Put Ya Hands Up

OK. My hands are on my head and I'm facin' the wall. I think the mugging is about to begin. Friday (tomorrow), the PERS Board will consider a final draft of the order "Final Order on Strunk/Eugene Repayment Recovery Method". In spite of all testimony and questions about the legality of certain aspects of PERS recovery method", PERS staff is recommending a final package that includes some very questionable passages. First, in the explanatory memo justifying the final order is a passage "If the Board adopts the Final Order, each recipient of an overpayment would be served a copy of the Order by regular US mail. Serving this Order on the recipient (with added information like appeal rights to constitute notice under ORS 238.715) most likely stops the six-year statute of limitations on collecting the overpayment." COMMENT: Clearly PERS *thinks* that the mere serving of the notice stops the statutory clock from ticking, but there is no statutory citation or case law backing up PERS blatant attempt to make an end-run around what is clearly spelled out in the ORS. PERS' position may be defensible, but they offer the Board no legal justification for the position and, if fact, as much as admit that they don't really know if this is true or not - "most likely" is not a comforting phrase.

The second issue pertains to the first. The memo goes on to state: "The notice would include the recipient's appeal rights to challenge the matters covered by the Order. Specifically, the recipient would be informed that they are entitled to seek judicial review of this Order pursuant to ORS 183.484 by filing a petition for review within 60 days from service in the Circuit Court for Marion County or the Circuit Court in the county in which the recipient resides." (emphasis added). This is, of course, the issue that triggered a pretty strongly worded letter from OPRI when the whole question of notification arose back in November. The issue is that ORS 238.715 anticipates that an invoice is to be included (so that the member actually has the necessary information to make an informed decision about whether and what to appeal!). During discussion, PERS assured the Board that the invoice was part of the notice, but that the invoice would be sent separately. The wording of the final order makes absolutely no mention of the invoice, leaving me with the very uncomfortable feeling that we will be forced to appeal on the basis of PERS merely asserting that we owe money, but without knowing how much we owe. If I were a cynical person, I'd think that PERS was just trying to drop this turkey from a high altitude and daring us to shoot it down. This brings to mind that indelible episode from the old TV sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" where Mr. Carlson is promoting his station by throwing live turkeys out of an airplane. When the turkeys all splatter to the ground, Mr. Carlson wanders away mumbling: "...as god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly".

Jailhouse Rock

For those of you who like to be "jailhouse lawyers", I've posted a copy of the class action lawsuit on my website here. The case is officially captioned as "Arken et al v City of Portland et al". The complaint is relatively short (15 pages) and succinct. This is the case described in my posting yesterday. You can also find a copy of the same document at the OPRI website.

Stackin' Paper

As predicted, the PERS Coalition filed its class action lawsuit in Multnomah County on behalf of "window" retirees on Tuesday, January 17. Rather than summarize information that is already out there, let me simply quote from an AFSCME e-lert from Don Loving:

"On Jan. 17, the PERS Coalition filed a class action complaint in Multnomah County Circuit Court on behalf of Tier 1 PERS members who retired between April 1, 2000 and April 1, 2004, commonly referred to as the "window period."

The class action complaint alleges that the withholding of cost-of-living adjustments for the years 2003 to 2006 from these Tier 1 PERS members constitutes both a breach of their PERS contract and a violation of the Oregon wage and hour laws, in light of the Oregon Supreme Court's decision in the Strunk case," said Aruna Masih, the top assistant counsel to PERS Coalition attorney Greg Hartman.

In addition, Masih says the complaint alleges that the PERS Board's intent to pursue collection actions against such retirees for alleged overpayment of 1999 earnings would also constitute a breach of their PERS contract, would be without probable cause and would cause irreparable harm.

Hartman's firm is optimistic this case can be resolved by summary judgment. It is, says Masih, a simple factual case that gives Hartman the opportunity to request that the judge grant an injunction through summary judgment, which is akin to taking a shortcut through the legal system's lengthy timelines.

"We can request summary judgment anytime 20 days after the suit has been filed, which means we could enter that request in early February," says Masih. "Once the request is made, we can expect a decision on the request within three months -- which is not long for the legal system, as we've come to understand with our PERS cases. Our request for summary judgment would specifically ask the trial judge to halt the process that PERS has commenced to collect alleged overpayments by retirees. Again, we believe Strunk made clear they cannot do that."

The judge could refuse to grant summary judgment and allow the case to take its full course; that, of course, would add several months to the process."

Two Ways to Play

Rumors I've been hearing for the past two months have finally been publicly confirmed. On Friday, a small blog entry on the Bennett, Hartman, Morris, and Kaplan web site reports that the PERS Coalition has served notice that a class action lawsuit will be filed against the PERS Board on behalf of "window retirees" (those who retired between 4/1/00 and 4/1/04) for violations of Oregon Wage and Hour laws. While I've never seen or heard the details or basis for the claim, this novel approach was used successfully by BHMK representing the Association of Oregon Faculties against the Oregon University System when they attempted to alter the contribution levels for Tier 1 and Tier 2 members who were participating in the OUS "Optional Retirement Plan" (an alternative to PERS). More details on this case will be forthcoming as soon as the case is formally filed. It isn't filed yet because there are certain notification details that the plaintiffs must meet and other legal requirements before the case can be certified as a "class action" and served on the defendants. To the best of my knowledge, the case is fully ready to go. You can read the blog entry that describes the case at the BHMK blogsite .

Hurricane

This is my last post of 2005 - a year of hurricanes of epic proportions. This post is about a different type of "hurricane" - the type Bob Dylan sang about in his 1976 song of the same title. While the object of the song is "Hurricane" Carter - a black boxer accused of a crime he allegedly did not commit - the subject of the song is broader - racism and injustice. It has some strident lyrics that lash out in not-very-subtle ways against a system that puts legal and judicial convenience ahead of justice and equality. I would be the last to suggest that what PERS members have been subjected to qualifies as the "hurricane" about which Dylan sings. Nevertheless, what PERS members - active, inactive, and retired - have experienced over the past several years is a new "ism" - PERSism, which I describe simply as discrimination against Oregon public employees merely for being public employees - a "hurricane" of different proportions. The general public neither knows nor cares what public employees do. The general public has no interest in the facts except when the facts support their already low opinion of public employees (about whom they neither know anything or care?). I could go on, but for regular readers, I'm preaching to the choir. If you want to see what's inspiring this "dark" post, listen to Dylan's "Hurricane" (http://bobdylan.com/songs/hurricane.html).

Shine it all around

I definitely feel "shined on" dealing with PERS and the PERS Board trying to get some clarity and some resolution of all the Strunk/Lipscomb implementation issues. Before we go there, you might notice that the IAP remediation discussion has completely vanished from the "forward-looking calendar". This means that this issue, so important to any still-active or recently-retired member, is now being put on the back-burner until the more profitable "recovery" effort takes place. Instead of having this matter resolved before the 2005 member statements come out, it appears that the Board and staff will delay this ............ perhaps indefinitely. (In fairness, there has been no discussion of a delay; just the fact that the item is plain gone from the forward-looking calendar and suggests it won't be addressed at any of the next 3 Board meetings).

In other news, the discussion of the question of recomputing the "one time variable transfer" for retirees and other eligible members has also vanished from December's agenda. For more information on this, please see the previous two blog entries. Instead, PERS Staff issued a report on the "staging" of the Lipscomb/Strunk adjustments. This report is included in the Board Agenda packet for Friday's (Dec 16) meeting. PERS Staff is asking for Board approval to prioritize the processing so that retirees to whom PERS OWES money will be processed ahead of retirees to whom PERS is OWED money. Moreover, the timing of the recovery will be staged over a several year period and is expected to coincide more closely with the restoration of the COLA. Within the group of retirees who owe money, those who owe a lot will be hit first, while those who owe less will drop in priority. In practical terms, no one knows what this really means except that the actual determination of amounts owed may not occur until very close to the point when COLAs are again due. Finally, in response to a great deal of confusion and contest, PERS has modified the proposed rule concerning the recovery and makes clearer the fact that the "notice", which will come in late March/early April does NOT start the contested case clock; the actual invoice, which may not come until some months, or possibly a year, later is what triggers the clock. It still isn't clear how PERS is in compliance with the 6-year statute of limitations on notification of the error, except that it obviously believes it has the legal upper hand in this matter. The PERS timeline lowers the priority recovery for lump sum recipients not receiving any form of monthly payment -- they still intend to collect, just not immediately -- and also lowers the priority for those cases where research and analysis must be done before determining amounts owed. I presume this means people who retired under the "lookback" and who might now be eligible to retire under a different method after the simultaneous lowering of 1999 and the increases for 2003 and, possibly, 2004.

It appears to me that PERS will continue to shake the tree for every nickel it can find, but seems to be shining everyone on as it uses the "throw it against the wall to see what sticks" method for sorting everything out.

I'll be out of town all next week and I don't expect to post more than once more before Christmas.

Autour de Rocher

At its next meeting (date TBA), the PERS Board will take up the question of whether to authorize (recommend, order) PERS Staff to recalculate the "one time variable transfer" test for retirees (and members) who were unable to get out of the variable before retiring (or within the past few years). PERS staff knows there will be winners, but also believes there will be losers. The question staff was asked to answer was if the staff recalculated the variable test, would they only increase the benefits for the winners, but ignore the losers, or would they also have to concurrently reduce the losers too?

