The Walk

Will be somewhat slow for a while. In the game of dog versus man, the dog won. Sometime soon now, I will be having some torn cartilage removed from my knee. This resulted from a chance encounter with our 80 pound "puppy" who collided with me at full-speed. Kneedless to say the least, I visited the orthopedist this afternoon and he gave me the bad news. Not that this was a surprise. I've known the knee was a mess for about a month, but it is always sobering when you finally get the news. Fortunately, Jim knows how to fix these problems, and my Czechoslovak trainer is slavering at the opportunity to work my "upper body" (god knows it needs help).

I wish I brought you other news, such as the outcome of Judge Kantor versus Arken or Robinson, but alas, the Courthouse is quiet for the nance. I'm still betting that we'll have a decision before the end of next week. Otherwise Judge Kantor will have to go away for Spring break with these millstones hanging around his neck.

Keep Mediocrity At Bay

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Beat It

The various unions involved in the PERS Coalition are slowly beginning to turn the screws on Greg Macpherson. Both SEIU and OEA have now told Macpherson to "beat it" and have endorsed John Kroger's candidacy for Oregon Attorney General. I can't imagine AFSCME, OSPOA or any of the other unions endorsing Macpherson either. Hopefully we will see the last of Macpherson after May's primary. As a longtime resident of Macpherson's district, I won't be sorry to see him go either. There are several highly qualified candidates seeking his seat in House District 38. If you wonder who Greg Macpherson is, then you weren't paying attention during the 2003 Legislative session when Macpherson helped Governor Kulongoski perform an autopsy on a still-living patient - PERS. Go Kroger.

Comin' Around Soon

While I haven't heard anything substantive about Judge Kantor's week off, I do know that the Arken/Robinson cases have been in violation of UTCR 2.030 for some time now. According to Oregon Trial Code Rules, matters under advisement for more than 60 days can draw attention, and matters under advisement for more than 90 days can provoke more than just attention. Thus, it isn't surprising to me that Judge Kantor finally took a week off to get Arken/Robinson under control. If he truly made his decisions this past week, then Greg Hartman is being quite generous in his assessment that he expects a decision within the next two months. To be sure, if Kantor has made a decision, it is more likely that we should see a decision in the next few weeks, as all Kantor would be left with doing is dictating the case, having it typed, proofread, and issued. I doubt that will take several months.

I've also heard that Judge Kantor held a telephone conference about the White case - another case that has been "in the works" for about 3 years now last Friday. That might account for Hartman telling OSU employees/retirees that White was "on" in August. It seems to me that if White is finally going to be heard, then the whole question of the "settlement agreement" is now back on the table. I *think* that is good news for both actives and retirees.

On an unrelated front, my Mini Cooper has now made it to US shores and might show up in my driveway before the end of the month. If my luck with ordered cars holds true to form, it will arrive about the same time I leave for Spring Break. Nevertheless, it can't come too soon now. Gas prices have hit $3.85 in my neck of the woods and that SUV of mine is mighty thirsty. It would be cheaper to put Grey Goose Vodka in the tank. Of course, my Mini, like all of its BMW relatives, runs only on premium fuel. You can't have everything.

In true form, my friend Jim sent me the latest IKEA catalog item to save me money before my Mini arrives. With IKEA, the basic idea is that by assembling the furniture with simple tools, you can save yourself some money. In homage to money saving, here is IKEA's way of buying a car:

And here are the tools needed to assemble it:

Let It Happen

Nothing new to report on the Judge Kantor front. No contradiction to my last report, although OSU sponsored a talk with Greg Hartman and Paul Cleary. During this talk, Hartman said he hoped for a decision from Judge Kantor in the next two months - safely within my source's predicted timeframe - while Cleary, the PERS executive director, trash-talked window retirees for sucking at the public trough (or so says an attendee). In the meantime, Dawn Morgan is busy talking to Corvallis retirees, but I haven't heard what she is saying. Dawn is not one of my favorite people.

Hartman doesn't speculate what will happen if Kantor rules in favor of retirees, and Cleary acknowledges having set aside a sizeable sum of money for "future litigation". Sounds to me like PERS is covering its bets. But Cleary cautions that the decision as to whether to go forward with appeals rests with the attorneys "...and the employers." Hartman thinks that, whatever happens, Kantor will encourage the Supreme Court to take jurisdiction and bypass the Court of Appeals.

All of this is premature. No ruling yet, but stay tuned. If my source is right, we should be seeing a ruling in the "real soon now." Maybe Judge Kantor would like to get a Spring Break too. His wife is a school teacher.

Second Hand News

I've heard from a reliable source that Judge Kantor has asked to be removed from all other cases next week so he can finish up his rulings in the Arken/Robinson cases. If this is true - and I have no doubt that it is - we may have a decision much sooner than anticipated. Let's all hold our collective breaths and hope for a decision by week's end.

Wanna Be Startin' Something 2008

My last post triggered a fair amount of email. It would be nicer if people would just post comments to the blog, but I know some people don't want all these exchanges to be public. One recurrent question is: to whom do we write to complain about Judge Kantor's extreme slowness in finalizing his Arken/Robinson opinions. In the old days, if a Judge delayed a case too long, he/she could have pay withheld - a modest cattle prod to get someone moving. Today, that no longer seems to be the case what with caseloads being what they are. Nevertheless, Judge Kantor does have two supervisors - the Honorable Dale R. Koch, Presiding Judge Multnomah County Circuit Court, and the Honorable Paul J. De Muniz, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. *I* am not planning to engage either Judge Koch or Justice De Muniz, at least not quite yet. I can't stop anyone else from writing to complain, but I'm not going to enable the practice by providing the email addresses of either Judge. Neither Judge is hard to find, but if you want to complain, you're going to have to do the heavy lifting yourself. If you wanna be starting something, you better be prepared to run with the big dogs.

