"For the children" = For the PERS
Overall, school districts and colleges will pay $565 million more in the next two years compared with the 2023-25 biennium, while about 77,000 vested employees, who also pay into PERS, will pay $105 million more.
The increased costs to districts will more than erase the $515 million boost proposed by Kotek for school funding for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years. She announced in July that she’d ask the state Legislature early next year to send more than half a billion dollars to the State School Fund for the next biennium to boost student outcomes, literacy rates and more. The fund is responsible for the bulk of district funding, and payroll makes up about 85% of school budgets.
The latest PERS increases are the consequence of an uptick in post-pandemic hiring, public sector wages growing faster than anticipated, a pre-2003 investment formula that made employers liable for massive contributions and several years of underperforming investments, according to Kevin Olineck, director of the system.
Sorry, Johnny, no pencils for you. Mike Bellotti has to get his money.
It completely blows my mind that local government leaders aren't the ones leading the charge on PERS reforms.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to declare PERS bankrupt?
ReplyDeleteNot when we are one of five states without a sales tax. The taxpayers bought their ticket. Time to pay up.
DeleteWhat does a lack of a sales tax have to do with PERS declaring bankruptcy?
DeleteThere's revenue sources available to pay down PERS that aren't being taken advantage of. Democracy doesn't mean you get to write up a bill, and then say "I don't wanna pay" with a later government.
Delete"and several years of underperforming investments". I guess math isn't taught any more. Promising X dollar return to pensioners is one of the main problems of the fund. It is not possible to guarantee something that is not there. This also leads to taking on more risk, trying to make up for impossible rates of return in today's low interest world.
ReplyDeleteThis actually dates to the 1990s, when PERS was making gobs of money - as much as 20%+ annually. Rather than credit employees with the 8% guarantee, and put the rest into reserves, employees were credited with the entire amount. I had just started working at Multco, so didn't have much in my account, but I think one year there might have even been a 22 or 24% credit. I would think most of the employees who received those returns are now retired, but those inflated accounts will continue until all of us who received those returns are, well, dead.
ReplyDeleteThe 2008 recession wiped out a lot of the 1990s gains. If you retired before 2008, you'd make out like a bandit on the Money Match PERS rules. After that, most Tier 1 retirees are better off with the pension formula, which doesn't depend on investment returns or how the account is credited. If you don't understand, that's OK. Oregon PERS is the most complex public pension scheme in the country.
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