I've been playing around with numbers and have formed some opinions about who the winners and losers are likely to be. At issue is the 1999 regular earnings crediting. Prior to the "settlement", 1999 had been credited at 20%, while the variable for that year was credited at 28.83% (an 8.83% spread between variable and regular). The variable "test" requires that PERS compare the contributions and earnings on the variable account as if they had been invested solely in the regular account the whole time. If the variable contributions at regular earnings was greater than the variable at variable earnings, the test fails and PERS didn't let you effect the "one-time variable transfer". People who applied in 1999 for 1/1/2000 typically passed the test; people who waited until 2000 for 1/1/2001 *may* have passed the test or not; I haven't encountered many people who successfully got out effective 1/1/2002 or 1/1/2003. My back of the envelope calculations show that no one who already got out of the variable at any time prior to 1/1/2003 could possibly end up with a reversal of fortune under the revised regular calculation. In fact, the people already out would only be further out. For those who failed the test, there is a chance that a recalculation would produce a *winning* result and an increased benefit. At worst, those who failed before might still fail again. The tricky area - where a winner might turn into a loser comes from those people who retired after 4/1/04, when the regular was credited at 0%. Recall that between the settlement and the Strunk ruling, PERS will have to recredit 1999 at 11.33 (down from 20%) and recredit 2003 (and 2004) at 8% (UP from 0%). Both 2003 and 2004 were winning years in the variable and the spread between the actual variable and what PERS credited to regular (0%) was significant. If all of sudden 2003 and 2004 are credited with 8%, there is a measurable probability that the variable at regular will suddenly overtake variable at variable and a "winner" is converted to a "loser". I've run examples here as well and the likelihood isn't as high as it might seem (it reduces the variable - regular spread in 2003 from 34.68% to 26.68%, and the variable - regular spread in 2004 from 13% to 5%). There is a tangible risk of a small number of reversals of fortune, but a higher prospect of more than a few significant winners.

Given this, it is anybody's guess what the PERS Board will do. I can see real litigation risk if the PERS Board doesn't do it since there is real money involved and a statutory requirement and appeal process for challenging the "one time variable transfer test" results (I know this from personal experience). On the other hand, I can't possibly see how PERS could only adjust the benefits of the "winners" while ignoring the "losers". But, since the reform legislation and the settlement are rife with examples of inequitable treatment of different classes of retirees, this places PERS and retirees (and some still-active Tier 1 members) between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Get on the Natch - Part V (Catch 22)

In my continuing effort to expose the many ways PERS tries to shoot itself in the foot by pointing the gun at its head and watching the bullet travel through its entire body, I offer yet another real story from yet another real PERS retiree. All the changes PERS and the Legislature have made are bad enough, but stupid, inept, and timewasting mistakes are unconscionable. PERS should be stoned for this one.

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"If anyone has seen the movie "Brazil", about a society evolved to the point where it becomes locked in immobility due to excessive and inflexible bureaucratic paperwork, one can easily appreciate how Brazil-like PERS has become.

For example: My request to withdraw my IAP was rejected for improperly completing the Effective Retirement Date field. The form says: "I am applying for an effective date of retirement the [bold] FIRST DAY OF_____________(month)_____________(year). So I put "August" and "2005) in the two blanks. WRONG!! My application was returned and the form stamped "INVALID". Confused, as I retired effective August 1st. 2005, I called PERS to ask what I should have put in the two blanks to complete it correctly. The answer: "August 1st 2005". Yup, Even though there is NO blank for the DAY, and even though the blank is proceeded with the words "..the first day of" in bold, no less, you apparently STILL have to put in the Month and the DAY in the "month" blank.

So I must complete an entirely new application packet because I didn't know that the words "first day of" on the PERS form are actually meaningless to them unless you actually write in that the first day of August is August 1st. After all, possible in the PERS world, the first day of August may indeed be August 3rd.

I will probably need to include a form 47/b and send the whole thing back to "Central Services" attention "Information Retrieval" department, which as we all know, does not give out information (That's, of course, "Information Disbursal").

Hmmm, I can't imagine why their workload is so high??"

Cannonball

For those of you who don't follow every sinuous move of the PERS Board, here is an update on the "plan" to recover overpayments from retirees in the "window". As you probably know, the PERS Board instructed the PERS Staff to take suggestions and questions from stakeholders about implementing their plan. PERS opened the comment period via a link on their website and both retirees and others asked implementation questions and for consideration of alternatives to the recovery mechanism. It appears that the PERS Staff and PERS Board have disposed of all but three issues, which will be taken up at the December Board meeting. For now, we know that PERS is NOT going to allow any repayment schedule other than the options initially presented - one lump sum payment, or the actuarial reduction method over the retiree and (if applicable) beneficiary lifetime. We also know that PERS will NOT stop repayment once the member or beneficiary has repaid the amount owed. Moreover, PERS will NOT offer tax advice or even assistance to members who choose to repay in a lump sum. For those with lump sum bills in excess of $3,000, the tax ramifications are quite significant and non-trivial. Unless you're really skilled at doing your own taxes, a repayment of a lump sum in excess of $3,000 will send you on your merry way recomputing your taxes for EVERY YEAR since you retired. PERS will NOT permit a retiree already receiving "correct" benefits (i.e. not *estimated* benefits) to change the payment option once the repayment is triggered. There will be NO revised Notice of Entitlement for members who've already received their initial NOE. Furthermore, there will be no option for retirees to purchase additional service credit that may have been declined at initial retirement.

What remains to be answered are several fairly significant -- to many anyway -- issues. The first is the question of whether PERS will recompute the "test" for the "one-time variable transfer" for retirees who attempted this before retirement and "failed" the test. It is quite likely that many people who failed when 1999 was figured at 20%, would "pass" the test once 1999 is refigured at 11.33%. For many people, like me for example, being stuck in variable for a year longer than I wanted to be cost me significant money. If that action could be reversed, my repayment amount would be significantly reduced by the earlier transfer of my variable account balance to my regular account. The second important matter affects a smaller, but still significant, number of people who took a lump sum settlement of some sort and rolled the money into some tax-advantaged investment (e.g. an IRA). The question is whether PERS will *facilitate* (with the member's permission, of course) the direct recovery of the overpayment from the IRA-holding company so that no taxable event is triggered.

Given the cannonballs dropping from the sky lately, I'm not real optimistic that PERS will do anything that might actually benefit retirees, but the recalculation of the variable test is probably one area where they'll have to tread carefully. This has significant litigation potential. I doubt they'll do much else to make life easier, cheaper, or better for the people whose money they hold in TRUST.

Chinese Arithmetic

Those folks over at PERS are on some of that funny stuff again, doing their best to sow a little FUD. Seems they've discovered that the current wording of ORS 238.715 needs to be revised a bit to accomodate their little shell game for recovering money from retirees. But before they can even begin to recover the money, they've got that small matter of notification of retirees that there's been an "error". By law, PERS has 6 years from the date of the error to notify a member; otherwise, they lose the right to collect. Well, with all PERS' computer problems and with all the multiple court rulings to implement, the 6 year limit is approaching fast - April 1, 2006 is the best guess. So PERS is busy promulgating a new administrative rule that has more than a few folks in a lather. The OPRI people www.opri.org have written PERS a letter outlining their concerns with the proposed rule. In short, what PERS is proposing to do is to comply with the law by simply NOTIFYING a retiree of their intent to change the benefit, without including the invoice explaining the error and how PERS is proposing to fix it. In other words, PERS wants to separate the notice from the invoice. However, the current ORS 238.715 triggers the contest period with the receipt of the NOTICE and never contemplates a separate invoice sent months or even years later. So, if this rule change were allowed to go unchallenged, members would have to file a contested benefit notice in the absence of knowing what they were contesting. This has all the hallmarks of Chinese arithmetic. If you want to protest, go to the PERS site and follow the links to proposed rulemaking. You can send an email to the rules coordinator right from the PERS site.

I've been a bit slowed the last week or so by multiple attacks of bad karma (an emergency root canal, a nasty case of hip bursitis, and a badly cut index finger). Hopefully the old axiom that bad luck comes in threes has already applied and I can soon look forward to a dose of some good karma. In the meantime, don't be on the road at the same time I'm out there. :-)

Old Habits Die Hard

And the harder PERS tries to change, the worse the muddle they seem to create. Several weeks ago I shared an email I received from an irate active PERS member who was trying to get an accurate estimate on which to base a retirement decision. This letter was the most articulate of those flooding my mailbox, so I posted the letter. I also forwarded copies to the PERB, Mr. Cleary, and others in positions of PERS management. On November 1, PERS posted an announcement on their website that they would henceforth be producing retirement estimates using the Strunk/City of Eugene implementation (I take no credit for the announcement, but the timing wasn't lost on me). Members were concerned that previous estimates (1) did NOT reflect any of the crediting/recrediting adjustments for 1999, 2003, and 2004 and so the estimates were based on very outdated and wrong account balances, and (2) that the variable "match" was still being computed in the "old" (pre-settlement) way also resulting in highly inaccurate variable match estimates. Both of these conspired to seriously mislead (too high, too low, rarely 'just right') members about benefits at retirement.

