute LACERA operates under, and emphatically not the same rules as CalPERS. It covers the County of Orange, including the Sheriff's Department, the District Attorney's investigators and Probation, alongside twelve other participating employers. The County of Orange alone accounts for roughly 17,600 active OCERS members, and a large share of them report to the civic center in Santa Ana. The OCERS guide walks the plan structure.
Then the contract cities. Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Stanton, Villa Park and Yorba Linda are policed by the Sheriff's Department under contract. Mission Viejo's Police Services is a county operation, not a city one — which means a deputy can spend a whole career in a city that has never employed him.
The cities that kept their own departments are CalPERS safety employers, each with its own negotiated contract: Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Westminster, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Irvine, Tustin, Orange, Costa Mesa, Brea, Buena Park, Fountain Valley, La Habra, Los Alamitos, Placentia, Seal Beach and Cypress among them. Anaheim and Santa Ana run the two largest municipal departments in the county and are where an Orange County officer is most likely to spend a career.
What changes locally
Orange County is newer, flatter and more master-planned than its neighbour, and the effect on a safety household's balance sheet is mostly about housing. The south county cities where deputies are assigned are expensive places to live, which pushes a lot of officers inland or into north county, and pushes a very large share of the household's net worth into one mortgage taken at one point in the rate cycle. A pension plus a single house is not a diversified retirement. It is the most common balance sheet we are shown from this county, and it is fixable without anybody selling a home.
The other local fact is simple proximity. Our office sits about a mile from the Orange County line. Buena Park and La Habra are roughly ten minutes away, Anaheim and Fullerton fifteen, Santa Ana about twenty, and Mission Viejo or San Clemente thirty to fifty depending entirely on what the 5 is doing. Evenings and weekends are available for the obvious reason.
What we do about it
The first thing we settle is OCERS or CalPERS, and then classic or new member inside it, in writing, from the system rather than from the break room. Officers who started at one Orange County city and moved to another, or into the county, very often have a reciprocity question nobody has ever asked on their behalf.
The second is the deferred-comp account, because that is where a plan actually gets built. The county's 457(b) and each city's plan carry different menus and different costs, but the deferral rate is the lever you control, and for a career that ends in the fifties it is nearly always set too low. We look at the special three-year catch-up early enough for it to still be usable.
The third is the concentration problem — a pension, a house, and not much else pointed anywhere different. We do not give advice about selling anybody's home. We do build the rest of the household's money so it is not all exposed to the same thing at the same time, and we publish what that work costs before you book.
The structures that apply: LACERA safety, LAFPP, OCERS safety, CalPERS safety, 457(b) deferred comp. The full guide for police officers and sheriff’s deputies goes through each one, and here is the same audience in Los Angeles County.
Fifteen minutes, no charge
We are in Norwalk, which is inside Los Angeles County and minutes from the Orange County line. Come to us, we come to you, or we do it by video — evenings by video.
Your city
Orange County has 34 incorporated cities and about 3.1 million residents. These are the ones where police officers and sheriff’s deputies concentrate, each with its own page:
- Financial advisor in Anaheim
- Financial advisor in Santa Ana
- Financial advisor in Fullerton
- Financial advisor in Garden Grove
- Financial advisor in Westminster
- Financial advisor in Mission Viejo
All 89 cities we publish a page for →
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Questions
OCERS or CalPERS — how do I tell which one I am in?
By who signs your paycheque. County of Orange employees, including the Sheriff's Department, are OCERS members; officers employed directly by a city are in that city's CalPERS contract. Your deduction line and your annual member statement will both say so. If you have worked for both at different times, you may have standing in each, which is a conversation worth having before you retire rather than during.
Mission Viejo has Police Services. Does that make me a city employee?
No. Contract cities purchase police services from the Sheriff's Department, and the personnel assigned there remain county employees with OCERS membership. The uniform patch and the employer are two separate questions, and only the second one determines your pension.
I am moving from a city department to the Sheriff's Department. What happens to my formula?
You become a member of a different system, and whether your original membership date carries across depends on reciprocity — elected within the time limits, and not already forfeited by taking a refund from the city plan. Because CalPERS and a 1937 Act county system are structured differently, this is a call to both, before the move if you can manage it.
Is there anything like DROP in Orange County?
DROP is a City of Los Angeles arrangement for LAFPP members. Do not assume it travels. Whether your employer offers anything comparable is a question for OCERS or for your city's CalPERS contract administrator, and the answer should come from them in writing rather than from a story somebody heard about LAPD.
How far is your office from the Santa Ana civic center?
About twenty minutes without traffic, up the 5 and across. Santa Ana is where the county's courts, jail, administration and a great many OCERS members physically are, and it is a straightforward drive either direction. Everything we do also works by video if the shift makes a drive impossible.
My spouse works for the County of Orange in a civilian job. Same system as me?
Same system, different membership type. OCERS covers general members and safety members under different formulas and different retirement ages, so two people in the same household employed by the same county can be on quite different timelines. That is a planning fact rather than a problem, and it usually makes the sequencing question more interesting, not harder.
The mortgage in south county is enormous. Should I be investing at all yet?
Usually yes, at least something, and usually into deferred comp first — because payroll deferral happens whether or not the month cooperates, and because a large mortgage is precisely the reason not to have every dollar of your future tied to one asset in one ZIP code. The amount can be small to start. Our minimum is $0 to open and $50 a month ongoing, which exists for exactly this conversation. Why we built it that way.
What does this cost, and is there a minimum?
There is no minimum to open an account. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Investment management is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year, billed quarterly, and it is published on the site — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
Do I have to have a lot saved already?
No, and that is deliberate. Most firms set a minimum precisely to avoid people at the start of this. We built the opposite: $0 to open, and the same fiduciary standard whether the account is four figures or seven.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.