Under the new budget proposed by Gov. Brown, the annual state payment to CalPERS drops from $3.5 billion this year to $3.1 billion in the new fiscal year.

The payment falls, at a time most pension costs are rising, because a $404 million payment to CalPERS for California State University pensions is shifted from the state budget to CSU.

The change is part of a proposal that could freeze state support for CSU and UC pensions. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said CSU would be faced with a potential burden "out of proportion" to its limited ability to control future pension costs.

“For this reason, we recommend that the Legislature reject the governor’s approach,” the analyst said in a report this month.

The governor’s plan to shift some of the unpredictable future pension risk out of the state budget, where the general fund has been running huge deficits for a decade, could play a role in the debate over public pensions.

Next month CalPERS will look again at changing its earnings forecast. The board rejected actuarial advice last year to lower the forecast from 7.75 percent to 7.5 percent, which would have increased the state CalPERS payment by an estimated $400 million.