So, it was with some relief that I read PERS' posting on November 1. Hopefully, PERS would supply reasonably accurate estimates so members could start making INFORMED retirement decisions. Alas, my relief was premature. I'm starting to get the first reports from people who've availed themselves of PERS' new estimates. While PERS seems to have solved the crediting issue, the variable match still remains unsolved and members are still getting estimates with their employee variable balance DOUBLED. From some of the communications that members have shared, this doesn't seem to be problem that PERS either intends to fix. PERS' recommended solution is for members to wait until after they submit their retirement application and get their "Notice of Entitlement", which will then have the variable match correctly calculated. You have got to be kidding!!!!! PERS is asking members to separate from service (because, they can't calculate actual retirement benefits until the separation papers are received from one's employer), and then trust their fate to PERS getting an accurate estimate in a timely fashion. Gee, I think I'll quit my job on the promise that PERS hasn't screwed up my estimate too much and my benefits will be within 80% of what PERS' new, customer-friendly, estimates are. Fat chance! Apparently, PERS is now making administrative policy decisions at the Joseph Heller Catch-22 school of business.

Boom Like That

Just a brief note to thank the thousands of readers who have made this blog so popular. It is hard to believe that in just a few days, this site will have recorded its 250,000th visitor - a quarter of million page views. I want to thank all the various people, named and unnamed, who continue to provide me with the information to post, the answers to all my (and your) questions, and who feel that this is a worthwhile place to recommend for people interested in PERS. There doesn't seem to be any end of the PERS assault in sight; I expect to be reporting on PERS issues for several more years, at least. Stay tuned.

Your Mother Should Know

The answer to the following question. I've been asked fairly frequently why PERS members and retirees can't sue the old PERS Board for damages arising from their actions in 2000 that are causing so much pain today. The answer to this question is actually pretty straightforward. The City of Eugene case was filed under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA); it was not a simple civil case where issues of tort and negligence apply. The PERS Board's actions are governed by the APA and for that reason the members of the Board are insulated from personal responsibility for their acts so long as the acts are within the scope of their administrative mandate. The Board perpetrated no fraud, did not embezzle funds, and made their decisions in open meetings. Their only "crime", according to Judge Lipscomb was an "abuse of discretion" (bad judgement). (The APA also protects the current PERS Board from personal liability for their decision to enter into the settlement agreement with the City of Eugene plaintiffs. The Board can be charged under the APA with breach of fiduciary responsibility -- see the White case -- but individual members are held harmless).

Changing Times

PERS distributed a document at Friday's Board meeting entitled "PERS By the Numbers". This is essential FACTUAL information about membership, members, and retirees that should quiet some of the criticism (or not) about benefits received and the system's financial health. I've scanned in a copy and have posted it on my website. You can download it here (note added 10/24. This link is now to the PERS official copy posted on their website).

Get on the Natch - Part IV

For newcomers, I periodically use this blog to run copies of letters I've received from readers. A few days ago I got this email from a member nearing retirement. It expresses the frustrations of those trying to get accurate information from PERS before making this momentous decision. I've forwarded this to the management and Board of PERS, but wanted to share it more widely. I've removed the sender's name as I always do. If your experiences match this reader's, please let me know. The only way PERS is likely to do anything about it is if the matter gets bigger publicity and more pressure is put on PERS staff to figure out how to address this problem. (And by the way, current retirements have been treated as IF the City of Eugene Settlement and Strunk were already in effect, so it is absolutely not true that PERS doesn't know how this will play out. It has been this way since 4/1/05.)

Hello Marc,

Thanks for all your efforts on your blog. Have been avidly reading it for months now, ever since the Oregonian bit on your blog.

Here's my gripe: No one seems to be dealing with the question of accurate estimates for people soon to retire. My husband plans to retire the end of this year, and in an effort to understand what we're dealing with, we've recalculated his account from 1982 forward to:

1. take into account what his account would have earned had it all been in regular,
2. 11.33% interest for 1999 rather than 20%,
3. 8% interest for the whole account in 2003, 2004 and 2005 (he switched over from 75% variable to 100% regular at the end of 2000), and
4. that his contributions for 2004 and 2005 went into IAP and not into PERS.

We then created a little table that figured out what the variable discount was (difference between the account all being regular and part being variable), multiplied Item 1 above by 2 and added to that the variable discount. Upshot of all this blather is that we think we actually have a fairly good idea of the amount of money that should be in his account by the end of 2005 and how much PERS will have total counting the money match to base a retirement figure on. BUT!! Because apparently the PERS Board hasn't authorized PERS to do all this stuff, we are still stuck with an online Benefit calculator that is basically useless. When we requested another estimate, we were told that our limit was reached and that we had to pay $60 for a new estimate, which, by the way will be figured out USING THE ONLINE BENEFIT CALCULATOR! As I pointed out to the PERS folks, is it right to limit us if our previous estimates were useless?

When I mentioned to a woman at PERS that it seemed like the only thing we could do is put in the retirement papers and if we didn't like the results, stop the retirement process, she seemed upset at the idea of that workaround, then said it would still only be an estimate based on the fact that changes have not yet been made to how they are making their calculations. Aaaaaggghhhhh!!!!!!! How is anyone supposed to be making a cogent decision with inadequate information? At one point, she mentioned that there should have been a prompt on the benefit calculator that would have asked for a dollar amount (to be obtained from PERS and which we had already gotten) that would be the Variable Discount. I told her that I had seen no prompt. She went out and checked and came back and said that apparently someone had taken it off and made no reference to its removal on the site. Why would someone take it off and NOT TELL THE PEOPLE ANSWERING THE PHONES????!!! Ridiculous!!!

We are willing to accept 11.33% interest on 1999, we are willing to accept the IAPs, we are willing to accept the variable discount when it comes to Money Match, so why can't we get a good number, even if someone there has to hand-calculate it? While I can understand them not wanting to hand-calculate for everyone wanting an estimate for the next two years, why not at least accommodate the people looking to retire SOON, like within six months?

I've emailed Customer Service and gotten zero response. I emailed the Suggestion line and a nice man from there has played telephone tag with me for a few days, saying he would help me use the Benefit Calculator (we finally both gave up trying to reach each other), and I talked to a woman yesterday who wasn't anywhere near as helpful as I would have liked, who basically said "this is the way it is, we can't change it."

Can someone PLEASE give this issue some visibility? The window retirees are NOT the only ones who need answers.

The Squid Jigging Ground

I attended part of today's PERS Board meeting. (I confess that it was getting so tedious and boring that I left after about 105 minutes when it was apparent that there was still one long and boring report to go). There weren't too many surprises to report. Paul Cleary handed out a new document called "PERS by the numbers", which was intended to pull together all the disparate statistics PERS has given out over the years. It is a really useful document that PERS intends to post on its web site after the State finishes its maintenance early next week. Many of the facts will surprise people and will, hopefully, disabuse some of the system critics of ideas they have that retirees are getting fat and rich. The statistics simply don't bear that conclusion out. (I have asked for my own electronic copy, but haven't received one yet).

It is clear that the Strunk/Eugene implementation project will take a long time. The first order of business is to get 2004 Member Statements completed for still-active and inactive members. That will involve recrediting for 1999, adjusting 2003 and then crediting 2004. The goal is to have those statements out by the end of January 2006. To follow will be the 2005 member annual statements at close to the usual time in 2006 (mid May). The retiree piece is expected to consume the lion's share of time and resources. While the short-term deadline is April 1, 2006, it is obvious from comments and observations that this is expected to be a multi-YEAR project (it might have been Paul Cleary who remarked, somewhat off-the-cuff, that it would probably be 2008 before they'd be able to 'close the books' on the Strunk/Eugene implementation). One new fact emerged today. In terms of the actuarial reduction method, Craig Stroud confirmed that if the member took an option that involved joint survivorship (2, 2A, 3, 3A), the actuarial reduction *would* be based on joint life expectancies IF both parties were still alive. Otherwise, the reduction would be based on single life expectancy of the surviving recipient. The planning group and the Board are still open to alternative payment options and heard again today from someone advocating that PERS agree to an installment plan that allowed the member to repay the exact amount owed in something other than a lump sum. The Board was receptive to the idea, but there was no committment made to implementing such a method. The Strunk/Eugene implementation plan is still short on many details and it is expected that it will continue to evolve for 3 more months (and 3 more meetings) before a final plan emerges.

There was a lengthy and tedious discussion over the 2004 crediting order, which has never been finalized. PERS Staff asked for finality today so that the Strunk/Eugene implementation could proceed. As I was leaving, virtually everything about 2004 had been settled except for the matter of whether or not to fund the Capital Preservation Reserve (henceforth CPR). The Board struggled with the concept of taking money from Tier 2 members to put into the CPR. Staff had recommended that the CPR be funded at 0% for 2004; the Board wanted something more than 0% and something less than 7.5%. The discussion centered on 0.75%, but the real debate was whether Tier 2 members should have their earnings diverted to the CPR when there was no clear plan to repay Tier 2 members in down markets. Greg Hartman argued against putting money in the CPR, PERS Staff discouraged putting 2004 money into the CPR, Tom Grimsley wanted 0% to go into the CPR, while other Board members wanted something more than 0% to go in. Since this discussion seemed to be going nowhere quickly, I decided to leave. The main message is that Tier 2 members have been losing earnings to the CPR since 2003, even though they're supposed to "earn what they earn". That's another discussion for another time.

One other final note. Marsha Chapman, one of the two local Mercer actuaries assigned to PERS, has already resigned to "pursue other opportunities".

If I get a copy of the "PERS By the Numbers" presentation in electronic form, I'll post it here. Have a good weekend.

