Republicans make their PERS move. Kitzhaber … ? 05/31/2013

http://uomatters.com/2013/05/kitzhaber-plan-to-throw-orp-faculty.html

Republicans make their PERS move. Kitzhaber … ?

  05/31/2013

Plan C: Retire today. You have to drive to Salem and submit the paperwork at PERS by COB today. Rumor is that it will be a madhouse, get there early. Then submit your TRP plan retroactively like UO let Frohnmayer do (surely Doug Blandy will do the same for the rest of us, though he won’t answer my email about it) and get another part-time job to supplement your PERS. 

Retirement forms etc. are here.

5/31/2013: Hannah Hoffman reports the Republican plan includes a cut in the annuity rate from 8% to 4%:

Their plan also calls for employee contributions to be redirected from their individual accounts into the main PERS fund; for Money Match accounts to be annuitized at 4 percent, rather than the current 8 percent; and to prohibit employees from using unused vacation time or more than 40 hours of unused sick leave in calculating their final salary.
Kotek and House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, D-Eugene, have been clear in the past that none of these ideas resonate well within their party. 

That did not seem to deter Republicans. Ferrioli said they were searching for the “sweet spot” on PERS reform and weren’t in any rush to do it by the end of June, the tentative date for ending the current session. 

“Getting it done on time is not nearly as important as getting it right,” he said.

So, perhaps there will be a window to retire early and get the 8%, if this does go through? What a mess.

5/30/2013: Christian Gaston and Esteve have more details here. This new story seems to suggest the inactives would indeed get screwed.

5/30/2013: Harry Esteve reports in the Oregonian: Is it just me or does he seem a bit skeptical?

Republicans legislative leaders unveiled their version of public pension reform Thursday, a plan that relies heavily on ideas that Democrats already have rejected as unconstitutional, unfair to retirees or politically infeasible. …

The bulk of the savings in the Republican plan would come from nearly doubling the cuts in cost-of-living increases for PERS retirees. 

Under a plan that passed with all Democratic votes, retirees who get more than $20,000 annually in PERS benefits would face smaller caps on yearly increases. The current cap of 2 percent stair-steps down at higher benefit levels. In all, the plan shaves $460 million from the cost of PERS over the next two years. 

The Republican plan calls for steeper cuts, with stiffer limits after the first $20,000 in annual benefits. It would add another $447 million in savings to the Democratic plan. 

Other elements of the Republican proposal include reducing benefits for PERS members who no longer work in public jobs, reducing the employer contribution to PERS accounts and ending the practice of counting unused sick leave and vacation time toward retirement benefits.

 I think this means the inactive definition wouldn’t apply to current faculty? And the last doesn’t matter to the MM folks. But an end of the 2% COLA for amounts over $20K would seriously cut benefits. Assume you retire at 65 with $60K PERS. Currently you’d get $87.4K at age 85. Under this plan you’d get $69.1K – very unlikely to keep you even with inflation, not that I’m a macroeconomist.


5/29/2013: State offers SEIU swap of 6% retirement pickup for 6% raise. I don’t get the point of this. Anyone?

And my post below is a little too paranoid – this is nothing new, just a centralization of existing special plans to work around IRS limits on the amount of income these highly paid employees can shelter under regular retirement plans. See below for OUS Counsel Ryan Hagemann’s prompt response.

5/28/2013: Meanwhile, deep inside the bunker, OUS plans a figures out how to maintain their special supplemental retirement scheme for presidents and coaches after an OUS break-up:

and spends taxpayer’s money on an administrator to run it for them:

OUS Chair Matt Donegan will be at Matt court for President Gottfredson’s Investiture. If anyone goes, give him a shout-out about this.

And maybe Chancellor Melody Rose knows what’s up:

From: UO Matters 
Subject: retirement plan for coaches and presidents, public records requestDate: May 28, 2013 8:46:27 PM PDT
To: “Melody_Rose@ous.edu” 
Cc: Ryan Hagemann , Charles Triplett , Diane Saunders  

Dear Chancellor Rose:
I saw in the announcement of the 3/15 meeting for the Board Committee on Governance & Policy that there was to be discussion of a special retirement plan for university presidents and coaches: http://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/state_board/meeting/letters/call130315-GPFA.pdf and that OUS was hiring an administrator for this. 

I’d appreciate it if you could ask your public records officer, Chuck Triplett, to send along any public records describing this plan or proposed plan. 

I ask for a fee-waiver, on the basis of public interest in retirement plans, which is currently quite high given the various proposals to cut PERS for state employees.

From OUS Counsel Ryan Hagemann: 

The reference to retirement plans in the March 15, 2013 Governance & Policy Committee docket was not a proposal to create a new retirement plan.  The plans listed are existing plans of the Oregon University System.  The materials were included as part of a discussion of services that might be shared if one or more of the OUS institutions achieves an institution board.  Because retirement plans—now administered across the system—are complex and touch on the lives of employees, the Committee thought it a reasonable place to start in approaching the principles and substantial work that would be necessary to conceive of shared services.  I have included the links to the materials that were used for this discussion on shared services and retirement plans.

http://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc130315-GPC_SSE_Retirement_Plans.pdfhttp://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc130315-GPC_shared_services_pension.pdfhttp://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc130315-GPC_multiple_employer_plans.pdf

5/28/2013: Peter Keyes (Architecture) sends his analysis of the possible PERS changes:

How a long-term, full-time faculty member in the OUS system could get hammered by changes aimed at “inactive” PERS members.