On Sunday, we asked another Hot Button question: Should the Oregon Legislature make another attempt to lower the long-term associated costs of the Public Employees Retirement System?
Today, we’re publishing some of the responses. If you’d like to add to the discussion, please see the Share your opinion info box on this page and let us know what you think. Look for a new Hot Button question on Sunday.
Tackle the elephant: PERS must be the single most important item this session of the Oregon Legislature addresses. It has become, after nearly three decades of pretending it will go away, the big elephant in the room. It is particularly frustrating when the governor, senate president and the house speaker will not admit it is a financial disaster!
Most private companies have long ago done away with traditional pension plans like PERS. What may have been correct in the 70’s is definitely not correct in 2017.
The legislature should eliminate PERS and implement a 401k program like private employers have done.
For existing PERS participants, the current 6% employee contributions should go to the PERS liability account and not an employee savings account, as is currently being done. The 7.75% guarantee should be eliminated or at best changed to the prime interest rate. Tie the PERS cost of living rate to the same indices used by Social Security. Cap the upper payouts similar to Social Security.
Lastly, remove the time served by all elected officials including judges from consideration for PERS benefit calculations.
Eliminate public unions from being able to negotiate compensation and benefits, like most federal government employees unions. Many states also have adopted this model.
The PERS issue is not going away by itself. It needs bipartisan support to reach a long term solution to this complex and costly issue.
Marvin Leach, Rockaway Beach
Save dollars for obligations: To the hot button question: No. It’s a waste of time, money, and political energy. Most of the expense of PERS is in benefits owed under unchangeable contract rights that have been repeatedly affirmed by the Oregon Supreme Court, for workers who have already completed all or most of their employment. Some changes backfire (e.g., lowering the assumed rate, because lowering assumed returns on investment means employers must raise contributions to fund guaranteed benefits). All changes that attempt to lower PERS payouts will be challenged, and defending those lawsuits just spends more tax dollars on justice department attorneys (and often high-hourly-rate outside counsel) instead of using those dollars to pay earned PERS benefits.
PERS is an incredibly complex system, and the unintended consequences of seemingly-obvious tinkering have Bahis Siteleri negated nearly every attempt to reduce the tax burden to state and local government employers. Don’t waste short legislative time and limited political capital on Band-aids that get ripped off by the courts just so legislators can have bragging rights in the next election cycle.
Kai Jones, Southeast Portland
Time to face reality: The whole planet, every country, city or region has been spending unsustainably for generations. Look around and see people contributing to a Social Security system from which they’ll never get a cent. Public employees share the same fate. Look around at all the examples of unfunded liabilities that will never be honored. This isn’t a local thing but global. Imagine standing on a hill overlooking an ocean receding far out. Sand, rock and flopping fish emerge. This is the first phase of tsunami, and yet the folks below are standing in line at Starbucks. Pull your head out. The PERS thing will end badly for all of us.
James Knoll, Cornelius
Reduction is immoral: I cannot afford to have my PERS cut and I am very worried about what will happen to me if the governor doesn’t protect my retirement.
I have been an office specialist for the child welfare office in Medford for five years. I started as a volunteer. After the recession I, like many people, had to find different kind of work. I met some people involved in child welfare and was so impressed with what they were doing I just started volunteering until I got a job. It sure pays less than the private sector, but I am in my 60s so job security and retirement benefits matter a lot to me.
I do not make a whole lot. I count every penny. My salary isn’t such I can put much away for myself. I manage to stash about $100 a month for my retirement. Based on my income, I figure I will have to work until I am about 77.
If my PERS was to be cut lower than it is now, I think I’d have to work until I died in my cubicle.
I think it’s immoral that they want to reduce the retirement benefits of people like me. It’s immoral and, frankly, insulting. What we do is essential for our community. The private sector isn’t going to take care of these vulnerable children. We aren’t in it for the money but we shouldn’t be forced into poverty when we retire because we went into public service.
Barbara Walsh, Phoenix
Focus on high-wage employees: Of course the Oregon Legislature should continue to find ways to reduce the PERS deficit but without economically injuring current retirees who neither “gamed” they system or were not high-end salaried employees. Thus far it’s been frustrating for proposals to qualify as acceptable and do not violate the contractual commitment made to current and near future retirees. What seems to be logical and apparently legal is placing a cap on high wage employees. To my way of thinking, employees earning in excess of $150,000 to $200,000 annually can and should be able to purchase their own 401k or equivalent. The costliest drains on the system, other than less productive portfolio investment performances, are high wage earning employees such as higher education professors, coaches and medical specialists, just to name a few. At retirement, these folks not only get a lucrative and sometimes obscene retirement package but as often demonstrated they go on to new employment opportunities (outside of PERS) which pay rather handsomely. By the way, I am a PERS retiree but my annual benefit pales in comparison to the above noted participants.
Hank March, Tigard
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