Mix up, Mix up

In yesterday's entry "Clampdown", I misrepresented an important piece of the proposed OAR pertaining to the recovery of overpayments. I remarked that PERS used the term "payee" in a very restrictive sense, which I interpreted as being only the retiree. Mea culpa. I should have taken the time to read the "definitions", which form the preamble to the rule. Had I done so, I would have discovered that PERS is defining - for the purpose of this rule - "payee" to mean anyone who could possibly be receiving (or have received) a benefit from PERS that included (includes) the 1999 earnings distribution of 20%. This means, among others, retirees, their beneficiaries, a divorced spouse and, presumably, the humane society. This significantly broadens the scope of recovery efforts and continues to impinge on the question of whether PERS intends to use "joint life expectancy" tables to determine the actuarial recovery period. So far, PERS has not answered that question, which I've now asked multiple times. Hopefully they'll give me an answer soon since it bears on the calculator output. [Note added at 11:30. Just heard back from PERS. While they "think" they know the answer to my question, they're waiting for more direction from the actuary before making their answer public. The actuary has to report on which table(s) to use, whether there are any "holes" in the tables, and what the policy implications are for the actuary's recommendation. So, it may be awhile longer before I can finalize the calculator or answer the question about "joint mortality"].

Clampdown

The PERS Board packet for the October 21, 2005 meeting is now posted on the PERS web site. As expected, the Board will be asked to take up issues pertaining to the implementation of the Strunk ruling and the City of Eugene "settlement". The packet contains a 15 page memo from Craig Stroud, head of the Benefits Processing Division, describing the basic method and timetable for implementing the ruling. For "window" retirees who've been using my calculator, the method should come as no surprise. Within the memo is a reasonably well-documented illustration of how the method would be implemented. The benefit recalculation method, application of COLAs, and the actuarial reduction method follow nearly identically to what I had worked out from their previous documents. In short, if you want to figure out how all of this will affect you, get hold of my latest calculator (left link) and enter the appropriate data.

There is a second document in the packet that describes and details a proposed administrative rule that covers "recovery of overpayments". This is a worthwhile read as it explains the lengths to which PERS is going to go to recover 100% of the overpayments. A couple of things to note. First, the proposed OAR refers exclusively to "payees" (and doesn't not, unless I missed it, refer to "beneficiaries" or "alternate payees"). This implies that PERS does not intend to hold beneficiaries or alternate payees responsible for overpayments made to the primary retiree. Don't quote me on this yet because the OAR doesn't say it. It is an inference by omission. Second - a minor piece of good news in an otherwise dismal post. The "actuarial reduction" in monthly benefits will NOT affect the COLA base. In other words, when a COLA is due, it is applied to the actual benefit, not the benefit diminished by the actuarial recovery amount.

The Board doesn't appear to be poised to "adopt" anything at this meeting; that probably awaits even more detail at the November meeting. The longer the Board delays adopting its methodology, the longer it is before any potential litigation will be triggered. It is clear that recovery efforts - initiated by a notice of an overpayment and a description of its computation - MUST begin before April 1, 2006. The statute of limitations for errors and overpayments is set in statute to be 6 years from the date of the error. This means that PERS must initiate the process AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL not later than 6 years from the date the 1999 earnings were credited - approximately on April 1, 2000. The clampdown will start soon.

Fixing a Hole

I posted a new version of the Lipscomb Calculator over the weekend. This version fixes a "hole" in the previous iterations by adding the "actuarial" reduction calculation for "window" retirees. I based the reduction on the most current PERS tables (2001, effective 7/1/03) for life-expectancy of retirees. The new actuarial firm - Mercer & Co - has undertaken a newer study, but it is hard for me to imagine that the results will be too significantly different from the tables now used. In any case, the results should be a close approximation to final implementation. I've simultaneously released the Windows and the Mac OS X versions. It is labelled 1.0.2. You can obtain either version by following the link to the left of this blog labelled "Lipscomb Alpha Software".

Please keep in mind that the question of "joint mortality" has not yet been addressed by PERS Staff. At the moment, the Calculator assumes that the payback is over the RETIREE's life expectancy and does not carry forward to a beneficiary with joint survivor benefits. This may prove to be wrong, but joint mortality figures are not currently available and PERS has given no indication that it would extend the repayment period over a beneficiary's life expectancy too. So, until I have reasons to change the calculator, I'm not inviting trouble by making assumptions I can't currently justify.

The PERS Board meets this coming Friday (October 21) to take up further details of implementing the settlement and the Strunk case. I have no indication of whether the Board will finalize implementation details at this meeting, or wait until the November meeting. There will again be an opportunity for some public testimony, and members who are interested/affected should attend. It is again at the PERS Headquarters at 1:00 p.m.

Holla If Ya Hear Me

OK. So this is a shameless plug. The RAPS (Retiree Association of Portland State) has asked me to give a PERS Update at its Fall kickoff meeting. I've agreed and, in keeping with my musical themes, will be sharing my thoughts in a presentation entitled "The Long Arm of the Law." If you are in the Portland area and are interested, you can catch my lounge act on Thursday October 20 at 1:00 p.m. at PSU in room 338 Smith Memorial Center. If you regularly read this blog, I doubt you'll hear anything new, although with the strange way information finds its way to me, you never know.

P.S. To Chris. iTunes has the song title spelled incorrectly. I've changed it per your suggestion.

Less is More

I had a couple of interesting email exchanges in the past week. One began with the puzzled question: "What's all this talk about 20% earnings in 1999? I only got 18.5%". This led to an exchange of emails and some postings over on OPDG about this. To make a long story short, some unknown number of PERS members received "1999 Member Annual Statements" captioned with "1999 Regular Earnings Rate: 18.5%", while most of us got 1999 statements that reported the 1999 Regular Earnings Rate of 20%. When you do the math on these odd statements, it turns out that the actual earnings crediting WAS 20%, not 18.5%. While I always checked the math on my PERS statements, not everyone does. This was one of those cases where less really is more. It also means that those who hold those statements who were counting on a smaller "hit" when the PERS Board finally implements the settlement can fuggetaboutit.

Valley of Pain

Just when I thought that things couldn't get worse than yesterday's email fiasco, along comes PERS with an explanation of how they expect to implement the COLA offset ordered in the Strunk decision in relation to the recalculation of 1999 earnings required by the "settlement". As I feared, the "worst case" scenario computed by my calculator is what PERS' reality is - a valley of pain for you deeper than I had hoped for. PERS is NOT going to apply COLAs to the "fixed benefit" - a benefit they claim was computed in error. Instead PERS will: 1) add up the total amount you've been paid in monthly retirement benefits from date of retirement to implementation date; and 2) recalculate your benefits as though you had earned 11.33% in 1999, not the 20% they paid you (to get the revised benefit, they revisit 1999 and re-do the crediting on the regular account at 11.33% and compound the balance forward to the date of retirement - including contributions to accounts in 2000 - whenever you retired or 12/31/03, whichever is earlier). They will then add the appropriate COLAs to the revised benefit and get you to the implementation date. They will add up the monthly amount you should have been receiving from retirement to implementation date. They will then subtract the second balance from the first. If the result is positive, PERS owes you money. If the result is negative, that's the amount you owe PERS.

For those of you using my calculator, it has been calculating this "worst case" scenario since the beginning. It is the first large number flagged by the "<==". The second large number (smaller than the first) was the amount we'd hoped to owe PERS (actually, we hoped PERS simply owed us money, but that isn't going to happen to any "window" retiree). You might as well ignore everything in the section of the calculator labelled "COLA offset". There will be a COLA offset, but it is prefigured in the first set of calculations. Yet another revised calculator will be released shortly to reflect this sad reality. You might NOW seriously want to contribute (again or for the first time) to OPRI's Legal Defense Fund. We cannot allow this perversion of the justice system stand. Contributions to the OPRLF (Oregon PERS Retirees Legal Fund):

OPRLF
P.O. Box 7325
Salem, OR 97303-0065


P.S. Lipscomb Calculator (see link at left) has now been updated to reflect PERS' final implementation method. Actuarial recovery has not been programmed yet. Check back in a few weeks for that update.

Trapped

After 3 months of quiescence, the old PERSLIST and PERSLIST-DIGEST have suddenly been resurrected from the dead (I thought they were dead) and have begun to generate tons of messages. These lists were discontinued in June; no messages should be coming from them at all. Suddenly, spam and the predictible cries to UNSUBSCRIBE and REMOVE ME FROM THIS LIST have sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain. I've contacted the PSU Unix Team and have asked that this problem be rectified immediately. The lists are no longer used, period! They're working as fast as they can. In the meantime, please don't make the situation worse. I KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEM. Emailing to tell me contributes nothing but clutter to my mailbox. WORSE, emailing the list asking to unsubscribe only makes the problem MUCH WORSE. Not only doesn't it work, it sends all those emails to all the others on the list, including me. Please bear with me. I didn't create this problem. I don't need this problem. I'm working as fast as I can to get rid of this problem.

Getting Better

As a result of a very organized effort involving volunteers, the OPRI website has been updated, modernized, and is ready to receive visitors. The new site hasn't been fully propagated to the old space yet, but you can still get to it by going here. By the end of this coming week, the new site will have completed its move to the old domain and will be fully accessible as before. The organization of the web committee makes it possible to update the site quickly, get out documents that the OPRI Board feels are timely and relevant, and make more highly visible its efforts to raise funds for litigation or for lobbying. Those of us involved with the revised website hope that it won't be too much longer before it will possible to join OPRI online, to renew memberships online, and to contribute to the legal defense fund online.

Please take a few minutes to visit the new site (you'll be redirected at first, but this is short-lived) and let us know what you think. There is a link on the new site that will direct comments to the OPRI Board Member on the Web Design Committee.

