(First in an occasional series) The most frequently asked questions about the financial fiasco in Oregon’s public pension system are: What happened? Why did it happen? Who created this mess? Public employee unions like to blame the Wall Street bankers who helped trigger the 2008 global financial crisis. The resulting stock market meltdown cleaved 27…
Details
Ted Sickinger | The Oregonian/OregonLive John Thomas, a Eugene financial consultant who has chaired the board of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System for the past six years, ran his last meeting this month. It’s an obscure, unpaid and somewhat thankless position. But the PERS Board has enormous influence over the administration of the state’s…
Details
The Oregonian – Ted Sickinger This is a weekly Q&A focused on the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. Got a question? Submit it to politics@oregonian.com. Q: How many members are there in PERS? A: As of June 30, there were 367,853 members of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. That’s roughly 9 percent of the…
Details
OPB – Jeff Makes On the campaign trail, Gov. Kate Brown and state Rep. Knute Buehler have settled into a predictable routine when asked about Oregon’s troubled public pension system, PERS. Buehler, the Republican challenger, says he will prod legislators to cut retirement costs. He says that would free up hundreds of millions of dollars that…
Details
The Bend Bulletin – Gary A. Warner SALEM — Six years after their last electoral battle, Kate Brown and Knute Buehler are back on the ballot together. In 2012, it was the race for secretary of state, won by Brown. This time, the stakes are higher: Governor. Brown became the state’s chief executive in 2015…
Details
The Capital Insider – Claire Withycombe SALEM — The state’s public pension agency isn’t prepared for a major disaster like an earthquake or flood, and Oregonians’ personal information could be at risk if the agency doesn’t do more to protect its systems from attacks, state auditors say. More than 365,000 Oregonians are in the Public…
Details
Editor’s note: This is a weekly Q&A focused on the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System. Got a question? Submit it to politics@oregonian.com. Q: How many PERS retirees are there? A: 145,863. That was at the end of 2017. People retire. People die. So, give or take. Naturally, the vast bulk of those retirees – 88…
Details
Ted Sickinger | The Oregonian/OregonLive Perhaps few issues more starkly delineate the views of Kate Brown and Knute Buehler in this fall’s gubernatorial election than Oregon’s public pension system. Though the Public Employees Retirement System has been a hot-button issue in the state for decades, the political pressure may never have been higher. Schools, municipalities…
Details
The Oregonian – Ted Sickinger As Oregon schools, municipalities and public agencies face another major increase in public pension costs come July, some are considering a risky solution. Issuing more pension debt. In late June, Portland Community College’s elected board approved the issuance of $200 million in new pension obligation bonds, an amount that would…
Details
The Oregonian – Ted Sickinger Editor’s note: This is a weekly Q&A focused on the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. Got a question? Submit it to politics@oregonian.com. Q: How many PERS retirees receive $100,000 a year or more? A: Call them the one percenters, as in, about 1 percent of current PERS retirees get more…
Details
A trio of sponsors—state Rep. Julie Parrish (R-West Linn), former Rep. Mark Johnson (R-Hood River) and Kim Sordyl, a Portland lawyer and education activist—want to put a measure on the 2020 ballot that would prohibit Oregon government bodies from borrowing money to pay their obligations to the Public Employee Retirement System. The three filed paperwork…
Details
A trio of sponsors—state Rep. Julie Parrish (R-West Linn), former Rep. Mark Johnson (R-Hood River) and Kim Sordyl, a Portland lawyer and education activist—want to put a measure on the 2020 ballot that would prohibit Oregon government bodies from borrowing money to pay their obligations to the Public Employee Retirement System. The three filed paperwork…
Details