Crossroads

I had to miss last Friday's OPRI meeting in Salem. I was partying in California with relatives as my nephew Matt got married. I was especially delighted to see my nephew Adam (Matt's brother) and his new bride. Adam just returned from an 18 month tour of duty in Iraq and a 6 month post combat deployment in Germany. He's now busy training new recruits in Kentucky. (While we're not big fans of the Iraq circus, we're damn proud of Adam's service to his country, and extremely thankful that he returned with both mind and body in tact).

On the PERS front, I'm still trying to get a summary of the OPRI meeting from one of the organizers. I do know that 150 people attended to hear Paul Cleary from PERS speak. In addition attendees heard from Greg Hartman who provided some legal updates on the Arken case (Multnomah County) and the Robertson case (federal case awaiting an en banc hearing in the US 9th Circuit), and from Gene Mechanic, who represents the PERS Coalition in the newly filed Robinson case. Currently, I have no specifics on what either Hartman or Mechanic told the crowd, but Paul Cleary generously provided the complete Powerpoint he gave to the group. It is available for viewing and download at the OPRI website. Worth noting is the very revised timeline for invoicing "window" retirees. It appears that the earliest anyone with a "normal" retirement can expect to see an invoice accompanied by a change in benefits is September 2007, at which point a large number of retirees will experience a benefit increase. The reason for this is that the "revised" benefit will have accumulated enough withheld cost-of-living increases that it will actually exceed the current benefit. Whether net benefits increase at this time depends largely on the amount PERS believes you owe and how long they expect you to live.