Detox Mansion

I'm off to detox mansion to catch up on some unfinished business. This seems like an ideal time to do so. There isn't much else going on in PERS land at the moment and I've implored, cajoled, and begged about as much as I have patience for right now. Unless something really significant occurs, I wouldn't look for another post here until next week at the earliest. I hope to be able to report in my next post that I've finished the next revision of my Lipscomb Calculator.

P.S. (early a.m.) I have posted an updated version of the Lipscomb Calculator. It mostly fixes an annoying bug that afflicted people who specifically retired 7/1/03. It also adds another interpretation of how PERS might implement the COLA offset. You can get a copy by clicking on the link to the left entitled Lipscomb Calculation Alpha Software. (Please do let me know - by email - of your experiences, good, bad, or ugly with this version). The next version will have more substantive additions including the actuarial reduction factors built in for payback of balances due to PERS. It is still weeks away. Anyway, back to detox mansion for that "unfinished business therapy".

They Sold Me Out

As I've been reminded repeatedly in the past few days, we need to radically change our way of thinking about what the PERS Board has proposed doing. On the surface, it appears that the "kinder and gentler" approach is winning a PR war against some common sense. Many people are viewing what the PERS Board has offered up as pabulum to the retirees as a relatively small "hit" to their benefits. The typical magnitude I see reported is about 2-5% depending on one's age and how long one has been retired. We need to think about the LONG RANGE implications of what is being done. First, PERS *is* cutting the base benefit for 85% of retirees since 4/1/00. Virtually all of those are from the period between 4/1/00 and 4/1/04. My benefit will be cut by $55 per month FROM A BENEFIT THAT HAS BEEN ILLEGALLY FROZEN for more than 3 years. Leaving aside that significant fact, the mere cut in my base benefit amounts to a lifetime cut to me and to my wife (joint mortality) of about $20,000.** In addition, PERS is going to collect an additional $45 per month from me to repay benefits they claim to have already paid me illegally. That's another $16,200 over our joint life expectancy. So, right off the bat, this kinder and gentler approach will cost me more than $36,000 over my remaining life. But that's only the half of it. If you believe that the combination of the legislature and the Supreme Court claimed that PERS couldn't freeze my COLA on my current benefit, the losses are staggering. At the very least, my current benefit is supposed to be approximately $400 per month higher NOW than it was when I retired in 2002. But PERS has been illegally withholding that increase and they won't pay it out now. So, if we treat that amount in the simplest possible way - as a fixed and invariant difference between what they are paying me and what they are supposed to be paying me, then the losses -- on top of what they plan to collect back from me -- amount to another $144,000 over my actuarial lifetime.

So, think about it. The kinder and gentler PERS is offering to buy my silence and my assent with an offer that sounds good to others, but represents a direct loss to me of about $180,000 over my lifetime. More to the point, PERS plans to recover $800,000,000 (that's $800 million) just from retirees lower benefits. Kinder and gentler my eye. That's a sell out on an Enron scale.

If you object to this, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Send your donations -- and send them large and now -- to OPRI - the group who represents all retirees from PERS. It is hard to motivate legal action when there isn't significant outrage. Benefit cuts of 2% don't generate the kind of outrage necessary to stop this travesty. But, don't be confused by the PR. The true cuts are much higher -- more on the order of 7-10% and add up to serious money over the actuarial lifetimes of retirees. If you believe the cut is relatively small, I've got a bridge to sell you. It only looks small to the myopic. (Again, the analysis will make it appear that the cuts are small; but this is misdirection and fiscal sleight of hand. Your attention is being diverted to one calculation while a second calculation is conveniently ignored, overlooked, and papered over).

Donations to:

OPRLF
P.O. Box 7325
Salem, OR 97303 -- 0065

It will take many hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop the $800 million freight train from squashing retirees beneath its wheels. Even if you think you're not being hit hard, remember this BIG number -- that's how much it is really costing retirees.

** this $55 per month is removed from the future COLA calculations as well. So to think about this correctly, one would have to project the future value of monthly reductions of $55 that are NOT subject to future 2% COLA increases. When figured with the 2% COLA for one's actuarial lifetime, it amounts to a lifetime cut of $36,227, not $20,000. If the actuarial reduction for repayment is also excluded from the future COLA adjustments, it also virtually doubles. So leaving out the issue of COLA adjustments to our current benefits -- which the Court ruled must happen, but isn't going to -- the long-term losses are still over $60,000. And the $800 million gorilla is still there.

The Indifference of Heaven

For those who like to listen to audio transcripts of tedious meetings, here is the complete audio of the PERS Board meeting from last Friday. Beware, it is a big file (20 MB). Note also that this is only the segment of the meeting where the discussion and testimony on the implementation of Strunk/Lipscomb/Settlement took place. It is approximately 2 hours long.

The Long Arm of the Law

Attended two events today. The first was the OEA "rally" before the PERS Board meeting. I met quite a few regular readers there and had an opportunity both to chat with Greg Hartman and to listen to Greg's take on what the Board was planning to do. Hartman stated that he believed that nothing would derail the PERS Board from proceeding with the plan outlined by PERS Staff. That said, he also pointed out that new litigation was already being planned and that the trigger would be pulled once the PERS Board made its final decisions or implementing the recovery plan. He is convinced that acting on behalf of "window retirees" is the first order of business and that the White case would probably cover everyone active, inactive, and who retired outside the "window". He revealed a bit of the legal strategy, but I would prefer to withhold any remarks until I better understand what the significance of the strategy is.

The second event was the PERB meeting itself. There was a fairly large crowd that extended out into the antechamber outside the actual PERS Board Room. I'd guess that there were about 150 members/retirees there along with a remarkably small press contingent - no TV cameras at all. I guess that this has become so "ho hum" that wire service reports are sufficient. The meeting began with a presentation by Steve Rodeman and Craig Stroud on the implementation plan outlined in the memo to the Board. Staff and counsel continue to believe that section 14b of HB 2003 is not legal, yet interestingly in the very same breath argue that section 14b2 denies them any ability to charge employers for this. I was left wondering how one could selectively decide which parts of section 14b were legal and which weren't legal. In any case, this was followed by brief presentations from Greg Hartman, Bill Gary, and Joseph Malkin. Hartman argued that the Board was taking an illegal path, prevented by the Supreme Court in Strunk; Gary argued that Hartman misrepresents what the Court said in Strunk and that he also misunderstands HB 2003. Malkin simply offered advice to the Board on the "box" they were in and that their options were really limited. All three lawyers (including Hartman) agreed that the approach that staff had come up with was the fairest and most humane way of dealing with an admittedly bad situation. This was then followed by a couple of named panels testifying both against and for what the Staff had recommended. Finally, the Board allowed about 12 retirees to give brief statements. After that the Board, at the request of Paul Cleary, gave the okay for the PERS Staff to further flesh out the proposal and offer a more detailed implementation plan that would be brought back to the Board in October and, if necessary, November. Final approval of the plan is still a month or two away. The public testimony revealed a couple of issues that the staff was directed to explore. Among them, to consider the potential tax implications for members repaying in a lump sum, to consider a request for an "installment plan" that extended over some fixed period of time (in addition to the actuarial plan), to consider a request to reopen the 60-day window for retirees to revisit their optional payment method. There were also questions raised about whether it was appropriate for PERS to collect more than what a member owed (i.e. the actuarial roulette), whether the reduction in benefit would extend to a beneficiary or alternate payee after a member died, and exactly how the amount owed would be calculated.

There was one surprise issue that I hadn't expected to be an issue. It has always been assumed that no member who retired prior to 4/1/00 would be affected. Apparently there are approximately 547 members who retired as early as 1996 or 1997 that could be affected. The effect arises because the earnings crediting for 1999 included anyone who had taken some form of lump sum payment and then withdrew the money in installments from the time of retirement until some point no more than 5 years later. If there was any lump sum money on deposit with PERS at the time the 1999 earnings were credited in March 2000, there would be some liability for repayment there. That came out of the blue to me.

All in all the meeting was conducted in an orderly manner and members/retirees behaved well. While the Board members fell all over themselves to express empathy and sympathy for the retirees' plight, they all -- including Tom Grimsley -- concluded that they were boxed in by the Courts, the statutes, and the settlement agreement. These expressions rang hollow in two instances: one was James Dalton's callous remark (disguised as an attempt to be funny) that some of the emails were clearly angry and reflected more of a desire to ventilate than to express much of a reasoned position. Dalton then commented that one needed to be a "human dialysis machine" at times to have the job of being a Board member. It was intended to be funny -- and many laughed -- but I didn't find it humorous. I found it insulting and offensive. The second comment was from Board Chair Mike Pittman. Before anyone was allowed to testify, he publicly stated that he doubted that anything anyone would say was likely to be new and that, as a result, he was going to limit testimony. Again, this was probably true to some degree, but it rubbed me the wrong way. It was Pittman's way of basically saying: "you're wasting your afternoon here. I've made up my mind and you might as well leave now". Against that background, professions of empathy and sympathy ring mighty hollow.

A fellow OPRI member recorded the entire meeting and will be making the audio available to me shortly. Hopefully I'll be able to post an audio transcript of the meeting on my website in a day or two for those who want to listen.

In the meantime, I've put in my request to PERS for more implementation information so that I can make the necessary revisions to my calculator. I don't support anything PERS plans to do -- if that weren't obvious -- but I want members to be as well-prepared as possible for whatever comes down the pike. There is little hope of derailing the Board's current freight train, so we might as well get a better description of its shape as it bears down on us. The lawsuits will come in due course.