Stand In The Fire

There isn't a PERS retiree I know who isn't waiting impatiently for Judge Henry Kantor of the Multnomah County Circuit Court to issue his long-awaited decision in two PERS-related cases: Arken et al v PERS and Robinson et al v State of Oregon and PERS. These cases were originally heard in 2006. Judge Kantor issued his preliminary findings almost 6 months ago. His order stayed PERS' ability to collect "overpayments", but did not address the question of whether PERS could continue "adjusting" benefits. Absent any explicit prohibition, PERS has been merrily reducing ("adjusting") benefits for Window retirees as part of the Strunk/Eugene remediation. In the meantime, lawyers from the PERS Coalition and others are puzzled and frustrated by Judge Kantor's delay in ruling on the balance of the motions in the trial. At stake is PERS' ability to "adjust" benefits and its necessity to go back and readjust those benefits to levels ordered by the Oregon Supreme Court in its Strunk decision.

I have been at a loss to understand what is holding Judge Kantor up. Today, based on some rather open-ended discussions with several people, it occurs to me that Judge Kantor is up for re-election this year. His term as Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge expires January 5, 2009. This means he either stands in May 2008 or November 2008, I'm not sure which. If he will be running for re-election, what incumbent wants to have his name and picture splashed all over the papers with a potentially unpopular (pro PERS retirees) ruling. We're rapidly approaching the filing date for the elections and we should know whether or not Judge Kantor has any opposition. I'm betting that Judge Kantor will *not* release his ruling until after the elections, either May or November. He is going to maintain as low a profile as possible until then.

Guess it is time to do a bit of digging at Multnomah County. Perhaps it is time for Judge Kantor to stand in the fire. Or then again, perhaps not. What do you think?

Comfortably Numb

Did you know that as of today exactly 1700 days have passed since July 1, 2003? That is the day our COLAs were taken away from us. That is the length of time that, according to the Oregon Supreme Court, PERS has been breaking the law and depriving us of what is constitutionally ours. No matter how you slice it, dice it, or chop it, the Supreme Court said that neither PERS nor the Legislature could withhold a COLA on a payable benefit. The Oregon Supreme Court also said that PERS couldn't recalculate benefits; that the Legislature had defined a new "fixed" benefit which was owed a COLA. So, have we become so comfortably numb that we've forgotten that decision - which is PERS' fondest hope - or do we need to remind them again? I thought that the 1700th day mark would be an appropriate occasion, especially in a leap year.

God Bless This Mess

On Wednesday February 20, the United States Supreme Court issued a far-reaching 9-0 verdict in the Case of Larue v DeWolff et al. This case concerned the applicability of the federal ERISA law to 401-K retirement plans. The question was whether the plan administrator had to bear fiduciary responsibility for properly executing employee instructions for changes to investments in the plan. The Court held that ERISA applied (lower courts had rejected this argument) and remanded the case back to the lower courts for re-argument and for a new verdict. There is no guarantee that LaRue will ultimately win on remand; the only guarantee is that LaRue will be able to argue that ERISA applies in his situation.

Since the nub of the original case involves a "breach of fiduciary responsibility", writers have inquired whether this case has any bearing on PERS going forward or on any cases currently under legal review. I'm not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that ERISA does not apply to public employee pension cases unless the plans have explicit 401-K options. While it might be argued that Tier 3 as well as the IAP plans are 401-K "like", they are not, in fact, 401-K plans. Thus, it is my sense that this opinion will be helpful to employers of private companies with 401-K plans, but will offer no guidance to workers hoping to litigate against Oregon's PERS system.

I tried to extract the relevant part of the Supreme Court's decision and reprint it below. Unfortunately, there was too much html to make it read clearly. Consequently, here is the link instead.

Here's To The Meantime

PERS "window" retirees can expect to take a one-time benefit hit on August 1, 2008. The "hit" is a result of legal fees awarded to the PERS Coalition and to OPRI in the Strunk Case. As stipulated in the Supreme Court's fee decision, PERS is responsible for paying out $763,367 in legal fees resulting from an OPRI and PERS Coalition "victory" on the COLA freeze provision of HB 2003. This will be apportioned over all retirees based on their benefit on July 1, 2004 with restored COLA adjustments. According to PERS and in the stipulation, the average deduction will be 1.38% of the benefit payable on July 1, 2004. In my case, that will be more than 100% of the COLA payable on that same date. According to the COLA calendar, my cohort was entitled to a 1.36% COLA on that date. So figure that you'll lose the equivalent of about one month's COLA to pay for our "win" in the Supreme Court. The "good news" is that this is a one-time deduction, not a permanent reduction to the benefit base.

Someday, after I've had too much food and too much good wine, and in the meantime someone will have to remind me again exactly what I won in the Supreme Court. After all these years, I have to confess that "victory" is an elusive concept.

And, PS, before you write me all worked up, this agreement was worked out by the Court will the full support of the PERS Coalition and OPRI and, of course, PERS and all the other robbers in this case.

Money Maker

I'm a longtime fan of Nigerian scam emails. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular genre of money scam, please use your Google search engine and put the terms "Nigerian scam" into the box. You'll be treated to both an explanation and a summary of the more egregious variants. What always amazes me is that people fall for this stuff. Even a cursory examination of the grammar, syntax, spelling and content reveals that they must assume I am a complete and utter idiot. Meanwhile, I just keep adding them to my collection. A few days ago, I received a new variant. This one is so preposterous and funny that I thought I'd lighten the news load a bit and reprint it here as a public service. Not a single character has been changed. What follows is an exact transcript of the email I received:
==========

From Mrs Jenifer Bruce
N[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody
Abidjan,Cote d'Ivoire


ATTN:
DEAREST ONE OF GOD
I am the above named person from Kuwait. I am married to Mr.Abram Bruce, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account.

Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.

I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information’s, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your
reply.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs Jenifer Bruce

===========

Do you think Mrs Bruce will succeed in her efforts to gain access to your bank account? You've been duly warned, my public service for today.

All The Pigs, All Lined Up

I've received quite a bit of mail from readers upset by the latest piggishness from the PERS Board. People are understandably upset that active members have to give up 0.03% of their guarantee in 2009 to cover attorney fees involved in restoring the 8% guarantee. Kindo ironic that the legal fees reduce the "guarantee" anyway. And retirees are fit to be tied as PERS comes after them again for some, as yet, unknown amount of the 2008 COLA. All because the PERS Coalition won back the COLA, although there is some dispute about exactly what retirees won because PERS gave with one hand and took away with the other. Arken and Robinson should tell us whether that sleight of hand is okay or not.

I have bad news for all of you who have written and the rest of you who are fuming. What PERS is doing is precisely what PERS' attorneys (the California Pigs), the non-State attorneys (the Bill Gary Pigs), the State's attorney (Steven Walters and the Oregon AG's Office Pigs), *and* (drumroll, saving the best for last) the PERS Coalition attorneys (principally Greg Hartman). They signed this agreement back in early 2007, and none of these merry band of robbers bothered to complain during the sham of a PERB hearing last Friday.

Like pigs at a trough, all the lawyers have been paid, and we've all be suckered into believing that this litigation was for our own good. Somehow as my benefit is cut by $xxx (fill in your own large number here), my COLAs are based on some bogus amount that isn't what the Supreme Court said it should be, and now the final thuggish act of taking out attorney fees from our benefits, we now know that the system is rigged. Ostensibly it is for our benefit, but the custodians of our fate would sell us down the river in a heartbeat for legal fees. Be careful who your friends are and know who your enemies are. They might be the same people. Snarl.

Punish The Monkey

Just when you thought the news couldn't get any worse, the PERS Board managed to come up with yet another way to punish us monkies. You remember that 2% COLA that the PERB so graciously reinstated last August? You remember how they then reinstated all the COLAs back to our date of retirement or 7/1/03, whichever was later, but turned around and reduced our benefit to one based on 11.33% crediting for 1999? You keepin' up so far? Of course, this latter action is the subject of litigation that has officially passed the two year mark without a formal ruling (that would be Arken and Robinson). You may have also read, in my previous post, that PERB is planning to reduce the 8% guarantee for 2009 to 7.97% to pay for legal expenses PERS incurred when they lost in the Supreme Court. Well, guess what? The other shoe dropped today. Retirees will get to shoulder their share of the Strunk legal expenses too. That will be achieved by temporarily (2008) reducing the 2% COLA we would be getting in August to something less than 2%. I don't remember the exact amount, but it will be small. Of course, this all misses the crucial point, which is that when you sue PERS you end up suing yourself. You get to pay for the legal fees whether you win or lose. If retirees/actives lose, PERS collects from the PERS Coalition and/or retiree groups. If PERS loses, it collects from retirees and/or actives. I've officially named this game - "punish the monkey" for it doesn't matter what the outcome, it is a lose-lose proposition. We're the monkeys and PERS just smacks us around no matter what. This is just another example of how PERS acts in the best interests of those whose money is entrusted to them by force.

P.S. I was not at the PERB meeting today. I'm collecting information from a variety of sources and will try to post a more comprehensive report when my sources report back. But this report came in quickly and it seemed important enough to ruin everyone's 3-day weekend.

Between The Lines

The PERS Board (PERB) meets this coming Friday (Feb 15). The agenda is chock-a-block with interesting tidbits. Perhaps the most interesting item is the Board's decision to fund the Strunk litigation costs by reducing the guaranteed rate on regular accounts for active members from 8% to 7.97% during 2009. While this is a trivial amount of money for most members, the problem is that this sends the PERB down that slippery slope that got them into trouble with the Oregon Supreme Court in the Strunk case. The court was quite clear that regular accounts are to be paid no less than the guaranteed rate. The "between the lines" interpretation here is that if the PERB gets away with this action, it is the first step towards reducing the guarantee.

If you explore the agenda further, you discover that the PERS Staff is asking the PERB for permission to set aside several hundred thousand dollars for "future litigation." It doesn't take too much imagination to reconcile this agenda item with the reduction in the guarantee to pay for the Strunk litigation costs. The PERB must expect the PERS Coalition to sue - as well they should - to prevent this action.

There is still no word from Judge Kantor on the verdict in Arken or Robinson. Judge Kantor was excused from hearing a nasty murder case; one presumes that his caseload must be horrendous. I hope this means that he'll have more time to rule on those cases he's already heard. God knows, he's had six months to think hard on Arken/Robinson. The verdict can't be that complicated. I can easily envision the outcome. Maybe that's why he's a judge and I'm just a retired college prof <g>.

Not much else to report. My posts will probably diminish a bit over the next few weeks as I await for the verdict on my knee. I blew out all the cartilage over the weekend and I'm trying to get in to see the orthopedic surgeons soon to get the repair scheduled. It is no fun to have a 75 lb dog take a header right into the lateral knee while neither she nor you are paying attention. I can honestly say this this is the first mortal being to have ever brought me to my knees.

My Mini Cooper is on the boat awaiting its journey from Oxford, England to South Carolina to Portland. I hope to take possession of my new gas sipper by about this time next month. I'm still trying to figure out why it takes nearly a month to sail from England to the east coast. In my condition, I could swim faster.

Happy Valentines Day to all. Enjoy your time with the valentine of your choice. I have two lovely sweethearts to spend my evening with. I have two more who'll call. What more can a guy want?

