From the looks of things, the Legislature may finally be done with PERS for this session.  The official May revenue forecast for the 2013-15 biennium came yesterday and, as expected, will bring an additional $275 million in tax and other revenue to the state coffers.  Since this makes up the difference between the savings

This is really a post for all of you out there who read this blog and who have been INACTIVE members of PERS for some time (I'm not sure this includes my colleagues in higher education, who withdrew from further participation in PERS back in 1996 when the Oregon University System offered the one-time option to switch to the

One of my all time favorite songs has the following as its final stanza:  "We are programmed to receive. You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave! "   My mailbox has lately filled with stories that make Hotel California less apocryphal and more predictive.  Welcome to Hotel California.In th

I wanted to take this opportunity to update my post from yesterday.  At least with regards to sick leave accruals and their use in calculating Final Average Salary, I had completely forgotten that this issue has already been litigated and resolved by the Oregon Supreme Court in the Ballot Measure 8 cases (collectively capt

With little notice, Governor KitzRobber quietly signed SB 822 into law late last week.  It takes effect immediately, which means that this year's COLA will be 1.5% and the graduated COLA will go into effect with the COLA for 2014, effective July 1, 2014 (payable August 1, 2014).  The legal process is gearing up and the PE

The Legislative crap game hasn't folded its tent yet, unfortunately.  The Governor and the Dems are so desperate for revenue - at least another $275 million - that they are willing to sell our souls for a few Repub votes.   PERS members are still in the crosshairs since SB 822 didn't satisfy the bloodlust of the media, th

Well, the Oregon Legislature done screwed the pooch this time.  It is with rage that I report that the only people targeted to pay for the state's apparent financial difficulties are all current PERS retirees and all future PERS retirees.  Our Democratic supporters abandoned any sense of rationality to impose, on a strict

Much confusion, anxiety, anger, and doubt continue to flood the Oregon Capitol as SB 822 passed through the Senate on a strict party line vote of 16-14.  The vote was delayed 2 days because Senator Richard Devlin, one of the Bill's sponsors was in the hospital for chest pains.  (This is probably the signal that Devlin may

The freight train you hear outside your window tonight is the one carrying SB 822 to its final resting place, on the Governor's desk, where he will assuredly sign the bill in 6 seconds flat. So much for the democratic process. The first public hearing on the bill was last Thursday, where the rules committee of Ways and Me

Just when you thought things couldn't get much worse, the Oregon Legislature has decided to fast track a PERS bill that will make retirees the beasts of burden to carry the load for funding public schools.  From the beginning, this has been set out as a contest between two conflicting contracts - the PERS contract, and the

Finally, the Senate and House Co-Chairs have provided hints on how their COLA proposal would go for current and future retirees.  Representative Peter Buckley outlined the bare essentials of the proposal in an article published this morning in the Medford papers.  Basically, as I understand the proposal (took me awhile an

Both the Oregon Legislature, the Governor and god knows who else continues to perpetuate a fact that is totally lacking in proper context. The "fact" is that more that half of current PERS retirees earn less than $24000 in PERS benefits annually. They use this fact to claim that a COLA cap will take care of the

The current Oregon Legislature has spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to screw over PERS retirees already drawing benefits.  From the beginning, starting with Governor Kitzhaber's budget that proposed to cap the retiree COLA at 2% of the first $24,000 of benefit, the legislature has been doing pretzel twis

The Republicans in the Oregon Legislature, seeming to do Dr. No's bidding for him, have proposed a series of "reforms" or "clarifications" (to coin Rep Bruce Hanna's moronic term) to the PERS statutes, and  have laid waste to all the years of work done by public employees in Oregon.  There are more tha

I had intended for this post to be longer and more complex than it will end up.  For reasons that I prefer not to go into, I'm going to summarize what I had intended to say, and I will decide someday soon whether I need to elaborate on the information presented.Since 2010, the idea of capping the retiree COLA at some amoun

