U.S. Public-Pension Shortfall $4.6 Trillion, Group Says

U.S. public pensions are $4.6 trillion short of the amount of assets needed to cover projected liabilities, an advocacy group said. That’s more than twice what Moody’s Investors Service estimated this month. ✧ The average plan is 41 percent funded, State Budget Solutions said in a report today. The Alexandria, Virginia, group’s partners include the American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates “conservative public policy solutions,” the Freedom Foundation and the State Policy Network, which is composed of “free-market think tanks.” Read more at Bloomberg... Read More......

City has its eye on your wallet... again

9/16/2011 - The City Council is considering a half-dozen strategies to generate more revenue to pay for government services. Read more at the Corvallis Gazette-Times...
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Rep. Richardson: Oregon: Confusing "Debt" with Revenue

DENNISRICHARDSON.ORG/NEWSLETTER, 3/18/2011 by State Representative Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point)

In the upcoming 2011-13 State Budget, $940 Million will be spent from General and Lottery Fund revenues just to service Oregon’s “tax supported” debt.

Imagine… $940 Million…nearly ONE BILLION DOLLARS, that must be budgeted and paid “off the top.” Think of it…a Billion Dollars we cannot use to educate or provide health care for our children. A Billion Dollars we cannot use to protect our citizens or to provide care and food for our most vulnerable seniors. A Billion Dollars from the 2011-13 budget, siphoned off in payments on long-term debt. How did Oregon accumulate such a high amount of debt? I believe incurring such high and burdensome debt levels stem from Legislators who, in their efforts to do good with other people’s money, deluded themselves into confusing debt with revenue. And those debt payments must be paid for decades. It is sobering to realize that much of this debt will not be paid off until long after our grandchildren are grown, our children are retired, and we are dead and buried. Read more of Rep. Richardson's March 18, 2011 Newsletter...

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Letter: City government’s costs, spending have run amok

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES/OPINION, 12/22/2010, Letter submitted by Eldon Carr - City government’s costs, spending have run amok.

Jean Nelson comments: Thanks to the Corvallis Gazette-Times for printing Mr. Carr's excellent letter to the editor. Most people don't realize how government operates... take last year's budget and ask for increases above last year's spending, rather than deciding what can be cut to make allowances for what's necessary for the coming year. The public must insist that our city and state policy makers stop deceiving the public in order to grow government. Read More......

Oregon: Lawmakers Must Address Revenue Shortfall

Press release by the Senate Republican Office issued August 26,2010. Contact: Jonathan Thompson (503) 986-1957

Lawmakers Must Address Revenue Shortfall Salem, OR – Thursday lawmakers received news the state’s expected revenues are down another $377.5 million. This brings the total decline since the end of the 2009 Legislative Session to $1.268 billion. Still, the halls of the State Capitol in Salem remain largely empty. Senator Chris Telfer (R-Bend) wants to change that and renewed Republican calls for an emergency session of the Oregon Legislature. ∴ “It is long past time for members of the Legislature to return to Salem and do the job for which we were elected,” said Telfer, who serves on the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee that received the revenue forecast. “Allowing another round of across-the-board reductions to all agencies is just plain wrong.”

The Governor has the ability to deal with budget shortfalls by reducing all budgets equally, regardless of priority to Oregonians. After the last revenue forecast agency heads were directed to cut 9% from their budgets. At the Department of Human Services, which has a total budget of more than $15 billion, the reductions included ending programs like Oregon Project Independence which helps keep seniors in their homes and out of more expensive nursing homes. The total cost of this vital program was just $7.6 million out of a $15 billion budget for the department.

“We have seen too many cases where state agencies look to punish Oregonians for revenue shortfalls by cutting the most vital programs first,” said Senator Bruce Starr (R-Hillsboro). “It is long past time for legislative leadership to step up and do the work Oregonians expect.”

Should the Legislature come into emergency session, one option for budget reductions include removing just the general fund money from the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). The savings this biennium would be about $7 million and could be used to fund a more important program like Oregon Project Independence. Any functions DLCD is no longer able to afford would fall to counties which have a vested interest in the local economy.

“We must make sure anything we fund from this point forward helps create jobs,” said Telfer. “We will not fix our budget problems until we get Oregon families back to work.” Republicans in the Legislature are in the process of putting together plan to help balance the state budget without the need for across the board cuts. 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......