A Few Small Repairs

As you can see, I've done some remodeling to the site. All the previously available features are still here, but they may be relocated from their usual places. The "dots" started to bore me and I decided it was time for a few small repairs. I can't quite get the AdSense box right at the top and I'm still working on it. I have it there because it pays the bills. Hosting a blog isn't free, but the AdSense revenue pays for my hosting charges and for the software I use for posting quickly. Please leave comments for me about the color scheme (positive or negative). I make no claims to any design sense at all, and I use prefigured templates so that they look like I'm an artiste.

Nothing new to report on PERS except for the possibility of some minor housekeeping bills in the Legislature. Doubtful they'll come up in the Special Session, but AFSCME's Don Loving reports on several proposals floating around. None of these are relevant to retirees, but several may affect former PERS workers returning to work for a PERS employer. Stay tuned for more news.

Instant Karma

On Friday, my OPRLF refund check arrived. No muss, no fuss. They accepted my feeble records without me having to dig through archives located about 10 miles away from me and in the dustiest facility I could manage. I appreciate OPRI's willingness to bend a bit on the record-keeping. I understand their need to have us contact them. Since the donation period ended more than 2 years ago and began almost 5 years ago, it is likely that many of the donors moved. If you didn't notify OPRI of your current address, they wouldn't have any way to get your contribution back to you.

So, if you donated to OPRI's Legal Defense Fund (OPRLF) between July 2003 and August 2005 (check OPRI's web site for precise dates), you can get a refund equal to 72% of your total. For many, this is a significant amount of cash. If you want to see what your money bought, check the archives at the Oregon PERS Document Library. All the legal paperwork for the Sartain case (OPRI's portion of the Strunk consolidated case) are posted there.

Still no new information about the Arken and Robinson cases. Judge Kantor seems in no particular hurry to issue his ruling. Either he is spending a lot of time trying to get things right this time, or he hasn't bothered to start and will throw something together when he figures everyone has waited long enough. We're up to 170 days and counting. Another few weeks and we'll hit the 6 month mark. Perhaps he's trying to break his previous record of 8 months to issue a ruling replete with errors.

The blog cleanup is taking longer than I'd hoped for. I discovered that wholesale changes to the blog format cause many of the features I've added (countup widget, links, comments, etc) to vanish. All I want to do is to modernize the "look", not eliminate features. I need to be able to completely backup the existing blog before switching over to the new format. I want instant karma, but so far all I'm getting is instant hangover.

P.S. I have changed the format colors. I'm nowhere near finished, but at least there is a change of scenery to begin with.

Nine in the Afternoon

The blog look is getting a bit tired and so I'm going to be experimenting with some new Blogger features over the next week. I have to be sure that I can preserve all the posts before I start changing things around. In the meantime, I'm starting with a new posting engine to see whether there is anything useful or different to "Blogo" than with "MarsEdit", which is my former tool. I've been trying to extract some PERS news, but there simply is nothing to report. Even over on Oregon PERS Discussion Group the conversation has declined to a trickle. It is either nine in the afternoon, or it is the calm before the storm. You decide.

Speak No Evil

Several recent nice stories about OPRI. They *are* trying much harder. First, informants report that OPRI is very much on the ball in getting requested refunds back to claimants. Turnaround time seems to be days. Second, my own special request was handled quickly and efficiently. Vern Fisher emailed me and explained the problems involved in tracking down records for contributors. Nevertheless, he found one of my "missing" donations and will assist me in processing my refund. The record he found was one I have stored in an offsite location. He's saved me a trip into town to search through one of about 30 boxes of records stored when we moved last year. I really appreciate not having to visit that dusty facility. I'm hoping to leave that for my children to sort through :=>. In any case, after all my complaining about OPRI, it is nice to be able to report something quite positive for a change. Thanks Vern! I've also engaged in communications with several Board members and I'm optimistic that OPRI may finally be in for some positive change. Some of the older members may resist kicking and screaming, but I think we're finally poised for a culture change. Change is good.

Never Missin' A Beat

This picture says it all. The whores at the Oregonian just can't leave it alone. Stick it to PERS members. I was tempted to use another title from the same CD, but I resisted out of respect for the sensibilities of others. It was entitled "F**k Everyone". By the way, this wasn't from the version delivered at home. This came from a downtown newspaper rack and must have been the Saturday final. Can you say, slow news day? My response - lying f**kers!

Big Casino

This has been a pretty rocky month for most of us who invest in the stock market. After about four years of pretty good returns, the chickens are coming home to roost. There doesn't seem to be any refuge in foreign markets. I'm pretty impressed with the low-level french flunkie who managed to squander $7.2 billion from Societe Generale, perhaps triggering a big selloff on European markets. In short, no matter how diversified one is, there has been pretty much no refuge from the market's wild gyrations of the past few weeks. It truly has been like a giant casino, where the house almost always wins. Apropos of that, the Boregonian has a story in this morning's paper about how PERS has done during the past week. According to the report, PERS has lost about $5 billion of asset value during this month's swoon. Not to worry. The PERS fund is well-funded and remarkably well-managed. If any group of investors is prepared to weather this, the Oregon Investment Council seems especially magical when it comes to earning money in nearly any market. This may not be the banner year we'd hoped for, but there isn't much risk out there that the OIC can't mitigate. They're playing at the big casino, but they have the skill of a card counter without doing anything that pisses off the casino management. Keep the faith. I only wish I had my personal portfolio collectively invested in the way of the PERS Fund. I might be losing less money that way.