The dueling reports on the COLA cap proposal have been issued and reported.  On the one hand, the Governor's office requested a legal analysis from the Attorney General on the COLA cap, while House Speaker Tina Kotek asked for legal advice from the Legislative Counsel on the same general proposal.  (Do keep in mind that a

After more than a month, three of us have deconstructed the figures provided by the PERS actuary and have concluded that the "savings" from the Governor's proposal to cap the retiree COLA to the first $24,000 of benefit, is probably close to being correct.  Although annual savings appear to be small at first, the

Our Governor Retread keeps popping out with ever more ideas to "help" the PERS system, its members, and its retirees.  Although this is not a new proposal, expect the Legislature to take up the issue of "pension spiking", which is getting a lot of coverage over on the blogs at the Oregonian and the Stat

There is a common joke, begun with Mark Twain (I believe) that there are "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics".  Around my house lately the common joke has become "Lies, Damned Lies, and Actuaries".  I have been puzzling over an analysis done by Milliman for PERS.  The document, on PERS' web site, evalu

Seems to have peeked out of the bubble for a moment.  Groundhog Day?  Or Governor Kitzhaber checking in with the world 6 days after the election handed him complete control over the Legislature.  Oddly, on Saturday, House Majority Leader Tina Kotek announced that the majority would not introduce any PERS legislation that

But not necessarily PERS.  The PERS Strunk/Eugene recovery is in full swing now.  I got my repayment letter while I was gone on vacation.  Both the amount owed and the repayment amount were correct (good news), but that's not the story with many people I've heard from.  We have instances of people being asked to repay m

Very tittle is happening in the world of PERS these days.  The election is just two weeks away and many elements of the PERS agenda will be established after we know who will control the Oregon House and the Oregon Senate.  If the Democrats take both houses, the PERS bills are likely to be less draconian than if the Repub

I've just run across a PERS horror story that tops almost every single one I've read about.  I now have first hand information from the affected party so I feel confident that I understand what happened.  Doris (a pseudonym) retired from her employer in 2002 on a disability.  The disability was because of a brain injury.

The heat of the summer is winding down a bit, the days are getting shorter, and the nights are cooler.  The Anna's hummingbirds are engaged in aerial acrobatics over our feeders and are getting short tempered with each other.  It is also the month in which many of the retirees from the period 2000 - 2004 are starting to s

As expected, the item in the PERS Board agenda on the assumed interest rate was in response to Ted Wheeler, State Treasurer, letter to Paul Cleary. In Mr. Cleary's response to Mr. Wheeler, included in the PERS Board packet for next Tuesday's meeting, is a detailed schedule of the NORMAL cycle for considering an adjustment t

It has been awhile.  PERS news has been sparse except for the occasional snarky screed by some print media journalists who continue to hammer on the libertarian theme of drowning government in the bathtub.  The local rag continues its rapid descent into irrelevance by continuing to harp on the cost of PERS and ways to rei

Our State Treasurer, Ted Wheeler, is reported to have written a letter to the PERS Board urging them to consider lowering the assumed rate from its current 8% to something closer to 6%.  Ted also suggested that retirees share the burden of future cuts to PERS by altering the COLA provisions to apply to only a certain porti

I'm always amazed at the strange twists and turns in the PERS fiesta.  The latest irony to hit the street is that the Salem Statesman-Journal's crack PERS and public employee reporter, Dennis Thompson, has been lured from his reporter's job to a job as Public Affairs spokesman for the Oregon Department of Revenue - the peo

For those of you who are concerned that you are just going to get an invoice from PERS, guess what:  "you are correct."  PERS does *not* intend to justify the amount invoiced this time through.  They assert that you were invoiced once in either 2006 or 2007 and you had 60 days to appeal or contest the amount. Â

Not a lot of PERS news to report these days.  We've been quiet here on the Fearless front.  Yours truly did get his 3 seconds of fame being quoted in the July 2012 issue of Kiplinger's Magazine on the repayment to PERS.  The article is about "recoupment" as a new worry for retirees across the country.  Somehow