As Dickens once wrote, "these are the best of times, these are the worst of times." In the latter category, more people than ever are being invoiced and readjusted from PERS and more people are waking up after 5 years of somnolence to discover that while they slept, the Legislature and PERS did a whole big bad number on them and now they're pissed. I'm glad to have these folks now at the party; I just wished they'd been paying attention in school when the Legislature was giving them their assignments. Just keep reading folks - the party isn't over until the fat lady sings (or until Judge Kantor gives his opinion, whichever comes first).
On the best of times department, I am happy to report that the subject of one of my blog entries "Linda" has finally won her victory over PERS. "Linda" persisted until PERS accounted for every penny of her account, correcting error after error along the way. You'll recall that I told Linda's story back in September ("Fixing a Hole", September 26). Hers was a case of impeccable records butting heads with sloppy files. "Linda", the CPA, wasn't going to back down and, with my encouragement, tracked down some helpful people at PERS who *finaly* got her account straightened out. It only took her two and a half months, not 30 days, but would have been impossible without some intervention. What Linda's case communicates to me is that PERS is shooting itself in the foot over and over again, pissing members off, making others suspicious, and contributing to a culture of incompetence and/or malignity. It is awfully nice to hear of these stories of victory. They are all too rare these days.
On another note, our database project is growing daily. We're getting good community support with donations coming in nearly daily. We haven't reached our $4000 project goal, but we can make it with your donations. If you read this blog, please consider giving a donation as recognition of what this blog contributes to your information content. Now, imagine the information level times 50, which is what the document site is. It is a collection of a staggering array of documents to help you understand this entire mess and help you to understand how things got where they did. It costs money to build a first rate search engine. People have asked what they can do for ME to repay ME for my hard work. Donate to the library. I'm involved there and it is a project that I've contributed many documents from this site to. You can get all the information you need at OregonPERS.info
1 comment:
Has anyone contacted the attorney general's office about PERS and their refusal to abide by the court rulings on COLAs? It does seem criminal.
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