Way Down in the Hole

I love doing my taxes. It always puts me of mind of just how much the government takes from us and how remarkably little we get in return. I'm always feeling I'm way down in the hole. I started preparing my taxes as usual this year as all the little bits of paper start showing up in my mailbox. I've finally decided that all those deductions I've meticulously kept track of over the years - personal exemptions, medical expenses, state income taxes, property taxes, business expenses - aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Once you get into the AMT, where we've been now for about ten years - the government takes those away from you and you no longer get to deduct them. You can list them if you want, but you can watch the TurboTax calculator just stick in place as you start adding them. So I told myself last year that I would just shoebox them all this year and see what happens. We can't avoid listing the state income taxes withheld; they're part of the W-2 and 1099R forms. Thus, the moment they get entered (or downloaded this year), the AMT bell starts going gong, gong, gong. It announces that you've made to AMT territory and most deductions don't matter any more. Welcome to the twilight zone, to the parallel universe known as AMT hell. This is quite liberating actually. Of course I'd like to only have to pay my fair share of taxes, not my share plus the share of about ten other people. On the other hand, my taxes just got a whole less complicated, especially now that we don't have to bother with my wife's business expenses - medical licenses in three states, medical societies, continuing medical education, travel expenses, etc. It was a pain to keep track of all that. No more those. I just bend over and let the government extract what they can.

Speaking of taxes and government, I got my PERS 1099 statements yesterday. Note the plural. I got two tax statements from PERS. I had forgotten that the year between one's 59th and 60th birthday marks a special occasion in tax land. About half way through you turn 59.5 years old. That magic point marks the crossover point where you are no longer subject to the IRS's special hell for taking "early distributions" of retirement income. In PERS-land, this event is marked by getting two 1099 forms. One form has Box 7 marked with a "7", which means "normal distribution" (i.e. you've reached official IRS retirement age and you can withdraw without a penalty). The other 1099 has box 7 marked with a "2), which means that you were subject to "early distribution" rules. It hardly matters when one is taking a PERS pension plus an annuity, but the IRS keeps track of these sorts of things. So now I'm street legal; I am really old enough to retire. If you get two 1099R's from PERS this year, you might have turned 59.5 sometime during the year; otherwise, you may be getting a variable distribution. If you got two for any other reason, it might be that PERS just likes to play with your head. Have fun doing your taxes. I'm having a blast doing mine. The AMT has only cost me $7000 so far this year. If I'm lucky, I can keep it under $10,000. Way down in the hole.

Falling or Flying

The OPRI Board is whole again. Russ Gregory has joined the OPRI Board as the local school district employee representative. By my count there are now four members who retired in 2000 or later. That gives "window" retirees slight control over the decision-making process and future direction of the organization. I don't anticipate an immediate change in the current direction; it does take time to learn the ropes and organizational history. But, I think it fair to say that there are a significant number of recent retirees - many OPRI members - who aren't satisfied with many things about OPRI. OPRI seems very slow to act. OPRI doesn't communicate well with its members. Unless you know an OPRI Board member, OPRI may not communicate with you at all, especially if you have a question. OPRI is taking its direction from a paid lobbyist. OPRI should be setting its own agenda, not the lobbyist's agenda. I hope that with a more active Board, all of this will change. I hope that OPRI will become responsive to its membership. I hope that OPRI will become more active in trying to increase its membership ranks. Word of mouth isn't sufficient any more.

Many of these problems could be classed under the heading - better and more modern communications. From all the different sources I have, I understand that some on the Board still do not use email as a principal means of communication. In this day of cell phones, instant messaging, emails, text messaging, high gasoline prices, it astonishes me that people can't grasp just how important immediate communication can be in this rapidly changing world. I don't see how anything productive comes from having to mail out agendas, or to pick them up by driving to a central locations. I don't see how timely issues can be put on meeting agendas when communication is limited in this way. This was an issue Martha Sartain complained about, and was one of the reasons that Greg Scott volunteered to redo the OPRI web site. From my observations over the past year or so, not many of these things have changed dramatically. Few of us use OPRI as an information source. It's information is "so yesterday" by the time it gets posted on the OPRI website. And this is the point I don't get. OPRI is often the last to communicate this information to its members. Why shouldn't it be out front? You can't do this living in the 19th century. Queen Victoria's mail system and Henry Ford's transportation system no longer cut it. We're all living in Tim Berners-Lee's world and we expect and seek information instantaneously. OPRI needs to move way forward on this front if it expects to sustain itself over the next 10 - 15 years or longer.

I'm willing to cut the new Board some slack, give it time to get its act together, and start acting like it is in the latter part of the 20th century. There is no excuse for not modernizing this end of the organization. A majority of the Board *must* grasp this. Hopefully they can gently nudge the others on the Board to the modern world The new Board *must* emphasize that they want to connect with newer retirees by starting to act like they understand the wants and needs of more recent retirees. Most of us are willing to wait - a little while - to see whether the new board is falling or flying. Hopefully, we'll see some flying. We don't need any more falling. The other side is too sophisticated to afford us the luxury of terminal anachronism.

Note added later today: I actually had occasion to want to email OPRI today. I discovered that there is no email contact on their web site. I *can* email their lobbyist, but why is OPRI paying a lobbying firm to handle email? This is what I mean by an organization that just isn't nimble, that just isn't with it, and that actively seems to be trying to disengage with its own membership. They've got to try a whole lot harder than they're doing. A post office box and a lobbyist email address just aren't sufficient these days. Worse still, the lobbyist email address is a dead letter box. My emails just bounce back. Thus, except by sending snail mail, there seems to be no way to contact OPRI. This sucks.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

