Musings from too close to the crypt. Random thoughts, valentines, and vitriol from an aging and increasingly cranky boomer who's really quite tired of the public flogging he's taken as an Oregon Public Employee and now as a retired public employee drawing his well-deserved PERS pension. To people who think I'm getting more than I deserve - bite me! If you think I'll go quietly when PERS tries to get money back from me, think "they'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands".
Peter Courtney, President of the Oregon Senate, has decreed that HB 4033 will not get heard during this legislative session. HB 4033 is an OPRI-sponsored and supported bill that would stop PERS from releasing the names along with the information about retirement benefits in the future. The media (principally the Oregoni
After several email exchanges with the good people at PERS, I now have an answer to the question posed in my previous post "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye". Unfortunately for all the people retiring, the answer isn't the one they had hoped for, and I'm afraid that PERS is well-covered for what they do. I wo
Some recent PERS retirees have discovered another potentially costly inconsistency with the way that PERS treats the IAP account. I have numerous reports of members taking a December 1, 2011 retirement and wanting to roll their IAP into other tax-advantaged vehicles. The problem they are encountering is that PERS has 12
That used to be the motto of the group known as OPRI - the only group in Oregon dedicated exclusively to the welfare of PERS retirees. I and many others are lifetime members of this organization. Now about 28,000 retirees are confronting the issue of repaying benefits once thought to have been legally received, but now
This should be treated as an open letter to PERS and to OPRI:Dear All:I've been spending a lot of time these past few weeks thinking deeply about the upcoming attempt by PERS to collect overpayments from PERS retirees from the period between April 1, 2000 and April 1, 2004. Since I retired during that window of time, I am
At the end of last year (2011), the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in its Robinson v PERS opinion that PERS could collect the overpayments that have been outstanding since as early as 2006 when the Strunk/City of Eugene remediation plan was implemented. To refresh memories, the overpayments were the result of PERS calculating
Yesterday marked the final business day of 2011. Ever since 2000, PERS retirees and future retirees have been watching and waiting for the courts to unravel, untangle, and to clarify a variety of situations that threatened the hard-earned pensions of public employees in Oregon. Starting with the City of Eugene case, fil
OK. A bit of an inside joke for those who know Jimmy Buffett music. Mea culpa, mea culpa mea maxima culpa. In my last blog post, "Dark Side of the Moon", I made an error that Ted Sickinger of the Oregonian took the time to point out. In the case of the "true up" of Mike Bellotti's final PERS benefi
Apologies to Floyd. As we predicted, the folks at the Whoregonian could not wait to start their muckraking about individual PERS recipients within weeks of the first data release. While the object of their rectal examination is former University of Oregon coach and Athletic Director Mike Bellotti, the reporters have not
OPB is going for a second helping from the PERS trough on Tuesday December 13, 2011. It is a follow on show to the December 5 episode featuring Dennis Thompson of the Salem-Statesman Journal. Paul Cleary, Executive Director of PERS, yours truly, and one other former PERS member will be "guests". Cleary will
The usually reliable radio show, "Think Out Loud" carried on Oregon Public Broadcasting will air a show tomorrow (December 5) to discuss the outing of PERS retirees and their benefits. The ONLY guest on the show to the best of my knowledge will be Dennis Thompson, the flack for the Salem Statesman-Journal, who h
When will they ever learn? The PERS Coalition has had a dreadful record of inserting themselves in legal proceedings at exactly the wrong time. I have no idea which genius decided to *not* intervene in the original legal proceedings between PERS and the Oregonian and the Statesman-Journal. By taking the "high roa
Nothing like taking things down to the wire. The PERS Coalition's lawsuit against PERS to prevent the release of retiree names with the data dump on November 21, has been scheduled for a hearing at 1:30 on - you guessed it - November 21. Judge Vaughn Day of the Marion County Circuit Court has been assigned the case. D
Who waits eagerly to get his/her hands on the names and benefit amounts of PERS retirees. It may be an identity thief who, with a few keystrokes, could easily access the rest of the information needed to pull off a rather simple theft of identity. It may be someone who hates PERS retirees and their benefits who simply w
The Oregon Supreme Court delivered its final body blow to any semblance of contract law in Oregon today. It ruled in favor of PERS and the employers in the Arken case, and it ruled in favor of PERS in the Robinson case, overturning the lower court's ruling in the latter. Basically the court gave window retirees the midd
Tomorrow morning (October 6), the Oregon Supreme Court will release its written opinion in the Arken case (and perhaps the Robinson case as well). I have no further information (such as the decision). The decision will be posted on the OSC's web site at around 8 a.m. or close thereto. Perhaps some of the agony of wait
Just sitting around contemplating the potential end of summer. I've received a number of thoughtful emails about the impending release of retirees' names and monthly benefit amounts. These emails provoke some interesting notions. I thought I'd run a few up the flagpole and see what holds. Bear in mind that these are
I've put together a brief survey to give OUR organization some idea about what we think of the new release of data. Please take a few minutes to read and take the survey located at:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P9WMVN5 . It will be your chance to provide valuable information.Thanks.