You've Got a Friend In Me

The PERB's *only* representative of workers, Tom Grimsley, has assured me that he "hears" the concerns of members and retirees, and he plans to vote against the PERS Staff proposal for "recovery" of the alleged 1999 overcredits. He also plans to push for the Board and Staff to look for other ways of recovering these funds without damaging the positions of active members, inactives, and retirees. I really appreciate Tom's willingness to respond personally both to my call and emails, but more importantly to his committment to act in what he believes are the interests of the stakeholders he represents on the PERB. Win or lose today, Tom has earned my gratitude and appreciation.

Hope to see lots of you at today's meeting.

Call Me

Tom Grimsley, a labor representative on the PERS Board, is interested in hearing from each of you about the PERS Board's options at the meeting on Friday. Please review the information posted at here. And then he is asking you to call or write him but before Friday (tomorrow) at 541-729-3115, or email him at tgrim29245@aol.com. I've left Tom a message. Send him your direct input via email or by phone ASAP.

Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell

OK. I couldn't resist that great Flaming Lips song title. It got your attention though, didn't it? Just a reminder that tomorrow (Friday, September 23rd) at 1 pm, the PERS Board meets to decide how to implement the "settlement" of the City of Eugene case. If you've been following along (see the past four or five entries to this blog), you know that some really important decisions will be made tomorrow. There will also be public testimony on PERS' plans. It is my considered opinion that it is really, really important that as many members and retirees be AT the meeting tomorrow. PERS and the Board needs to see the whites of the eyes of real people affected by these decisions. Let's not make it easy by apathy. Show up! PERS Headquarters is in Tigard, Oregon off exit 293 of I-5 (11410 SW 68th Parkway, Tigard, OR, 97223). Parking is tight. Carpool if you can. Here is an annotated satellite picture of the area immediately surrounding PERS with no parking areas annotated. Also note that this is an old picture. There is absolutely NO on street parking along 68th Parkway, from SW Atlanta to Pacific Highway. I plan to be at the meeting. I look forward to meeting you. If you want to read both the summary and the long version of the implementation plan proposed by PERS Staff, this is where you find them.

Math Suks

Especially PERS math. I've been dissecting the PERS implementation plan as outlined by Steve Rodeman's memo to the PERS Board (see yesterday's entry). It is hard for me to imagine that the PERB will NOT adopt this plan, especially since Rodeman's analysis essentially leaves them with no other alternatives. Memo to Steve: the Board likes options, even if you recommend they choose one in particular. You chose to leave them no choices. You even played judge and jury and ruled on the "illegality" of a statute that has never been tested in Court (14b). That makes folks like me really cranky.

But, no matter. Math is hard; let's go to the mall instead. Or not. Let's figure out what PERS has up its sleeve. Assume that after all the smoke and mirror calculations are done with COLAS and overcredits and overpayments, you find yourself owing PERS $15,000 on August 1, 2006. Let's further suppose that you are 60 years old when you get the bill (or whatever you get). If we look at PERS last study of life expectancies of PERS retirees, we see that a 60 year old retiree is expected to live an additional 24.4 years (293 months). Using PERS' method, your benefit reduction would be $51.19 per month for the rest of your life, whether you actually live 50 months or 400 months. If you have a beneficiary who will continue to receive a benefit after your death, the reduction would extend to that person's lifetime as well. This approach doesn't charge you any interest (good) and you get to repay the money in depreciating dollars (that's OK too). The cost for thisis that you and your surviving beneficiary could end up paying back far more than you owe. Since there are few of us around who actually believe we OWE anything, it is hard to work up any enthusiasm for a method used for no other reason than the fact that SOMEONE has decided that the Legislature's statutory remedy is illegal prima facie, before any judge has ever commented on it. That math and that calculus sucks.

If I Fall You're Going Down With Me

That seems to be the message retirees are planning to send to the PERB on Friday and thereafter. The PERS Staff released the agenda and packet for Friday's meeting yesterday. In the packet is the staff analysis and recommendation for implementing the settlement agreement for actives, inactives, and "window retirees". You can read the document on my web site here. I've extracted the 18 page memo from the full 155 page packet so that you can focus only on it and not the other issues that the Board has littered the meeting agenda with.

For those who don't understand these documents, here is my *take* on what the Board intends to do with "window retirees". The first thing they plan to do is to WAIT until the next COLA takes effect (July 1, 2006 for payment on August 1, 2006). This allows the recomputed benefit (the one computed as if 11.33% had been credited in March 2000, instead of the 20% we all got), to grow by another COLA and get closer to the current benefit. At that point, most, but by no means all, of the "window retirees" will have their "correct" benefit be very close to, or in excess of the benefit they're currently receiving. Then PERS will go back and figure out how much you've already repaid by the COLA freeze to date (this is really just "play money" because they're going to credit it against what you were overpaid since you've been retired). The net of the total amount of overpayments minus the total amount withheld via COLA freezes will be what you still OWE PERS. Repayment will be discussed below. You will HAVE to receive notification of your outstanding liability by no later than April 1, 2006 because the statute of limitations for notifying members of computational errors in their benefit calculations is 6 years from the data of the alleged error (error supposedly made at end of March 2000). PERS has to notify you in writing and you have to be given an opportunity to appeal the notice. Apparently the only members who will get "contested case" status will be those who have not received a formal "Notice of Entitlement". Those who have will be, no doubt, subject to the quickie appeal whose outcome is a mere formality - you lose!

Repayment. In an effort to be charitable, PERS is planning to offer retirees two options for replayment. Option 1 will be the "lump sum" method, in which you get to duke it out with your tax preparer and the IRS to figure out exactly how to recover the taxes already paid on this money, and how to insulate yourself from any penalty from the premature withdrawal of tax-advantaged funds. It the immortal words of the late Freddie Prinze, "that's not our job, mon". The alternative approach - here's where the charity is (not!) - PERS will amortize your repayment, interest free, over your actuarially equivalent lifetime. In other words, PERS will figure out how long you're expected to live based on their CURRENT mortality tables, and reduce your monthly benefit by an amount designed to exactly recover what you owe -interest free- if you lived your expected lifetime and not a day longer. If you die earlier, they get back less from you; if you outlive the tables, you pay back more. The generosity in this approach is that your COLAs will continue to be paid (on your REVISED benefit, not your current benefit) and so the "hurt" of the repayment diminishes with each COLA. This ain't no free lunch, believe me. You've lost 4 years' worth of purchasing power so far, you'll be effectively frozen or reduced for another year, and then the effect of the 2007 COLA might finally move your benefit past where it has been frozen for as many as 5 years. Morevoer, if you choose to play actuarial roulette (and who wouldn't do this if it were "interest free"), your benefit might still be less than it is right now -- in fact I don't know anyone whose benefit won't be lower on 8/1/2006 than it is now. (Wanna see what this looks like? Download my calculator from the link at the left. The net amount "overpaid" already includes the repayments PERS owes you and what you owe them. That's the amount that will need to be paid back over however long the actuarial tables think you have to live -- from 2006 -- not from the date of retirement).

Who will get dinged? Anyone receiving a monthly benefit check from PERS is guaranteed to get hit; anyone who took a lump sum and still has PERS holding an installment will get hit. PERS acknowledges that it might be difficult to collect from lump summers who moved and can't be located, and it doesn't sound like they plan to be too aggressive in trying to locate them. Indeed, they outline plans for offsetting those losses from the very funds they claim can't be used to resolve the whole shebang.

I can tell you that everything I've heard from all the key plaintiffs groups is that they ARE NOT going to take this without putting up one savage legal fight. Read the staff analysis carefully and read how they completely dismiss options the legislature lays out for resolving this by dismissing them as illegal. It's funny that PERB was disinterested in the Attorney General's opinions while the legislation and litigation was crafted; now they're using it selectively to make precisely the OPPOSITE legal arguments that were made during legislative hearings.

Plan to be at the PERB meeting Friday. Make sure the Board understands that they're gonna have to find other fools and that if we fall, they're going with us. Be nice, be polite, be politic, and be diplomatic. But the Board needs to understand that we haven't seen this much generosity from a public agency since FEMA's initial involvement in Hurricane Katrina. We are just overwhelmingly grateful (NOT!).

P.S. Keep the checks coming to OPRI's Legal Fund. Retirees and actives alike have huge stakes in this. See yesterday's post for address.

Its Money That Matters

There is a boatload of YOUR money at stake at the upcoming PERS Board Meeting (September 23, 2005). The action begins at 1 pm at PERS Headquarters. By this time, no one needs to be reminded of the stakes, but the central issue is the re-crediting of 1999 earnings for all PERS members (active members, inactive members, and retirees). The Board claims all sorts of authority for itself as a result of its “settlement” of the City of Eugene case with the group of 8 employers. My employer wasn’t a party to that suit, nor was it a party to the settlement. However, several different groups representing my interests were intervenors in the City of Eugene case, but they were denied participation in the “settlement” talks. In any case, the PERS Board intends to implement this legally questionable agreement for ALL members of the PERS system, whatever their status now, who had a Tier 1 Regular account at the end of 1999. The only published examples of how PERS would do this are on the PERS website. I’ve written a calculator that helps individuals understand the financial consequences of the PERS “floater” for members who retired during the 4/1/00 to 3/1/04 “window” – the only group for which there is the potential for a combination of benefit reductions and invoices for past alleged “overpayments” exists. Of course, there are many rumors floating around about what the PERB will actually do when faced with very unhappy campers who have sound legal reason to contest a decision of this sort. There are also political consequences as we have a sitting governor who promised reform that wouldn’t dig into the pockets of retirees, and people have continued to remind him of that as his HAND-PICKED Board continues its ham-fisted attack on members benefits.