Those comics over at OPRI have made me laugh again. You know, the Oregon PERS Retirees Association. The group that begged us for money to fund the Sartain case to which many of us donated legal fees. Their legal defense fund, the OPLDF, received a fat check from PERS to settle up the PERS litigation. OPRI promised it would refund donations to the extent they were reimbursed. We now know that they were reimbursed at about 72 cents on the dollar and so they are offering refunds to donors at the rate of 72 cents on the dollar less a one dollar service charge. Fair enough. But the things that makes this whole thing distasteful are (a) I have to tell OPRI that I want a refund; otherwise they'll just keep my money and (b) I have to prove my donations to get a refund. Both of these are aggravating. Why should I have to tell OPRI I want a refund? Why can't they ask me if I want one? Second, why do I have to dig through *my* records, now some 3 to 5 years later, to prove how much I donated. Why can't OPRI dig through their records - they have to keep them by law? OPRI would be far more likely to win friends if they took the initiative here rather than expecting me to do their heavy lifting. Of course, it's my money and I want it back. You can be damn straight that I'll find the records. But I shouldn't have to be doing this. OPRI could make my workload a bit lighter. After all, that's what databases are for. There are some weird fishes down there in Salem (sorry to my Salem-resident friends. Not you, it's the folks who live at PO Box 12945, Salem, OR 97309).

House of Cards

I spoke too soon in my post earlier today. The mail brought me PERS' form letter declining to share my wealth with me. They turned down my appeal. My appeal form looked suspiciously like a legal documents complete with all kinds of cool phrases like: "In the matter of the appeal of Marc Feldesman" and "Review Determination". The bottom line is the somewhat rude and unsurprising and unoriginal "Calculation Upheld." I stood open-mouthed in disbelief that they could actually turn down *my* appeal. The nerve of them. And here I thought that after writing mean things about them for a few years they might be sufficiently afraid that they'd treat me differently than all the other hundreds, possibly thousands, who have already appealed.

As I said this morning, I have a local attorney experienced in these matters who volunteered to take my case pro bono. I still haven't decided whether it is worth the time or effort. I suspect that once the attorney finds out how many stun guns PERS throws up in his face, he might rethink his offer. My guess is that he needs paying clients far worse than he needs this grief. It is probably better to wait for the horse to Kantor. Perhaps then the house of cards will finally start falling down.

I Write Sins Not Tragedies

I expect you were waiting for another PERS post. Alas, there is nothing new to report aside from the hundreds of people appealing their PERS benefit adjustments and getting turned down for the same reasons. From the looks of the letters, PERS doesn't even have enough respect for us that they can write these form letters on actual stationery. For all I know, they are pre-written and one paragraph is added just to make it look personalized. I myself haven't gotten my appeal response, although it is approaching the 45-day mark. I expect my form letter will arrive real soon now. I'm still debating whether a contested case would be a useful thing to do. At least one attorney friend of mine has volunteered to do it for me on a pro bono basis, but I'm still not sure I'll go through with. I have some slim hope that Judge Kantor will get off his duff and issue an opinion soon - maybe even before I file my income taxes for this year.

While I tend to share relatively little personal information on *this* site, I've been trying to reduce my carbon footprint a bit. I drive a big SUV that gets crummy gas mileage. We can't afford to get rid of the car because we still need it for travel and for hauling the dog around. But I've decided to buy a new toy that gets far better gas mileage - 32 combined MPG - without purchasing an ugly hybrid (sorry Prius owners, but those cars have no style and I'm a stylin' kind of guy). So, yesterday I took the plunge and bought myself a new Mini Cooper. If I can figure out how to use the MiniUSA site to capture the image of *my* car, as configured, I'll post it. Like any fuel-efficient car, Mini's are not exactly plentiful on the lots these days. Mine is on order and won't be here until late March. I drove one for hours yesterday and I've never been in a 118 hp car with so much power and is so much fun to drive. Of course, it will be an utter pain in the rear on the Sunset Highway (26) at about 5 pm, but while I'm creeping along, I'll take comfort in the fact that the miles per gallon is an underestimate and that I won't be spewing out hydrocarbons costing me $3.25 or more per gallon for 15 miles per gallon. I'll try to figure out how to post a picture in case anyone cares. My daughter - 16 in April - is already pissed at me because I bought a manual transmission and I'm not going to teach her how to drive it right away. She can drive the car we've saved for her, poor mistreated child. Here's my soon-to-be gas-sipper

You Know I'm No Good

There is a penetrating and occasionally nasty commentary about Greg MacPherson's latest "Mac Report". You can read it on Jack Bog's Blog under the heading entitled "Macpherson Takes a Hard Left". As most readers know, I hold Macpherson accountable for much of the current PERS debacle and the assault on public employees and PERS retirees. Jack's analysis and the reader comments add much further dimension to my distaste for Macpherson and why I wouldn't want a pension lawyer being the state's top attorney. He's too one-dimensional to be qualified for the job. And, if you don't want to read the analysis, just keep in mind that Jack Bogdanski was a law partner with Greg Macpherson and John Kroger teaches with him at Lewis and Clark. Few others can claim that degree of knowledge of both candidates. I can't imagine any PERS member or retiree *willingly* voting for Macpherson, but in case you've been out of the loop for awhile, John Kroger is a far more qualified person for the job and he doesn't carry the PERS baggage that Macpherson does.

Think of it this way. If Kroger defeats Macpherson in the May primary, Macpherson not only doesn't get the AG's job, but he's also out of the Legislative pictures. It isn't too often that you get to kill two birds with one vote. Go Kroger.

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Here we are on January 1 in the year of our lord, 2008. We stand at the threshhold of the 40th anniversary of one of the most significant years in American History - 1968. Think about it. Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Johnson's decision not to run for re-election, the Chicago 7 and the Democratic National Convention, the Tet Offensive and the list goes on. It was one of the most difficult years of my life and in many ways formed the person who I am today. Well, enough ruminating. If you enjoy this history, I suggest reading Tom Brokaw's latest book "Boom" for a trip down memory lane. My wife bought it for me at Christmas and I've been dashing through it since. It is an amazing way to turn the spigot of time backwards - not always pleasant, but astonishing in retrospect.