Both the Oregonian and the Register-Guard are whooping it up that they finally "won" a victory over PERS. Their victory includes the release of names and amounts of PERS pensions paid out by November 2011. Later in March 2012, the same newspapers will receive additional information on those same retirees (ALL
This probably describes the way many PERS retirees feel today after learning that PERS caved in on the various public record requests to release a fair amount of information to the media about current retirees. While PERS got some concessions of what would be released and won a reprieve to allow notification of retirees a
Considerable confusion still exists about the newly enacted HB 2456. This bill, just recently signed by Governor Kitzhaber, removes the state income tax subsidy to PERS members who (a) retire on or after 1/1/2012 *and* (b) who had creditable service prior to October 29, 1991. The confusion stems from a rumor -- absolute
As most people know, the PERS Board voted yesterday (July 29) to keep the assumed rate at 8%. The local media seemed surprised by this decision and focused on a random comment made by one of the Board members that he didn't think the 8% was sustainable, but that he respected the wisdom and judgement of the Mercer actuarie
While I was gone the Oregon Supreme Court issued an order joining the Arken and Robinson cases for the purposes of issuing a final opinion. While the cases are different, they cover enough similar ground that the Court apparently feels it can issue a "one size fits all" decision. Greg Hartman doesn't know whet
On Thursday, the Oregon Legislature bid sine die and all went home for the remainder of the year. PERS members and retirees escaped from any significant harm, although HB 2546B did finally pass and so our fellow members who retire on or after January 1, 2012 and who live out of Oregon and who accumulated PERS credit for w
Sine die will probably be pronounced sometime tomorrow towards the end of the day. At this moment, only two PERS bills survived the grueling process that is the Legislature. HB 2113 was a PERS housekeeping measure that reconciled some inconsistencies in the language of the OPSRP and the rest of the Chapter 238a. The other b
The Oregon Legislature is approaching sine die with considerable dispatch. For PERS members, this is good news so long as the Legislature doesn't make any wrong turns along the way. To date, not a single PERS bill has passed and has been sent on to the Governor. There are a number of bills that could take flight almos
If ever there has been a crazy week, this must be it. I won't bother with the screwy things going on in my life just before Memorial Day, but for people who follow PERS news, the week borders on bizarre. Of course, we have the news reported on Monday about the Ways and Means Committee possibly abandoning the revised HB
A firestorm is brewing the Legislature and elsewhere over HB 2456. The story goes like this: the originally proposed bill would have removed the income tax subsidy from PERS current and future retirees who live in states other than Oregon and who pay no Oregon Income Tax. Before the bill came up for review in the Hous
Google has been a bit problematic the past several weeks and so I've had to hold back some comments I had intended to post. Two posts went astray and I've yet to see them appear here. So, I'll try to reconstruct one of the two, and will have a new one tomorrow.It has been awhile since we chatted about HB 2456. As you
Last week or so, the Oregon Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal from Kay Bell. Most of my readers are not familiar with Kay so let me tell (briefly) her story. In a nutshell, Kay sought retirement estimates from PERS repeatedly as she neared the end of her teaching career. As the estimates would come in, Kay note