Now that I’ve painted a “sky is falling” scenario, what can YOU do (if you haven’t done anything already). FIRST, sit down right now and send a firm, but respectful letter or email protesting this action to Mr. Paul Cleary and all five members of the PERS Board (Mike Pittman, Eva Kripalani, James Dalton, Brenda Rocklin, and Tom Grimsley). Their email addresses can be found via a link to the left. You should also send the same, or a similar, email or letter to the Governor. In this letter you should remind the Governor of his commitment back on January 23, 2003 to not solve the PERS problem by reaching back into the accounts of members who’d already retired. Send these letters or emails by NO LATER THAN TUESDAY. The meeting is Friday, and they will have greatest impact if they’re there and included in the overall summary of mail prior to the meeting.

NEXT, you should sit down and write TWO checks. The first check should be written to OPRI (Oregon PERS Retirees Inc), which is the organization that has funded all the previous battles over PERS retirement benefits – taxation of PERS benefits, Ballot Measure 8, and Strunk/Sartain – the COLA freeze mechanism). Their dues are $5 per year; $50 for life. Send this check to:

OPRI
PO Box 7325
Salem, OREGON 93703-0065

The SECOND – and more important check – should be to the Oregon PERS Retirees Legal Fund (OPRLF). Please give as much as you can. Litigation is expensive and the next fight won’t have the benefit of being “fast tracked” directly to the Oregon Supreme Court. I suggest that a good minimum donation ought to be the value of 2 months’ worth of lost COLAs. I also suggest that this shouldn’t be a “one-off” donation. Once litigation begins, the meter keeps running. The OPRI case in the consolidated Strunk matter cost about $300,000. The next one or ones will be more expensive. There are nearly 50,000 members who’ve retired since 4/1/2000 and the retiree cohorts are each affected a bit differently. Our interests are aligned and it is important that ALL contribute to the cause – even members still actively working. Just remember, today’s actives are tomorrow’s retirees. The actions we retirees prevent today become your assurances when you retire. So, make those checks out to OPRLF and send them to:

OPRLF
PO BOX 7325
Salem, OREGON 93703-0065

FINALLY, do everything possible to attend the PERS Board meeting on Friday. I cannot tell you how important it is to have a large crowd present as the Board wrestles with this decision. It is infinitely harder to make the kind of decision PERS has said it will make in a room full of hundreds (or thousands) of members who will be directly affected by their actions. I will actively discourage any bad behavior at the meeting. There is no need to be rude, disrespectful, or do anything that would endanger the cause we’re fighting for. Remember, the general public doesn’t hold PERS members/retirees in high esteem at all; let’s not turn this into a media circus that gives the public the stereotype they’ve already painted for us. Exhibit decorum. Let the speakers speak. A stony, grim, and laser-focused face communicates far more than any action that makes noise. Polite applause is OK, but fan-type whoops, hollers, and screams are appropriate at a sporting event, not at a meeting like this.

This may be one of the few chances MEMBERS and RETIREES have to influence the outcome of a decision that has enormous consequences to your personal financial future. Make your statements, be heard. It is “money that matters”.

P.S. If you donate to OPRLF and there is an excess, or court cases don't result, or the court awards fees, OPRI has a history of returning excess funds to their donors. The keep impeccable records and know exactly who donated how much, when, and for what. Rest assured that they use only what they need and return the excess.

Find Another Fool

The rumor reported in Thursday's "Rumors" post appears to be the course the PERB is planning to take according to an email I received this weekend from a well-informed source. PERB seems to think that by stalling any action against "window retirees" for another year, that we retirees will perceive that our "hit" is nominal - i.e. our benefits won't be reduced and they can simply grab what we've already given them in withheld COLA increases. As Portland chanteuse, Rindy Ross once sang, find another fool. I doubt this will sit well with most retirees.

Rumors

AFSCME (one of the PERS Coalition union members) sent out an email yesterday that contained the following concerning the upcoming (September 23, 2005) PERS Board meeting:

" So what will happen? We don't know for sure, but there may be some good news for retirees. You will recall that Lipscomb declared that members — including those now retired — had received too much interest crediting in 1999 and that the "extra" money would have to be paid back. We are now hearing rumblings — nothing official, mind you — that PERS staff intend to propose to the board that it take no action with regard to retirees until August 2006. The reasoning, apparently, is at that point in time another COLA will have gone into effect, making those retirees' then current monthly benefit higher than the recalculated one. Therefore, retirees at that point could "pay back" what they owe without seeing a decrease in their monthly check — it would essentially stay the same instead.

Additionally, with regard to any lump sums that may be owed by retirees who took lump sum payments, the PERS staff may recommend that the board pursue the "actuarially determined" method with no interest, which would result in only a small subtraction of benefits over the life of the remaining payments. Again, this is not official but it is more than just an idle rumor. If in fact it works out this way, it's good news for our retirees for the immediate future and would hold them fairly harmless while our legal appeals continue.

Of course, there can never be all good news when it relates to PERS. Despite objections from our legal counsel as to the legality of taking any steps on this whole payback issue, it appears the PERS Board will move forward with some implementations that we oppose. Rather than speculate, we'll report back to you as soon as we can after the fact. The PERS Board meetings are open to the public, and several members of our AFSCME Retirees Chapter intend to be on hand to monitor the proceedings; we will have staff there too, of course."

As others have commented, it's disturbing what some people consider "good" news. It is also distressing to read that AFSCME expects "several members of our AFSCME Retirees Chapter" to attend the Board meeting. I'm concerned that if too FEW people show up, it might give the PERB reason to suspect that less of us are interested and concerned about the outcome than they are. There is strength in WELL-BEHAVED numbers.

I'm also concerned that if PERS chooses to implement in this particular way, it would be impossible to figure out, in advance, exactly what the "hit" will be, to figure out what COLA benefit any member might be entitled to now or in the future (what is the base benefit?). I would agree, however, that if this were the only alternative after the litigation has run its course, it appears to be better than the "just hit 'em hard with an invoice and reduce their benefits approach". But good news really seems to me to be relative. In case you don't understand what is being rumored for non-lump sum retirees, the rumor suggests that the PERB is simply going to do what the legislation proposed -- and was struck down -- and call it something else. It does appear that they *might* not try to get money they don't already have from retirees, and they might not reduce benefits from their current levels, but I'm not really sure this is what the law says. Clearly, the intent here is to exchange those withheld COLAs for the "invoice" and call it square. Again, if this were my only option, I'd prefer it to the punitive approach of the settlement, but personally I still don't feel PERB has any legal authority to do even this. [NOTE: there are considerable disagreements about what the 'real' meaning of this rumor is, what it is suggesting that PERS might try or not try to do. At this point, it is useless to speculate. The only information anyone has put out is the rumor I've posted above. Read it and draw whatever conclusions you wish. Mine is simply MY OWN reading of the words. I have NO other information.]

Citadel

I've learned about one approach the PERS Coalition plans to take with the PERS Board should the board continue to pursue its efforts to recover alleged 1999 overpayments and reduce benefits for the 36,000 +/- members who retired in the "window" between April 1, 2000 and April 1, 2004. The loose outline is that Greg Hartman, on behalf of the Coalition, has sent a firmly written letter to Paul Cleary, Executive Director of PERS, urging him to recommend to the PERS Board that they NOT pursue recovery on the grounds that the Strunk opinion concluded that the Legislature had clearly defined a new "fixed benefit" for those "window" retirees which, contrary to the Legislature's wishes, must include statutory COLA increases. This, according to Hartman, precludes the Board from applying any remedy of the "settlement" agreement and also makes ORS 238.715 inapplicable. While the letter lays out the legal argument, there is no evidence that the PERS Board is, or will be persuaded by the argument. If they aren't, and pursue their recovery efforts, the Coalition plans to file for a temporary injunction to prevent the PERS Board from proceeding with implementation, while they file a new lawsuit in Multnomah County against the PERB. Do keep in mind that this citadel strategy is for those particular retirees in the window. The Coalition has not revealed its plans for actives, inactives, or post-window retirees, other than to indicate that the White case -- already in Multnomah County Circuit Court -- might be fine-tuned and expanded. We also do not know what what plans OPRI might have. Moreover, OPRI continues to need legal funds because it will almost surely participate in the legal actions either in combination with the Coalition and/or separately. Either or both of these strategies will require megabucks.

Consider This

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:

The September 23, 2005 PERS Board meeting is about two weeks away. While the agenda hasn't been published, we know that the Board intends to take up the question of how to implement the "settlement" agreement in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that the City of Eugene appeal (the "Lipscomb case" appeal) lacked any active controversy and was moot. This meeting has generated a ton of interest from active members, inactive members, and most significantly, from retirees. Attendance at the meeting is expected to be at record highs, and PERS members/retiree emotions are predictibly very high, nerves are raw, and the potential for an incendiary flashpoint great. It is pretty common knowledge by now that PERS has been trying to take the pulse of the various organizational entities who have dogs in this fight to determine how many members they expect to show up at the meeting, how many people expect to speak, etc. I've heard rumors of possible changes to the meeting venue, of the possibility of trying to televise the meeting on either cable channels or in closed circuit to meeting rooms away from the main site, and of potential security issues that may compel parking management, and, quite worrisomely, personal security pmanagement.

Please consider this as a very important request:

If you are planning to go to the PERS meeting, keep a close watch on this site for news of possible changes to the meeting location. The meeting is currently scheduled for PERS Headquarters in Tigard at 1 pm on Friday September 23.