I could maunder on all day about the distant past, but my post today is really a followup on a post a few weeks back entitled "Last of the True Believers". In that, I reported that Steve Delaney, who had been Associate Director of PERS, was leaving to become the Director of Orange County's Public Employee Retirement System. As we crossed over into the New Year I began to think about all of the past PERS luminaries who've left since the reform legislation, and the unfortunates left to carry out the task of being waterboys (and girls) for the current group of Gubernatorial lackeys (the PERS Board). I won't name all names, in part because I've lost track and in part because I don't want to reveal my own ignorance. But, it appears that the list of departures not only left a gigantic hole in the PERS institutional memory, it wiped out a gigantic swatch of intellectual firepower. We have David Bailey, who had been the Associate Director from the late 1990's to 2003, who is now the Director of the PERS System in San Mateo County (San Francisco and environs), Craig Stroud, who went back to his position with DAS, Steve Delaney who is the new Director in Orange County, Jim Voytko, who is now the president of a consulting group in Portland that helps Public Employee retirement systems in, at last count, 20 different states and hundreds of municipalities, and Marsha Bacon, former director of customer service at PERS, who was, at last sighting, working with Jim Voytko at his current employer. In addition, dozens of former customer services and second tier analysts have left PERS for other positions, or have retired and taken positions in the private sector.

So, I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate the Legislature and the Governor, and Greg Macpherson, for achieving a number of things. First, they managed to drive out the largest wave of talent in the public sector at any time in history between early 2003 and the end of 2004. While all the agencies and districts have limped on, anyone visiting a public agency today will see the consequence of this exodus. Way to go Leg and Gov. Second, they managed to piss off the largest wave of retirees in Oregon history. And the anger is only building as the courts continue to drag their feet and PERS, in its current incarnation, continues its reckless and willful disregard of the law. They say that the lord works in mysterious ways. I suspect that the mystery will be cleared up during 2008 as a large number of incumbents in the legislature get their walking papers. I also suspect that their will be a very unpleasant backlash if the PERS Coalition wins at the Circuit Court level and the PERB continues to press for "summary judgement." Retirees aren't going to take all of this quietly, kindly, or lying down. This one certainly won't. And finally, the Legislature and Governor managed to drive away the largest collection of talent and experience INSIDE PERS itself, leaving the only the hardened, the inexperienced, the talentless, and the immobile group that today acts so maliciously and ruthlessly towards retirees. One often wonders whether this group behaves the way it does because they *can't* retire and are stuck in deadend jobs, or whether they are too stupid to realize the damage they're doing. I guess time will tell.

Where have all the flowers gone? Laughing all the way to the bank. Welcome to 2008 - a year of hope, of opportunity, and most of all, of justice.

Grow Old With Me

Yesterday, the Oregon Supreme Court issued its long awaited opinion in the case Clarke v OHSU. The particulars of this case aren't terribly relevant to our situation, but there is an eerily familiar tempo to the case that supports my claim that the PERS cases, in particular Arken and Robinson, are unlikely to be finished in any material way until the Supreme Court rules in about 2012. I may be overestimating how quickly the Court will act. The original case Clarke v OHSU was filed in 1998 in Judge Kantor's Circuit Court in Multnomah County. It was a particularly complicated case and by the time it was finally filed, depositioned, tried, and ruled on by a jury, the decision - in favor of OHSU - was issued in 2001. It then went to the Oregon Court of Appeals where the ruling - overturning Judge Kantor's decision - was in favor of the Clarke family. That ruling came down in 2006. The Supreme Court heard arguments in Clarke v OHSU earlier in 2007 and took nearly a year to issue its ruling - affirming the Court of Appeals and remanding the case back to Judge Kantor for final disposition.

If we use this case as an example of how long it takes complex cases to be litigated through the court system, it is unlikely that our cases will rush speedily to final judgement. Ours *is* a complicated case. It only seems easy and obvious to us, but to Judges and those specializing in administrative and contract law, our cases are quite complicated and rulings rarely come quickly. That said, Judge Kantor is especially slow in issuing his rulings according to several former court reporters familiar with the workings of the Multnomah County Circuit. Judge Kantor is apparently regarded as one of the Judges who takes quite some time to issue rulings. He is not overturned all that often, certainly no more than the speedier judges, and the OHSU case should not be taken as a harbinger of Judge Kantor's record with the OSC. But, anyone who thinks final resolution of our cases will come quickly will be in for a rude and unpleasant shock. Justice delayed may be justice denied, but the wheels of our justice system just plain move slowly. I suspect we'll all grow old together waiting for a final decision.

The only good news in all this is that we will have some political change in both the Courts and the Governor's office by the time these cases get to the Oregon Supreme Court. Perhaps the next Governor will decide to cut the PERS Board loose and put in his/her own chosen ones. Perhaps if that happens, we might see some movement towards a settlement rather than waiting for the Supreme Court again. It will be 2010 before that happens, but since we're only 3 days from 2008, 2010 doesn't seem that far away anymore. So, let's grow old together, but let's do it with vim, vigor, and a never say die conviction. We will not give up.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Make that yuletide bright.

