Oregon Supreme Court PERS ruling opens gaping hole in state budget... eventually

Thursday's announcement that the Oregon Supreme Court had overturned a series of Public Employees Retirement System changes approved in 2013 cast a pall on a Capitol that had otherwise been focused on an intensifying legislative session.


That's because, in time for the state's 2017-19 budget, the Oregon Legislature will need to find hundreds of millions of dollars that lawmakers had thought they'd saved when cutting cost-of-living raises for current state retirees.


Read more at Oregon Live Read More......

Kropf: Why I oppose the grand bargain

Jeff Kropf at Oregon Catalyst:

It’s because it doesn’t solve the PERS problem that is robbing teachers from classrooms, taking cops and firefighters off the streets and causing criminals to be released, all of which hurts Oregonians. This back room deal only kicks the can down the road. ✧ This is especially true when you consider that Democrats and their union bosses are counting on Oregon judges, (enrolled in PERS) throwing out the savings in this deal, leaving the damage to Oregonians continuing into the future.

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Dan Lucas: Oregon Democrats have a PERS dilemma

The thrust of the Democratic rocket in Oregon reached its zenith recently, and we witnessed its stall in the legislative session that just ended. ✧ Democrats controlled everything in state government, but they were paralyzed by the huge PERS dilemma. Like the stages on the old Saturn rockets, the older tiers of PERS that helped get Democrats where they are have started to become a drag. ✧ So how long before Oregon Democrats jettison the older tiers of PERS retirees?

Read more at Statesman Journal... Read More......

GT Letters: Online stir over state employee unions & PERS

On February 9, 2010, the Corvallis Gazette-Times published a letter by Robin Stepanek entitled "No union for private sector; public employees owe them a thank you." The letter elicited considerable online discussion. Then on February 17th, a letter by Ted Daum of Corvallis was published in response to Ms. Stepanek's letter under the title "Unions have given much to all working people." Again, the online comments produced quite a stir. Mr. Gorley gave a brief history of PERS but little detail. Can anyone fill us in on the progression of PERS? Read More......

PERS shortfall should influence 'no' vote on URD

LETTER submitted to the Corvallis Gazette-Times by John Detweiler: On March 29th, the Sunday Oregonian ran a headline "PERS falls into a familiar chasm" with the sub-headline " The public pension is billions short again; barring a stock rally, your tax dollars will fill the breach". The accompanying graph shows assets of $37.1 billion and a shortfall of $18 billion. The next day PERS came out with a fact sheet,
which can be found at: www.oregon.gov/PERS/index.shtml, which tells us that the fund was valued at $42 billion at the end of February 2009.

The sheet does not tell us what the shortfall is; but it does tell us that unfunded liabilities are amortized over 20 years, allowing time for markets to recover, and that the current funding shortfall is due to lower investment returns, not a large increase in system liabilities as was the case prior to the 2003 PERS Reform.

In May 2009, Corvallis is going to vote on establishing an urban renewal district (URD) and paying for it with tax incremental financing that diverts money from general government. We know that life expectancies are increasing requiring changes in social security. Do we dare assume that PERS will not require similar changes or that markets recover quickly enough to amortize lower investment returns over 20 years? Corvallis may be faced with a PERS induced tax increase. It is not prudent to divert tax money to the URD when we are facing these kinds of unknowns. Vote against the URD.

John H. Detweiler; www.peak.org/~detweij Read More......