If you are planning to go to the meeting, PLEASE plan to behave respectfully and business -like. You can wear your grimmest faces, and you can be angry, but control your anger and stick to the facts. The media will be there in full force and you will be on display to TV cameras and to the print media. It does the cause no good to be hurling profane epithets at the Board or anyone else; it does no good to organize "picketing events with bumper-sticker signs". THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE MEMBERS EXERT IS BY SHEER DINT OF ATTENDANCE AT THE MEETING. Being there in legions, and squadrons, and platoons and sitting stony-faced while listening to the many who will speak against the PERB's planned actions will do more to support our cause than any act of civil or uncivil disobediance that any individual or group might have planned. Don't give the PERB political cover to make its bad decisions by letting the public sees us as "crazies".

In the meantime, not everyone will get to speak and not everyone has something different to say. Whether you plan to speak or not, EVERYONE should write or email PERS Executive Director Paul Cleary, and the members of the PERS Board to express their opinions, concerns, and opposition to the Board's planned course of action. You can find the needed email addreses in a link to the left. Do not wait until the day before the Board meeting to do this. Note also that "fairness" is not a precise legal term, but there are plenty of perfectly good examples of letters that cover the range of issues that the Board has not, so far, taken into consideration as they proceed. If you are looking for such examples, go to the Oregon PERS Discussion Group (OPDG) link to the left.

Remember: the strategy for letters and for attendance at the meetings is to be firm, grim, but most of all business-like and reasonably respectful. Don't do anything that would undermine our credibility or make the public dislike us more than they already do.

Thin Line Between Love and Hate

This is a slighted edited version of a post I made over on the BlueOregon site. The title of the blog entry pretty much says it all, but it doesn't hurt to explain it a bit.

I'd be willing to hazard a guess that if the whole issue of the 1999 earnings crediting decision were left alone, and that if PERS and everyone else agreed that the 2000 PERS Board made a stupid, but not illegal, decision and that no restitution is due from innocent PERS members and retirees, most of the legal disputes would disappear and many PERS members would come onboard with the rest of the reform. The 1999 earnings crediting edecision has become the beach on which everyone is willing to spill blood and die. Since the legal theory on which the current Board's actions rest have never been tested, there is no end to the litigation will follow from the Board's attempt to "go there". No matter the outcome. Everyone loses if this battle goes on much longer. There is NO way for the employers to WIN even if they win. They've already got a totally demoralized work force, an energized and demanding set of unions who are finding a whole new set of issues, and factions within employer groups and employee groups that are fighting with each other. There are huge political consequences for both parties if this battle goes on much longer. A sitting Governor is vulnerable because he has brought the wrath of public employees down on himself. He further damaged his credibility by avoiding any significant participation in the fractious budget debates in this year's legislature.

The earnings on the PERS Fund were about 34% in 2003. All of that is sitting in reserve funds except for what was paid out to Tier 2 members. According to the actuaries, the combination of funds reserved from 2003 plus the excess above the 2004 assumed rate are nearly enough to take care of the 1999 earnings decision and we could just move on. The legislation accomplished creating a new retirement tier for new public employees, it stopped employee money from flowing into Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts, it eliminated further money going into the variable, it approved a new mechanism for implementing mortality table changes every two years, and new mechanisms were put into statute to prevent the PERS Board from paying out more than the assumed rate until some very strict reserving tests are met (and with the global economy, post 9/11 and post Katrina world, it is highly probable that the PERS Board would rarely be in a statutory position to pay more than the assumed rate anytime in the future). Moreover, the PERS Board has been restructured completely and new rules permit and require the AG's office to stay out of legal advice to the PERB where it has a conflict of interest. There is a new actuarial firm that doesn't have 30 + years of history with PERS. These changes alone account for about half of the savings from the reform, and serve to prevent PERB from making the kinds of misjudgements it made in the past. Moreover, the Oregon Investment Council is now meeting with the PERS Board and Staff much more regularly so that the goals are more fully aligned. The Supreme Court has spoken on several issues crucial to PERS members and retirees and effectively "divided the baby" on the PERS Reforms. To be sure PERS members and some retirees lost more than they might have gained, but the net effect was to allow both sides to declare "victory" and move forward.

So to the PERS Board, to the Legislature, to the Governor, and to the group of 8 employers, I ask that instead of seeking the punitive recovery for 1999 earnings, 6 years after the fact, why not just let it drop? It isn't the biggest piece of the pie. The employers and the public accomplished major changes to PERS. Why not quit while you're significantly ahead?

The 1999 earnings decision has become such an incendiary flashpoint that it threatens to tie this matter up for many more years as multiple major lawsuits are planned, there is one in the pipeline in Multnomah County Circuit Court, and there is still a US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case pending.

Silly ideas like terminating PERS will become so economically and legally unpalatable that they'll never fly. Even sillier ideas like firing all public employees one day and rehiring them the next day under a new 401-k system are so moronic as to defy comment.

This battle could be a lot closer to over if the 1999 earnings issue were taken off the table. At this point, the PERS members have nothing more to lose by pursuing further legal action, while the public has an enormous stake whether it wins or loses these legal battles. Just remember that the thin line between love and hate is drawn on the 1999 earnings credit decision.

Eyesight to the Blind

It’s the day after Labor Day – the official start of ‘silly season’ and the sillies are out in full force. Over on BlueOregon – a reputedly ‘progressive’ political website, a Hillsboro lawyer named Robert Harris published his screed on PERS benefits. To get on BlueOregon, Mr. Harris had to claim his liberal credentials, which he did by admitting he was a Hubert Humphrey liberal. No matter that Mr. Harris was probably a teenager or younger during Mr. Humphrey’s span as a senator, a Vice President of the US, and the democratic Presidential nominee (who lost to Richard Nixon in 1968). All this is really irrelevant to Mr. Harris’ polemic, which is to call for further reductions to Tier 1 PERS member retirement benefits. Mr. Harris repeats the tiresome canard that PERS members retire at 55 and draw 105% of their final salary in retirement. Mr. Harris even adds to the calaloo of misinformation by implying that retirees somehow get Cadillac medical benefits – a point on which I demand to see proof (there isn’t any, by the way. Retiree medical benefits are paid for entirely by retirees and they are expensive, increasing in cost, and anything but lavish).

I want to point out that Mr. Harris’ (and the Oregonian's) continued perpetuation of the myth that PERS members retire at 105% of FAS is misleading in extremis. First, Mr. Harris speaks of the retirement benefit of 105% as an average. This is technically correct, but FIRST: it only applies to PERS members who retire with 30+ years of service. According to the PERS Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), 30+ year service retirements only account for about 10% of ALL PERS retirements. Mr. Harris and every reporter who has recited this or similar statistics are ignoring 90% of the data to get to this particular “fact”. SECOND: while the CAFR only reports averages, averages are completely misleading and are strongly affected by “outliers”. To give a simple example, suppose we have 10 people, each of whom earns $25,000 per year. The average salary is $25,000; the median salary is $25,000. Now, suppose we add Phil Knight to the room with his $50,000,000 annual salary (I don’t actually know Phil Knight’s salary, but it hardly matters to make my point). Now, the median remains at $25,000 but the average salary has risen to $4,568,181. Which figure more accurately portrays the typical salary of our group of 11 people? So, the PERS figures for 30+ year retirees may be computationally accurate, but totally misleading. Why is it that the Bureau of Labor Statistics normally reports medians rather than averages. I submit that this is one of the primary reasons.

I also want to publicly ask Mr. Harris and all the various reporters for the Oregonian who’ve covered PERS issues (Jim Mayer, Betsy Hammond, Brent Walth) why they never include information about the benefits of the 90% of PERS retirees who don’t put in 30+ years before retiring? Is it because your argument would be undermined by all those folks who retired at something closer to 40 or 50% of FAS? Why don’t you dig deeper to find out why PERS insists on using averages instead of medians? Why aren’t you interested in figuring out whether the 105% average is applicable only to members who participated in the variable program, and whether anyone who participated only in the regular PERS Tier 1 accounts ever retired at more than 100% of salary. There are lots of interesting stories out there, but none have done more unnecessary damage to Tier 1 members and fueled public policy decisions than the most misleading of all statistics – the continued assertion that typical PERS members retire at more than 100% of their salaries. This is NOT TRUE of typical PERS members. It applies to a tiny subset of retirees in any given year. People who continue to perpetuate this untruth fall into the category of “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Time to put your glasses back on and see again.

Gimme Back My Bullets

As reported earlier, the intervenors in the City of Eugene case filed a motion with the court to "vacate" the City of Eugene judgement. A copy of the motion to vacate can be found here. Note in particular, footnote 4, which seems to put the plaintiffs in the City of Eugene case in an interesting predicament. If they contest the motion, it seems to say that the City of Eugene case is precedential, which the Supreme Court seems to be denying in mooting the City of Eugene appeal. I'd like to think this is the legal equivalent of the "heads we win, tails you lose" position that the employers and the PERB thought they'd have with the "settlement". We're taking back the bullets now.

P.S. Thanks to JRS from the OPDG group for tracking down this motion. I put it into pdf form, which makes it more universally easy to read.

Rise Up

I've just learned that Greg Hartman, on behalf of the PERS Coalition, has sent a letter to the PERS Board asserting that the Strunk decision protects retirees from the actions contemplated by the PERS Board at its September 23, 2005 meeting. Here is a copy of the letter.

I'm now back from a wonderful vacation, fully energized and raring to go. Hopefully I'll be able to stay on top of the developments a bit better from home than from our vacation home. Time to start rising up.