Gimme Some Truth

Sometime last week the PEW Charitable Trust published a document entitled "Promises With A Price: Public Sector Retirement Benefits". The document can be found here. The Oregonian, as well as the website BlueOregon have been touting this document as definitive proof that Oregon's system is the best in the country, and using the PEW findings to emphasize just how much the reforms enacted by the Oregon Legislature in 2003 are working. Here are the facts: Oregon is 110% funded. That means that there is enough money set aside right now in the fund to pay for the retirements of every public employee in the system as well as their beneficiaries and still have a billion or two left over when all is said and done. Of course, we all know that the funding level varies like the weather in response to the workings of the stock market. But the claim that the reforms of 2003 are "doing the trick" are as bogus as a $3 dollar bill. A look at the historical funding levels dispels any claim that Oregon's system was ever in trouble. While the rightwing nutcases along with a couple of democratic nutcases - the Governor and Representative Macpherson - were running around claiming the sky is falling, the worst Oregon was ever funded was in 2002, and its funding level, according to PEW, was at 92%. If you recall the 2003 Legislature, the claims were that Oregon was below 80% and falling like a rock. On this basis, the Legislature argued that it was necessary to reform PERS off the backs of the working stiffs and recent retirees. Consequently, we all took a substantial hit from the legislative reforms and as a result of the reforms, at least 18 lawsuits were filed. Eight of them were consolidated into a single case, the "Strunk". There are several federal cases, as well as cases still pending - Arken, Robinson, Robertson, White, Bell, and several more that haven't reached the filing stage. All this litigation is costly, and PERS hasn't won a single case, although they are acting as though they've completed a trifecta and a slam dunk, while billing retirees for benefits presumed (by PERS) to be paid, "in error". They've been rebuked by the court, they've been slapped with an injunction, and PERS continues to skate over the edges of these and interpret things in a light most favorable to them. They have very expensive outside counsel, whose knowledge of public pension law is, at best, questionable. In fact, a brief look at the Orrick website tells any reader that they don't even have anyone in their firm in "public" or "private" pension law.

So here we are, approaching 5 years after the Legislature's trashing of PERS, and we come to find out that all the numbers that were presented to the Legislature were just plain made up. The real numbers, cited by PEW in its study, make it clear that Oregon was, and continues to be, one of the best public pension systems in the country. If the true numbers had been made public, the level of changes to PERS could have been small, relatively uncontroversial and almost assuredly without all the litigation, uncertainty, and anger that prevails among members, retirees, unions, attorneys, the media, and the public. It took a completely outside agency with absolutely NO agenda to get to the truth. Oregon's system was never broken, and it could have been made more efficient with a few minor changes. But the rightwing wingnuts and some gullible Democrats wanted to "make their bones" off of a gigantic lie. May they now drown in their lies. Ted only has a few years left in his term and he can't run for re-election, and Greg Macpherson has some credible opposition for his run at the Oregon Attorney General's position. He is one politician that I can't wait to see gone. We have the truth now. It speaks louder than any campaign "sound bite". Let's send Greg Macpherson back to his private law practice for good. We don't need politicians who build their reputations on an outright lie.

Kolomeykes

This one is for Cantor Kantor. Happy Hannukah and may your festival of lights bring us light in the form of a decision this week. I realize that as I light my own candles that this is one wish that only you, not a higher being can bring. So bring it on.

Behind With The Rent

Got my notice today that PERS is "considering" my appeal. They were kind enough to acknowledge my challenge of their recalculations of my benefit. I used everything I could think of in my challenge, but I sincerely doubt they will find anything original, nuanced, or even clever about my approach. I figure that they'll either turn me down or Judge Kantor will issue his ruling before they get a chance. That way, there will be no doubt about how they will proceed. Either they'll fall further behind with the rent of my money, or I'll continue to fall further behind. Somehow, this whole process leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I subjugate myself for 32 years to the company store, accepting lower pay for that elusive promise of a good retirement plan and then at the end, when all of us boomers hired in the late 60's and early 70's start to retire, they say, "oops, just kidding about that retirement. We don't have the money so you'll have to suck it up." Fortunately, I didn't get my nickname for no reason. If they think I'll just take their bullshit and go away, they haven't worked closely with me. My former boss used to hate seeing me coming because he knew that I had a congenital inability to accept "no" for an answer and he knew that my request would be well-formulated, reasoned carefully, and did not promise anything more than what would be delivered. I always got my way - except on salary issues that were constrained by union and OUS guidelines. I do not intend to go quietly into this night. So PERS, if you're listening, just remember that you'll never get the chance to say that we'll not have Fearless to kick around anymore. That will happen only when I take my last breath and my personal fitness trainer tells me that my work with him will add quite a few years to my life. So I'll be around to hector, pester, and ask all those annoying questions until I get what is owed me. I got the time, I got the patience, and a mean streak that usually makes people afraid, very afraid. So, I'm looking forward to doing business with you for many, many years to come.

Late Night Shopping

While we're waiting for Santa and doing our last minute shopping, we've discovered a hole in our document library that we'd like to fill. We've heard stories of people appealing PERS' recalculation notices, but we've not heard about PERS' final responses to the same. We've decided to collect copies of appeal letters (not yours, PERS' response letters turning you down). If you have one to share, we'd like to post it (appropriate redacted of all identifying information). You can send a copy to me back channel, you can contact me back channel for a FAX number, or you can email an electronic copy to info@oregonpers.info. Be assured that nothing you send will ever be posted with identifying information. What we're doing is trying to see whether PERS is actually reading these appeals, or whether they are simply categorizing them and then sending a form letter response denying the appeal. I've appealed and will post my response when PERS finally gets back to me. If ANYONE wins an appeal, please let me know. Either dinner in person will accompany my response, or there will be a gift card for a restaurant local to you forthcoming. Keep me informed people. I'm off to do a bit of late night shopping on the net.

Live Out the String

Don't expect a decision from Judge Kantor in the Arken/Robinson cases before sometime in 2008. Unfortunately, Judge Kantor seems to have drawn the short straw again and has been assigned the Criminal Docket for the remainder of 2007. Apparently this started not long after he had the status conference. My worry is that he will continue in that capacity into early 2008, thus delaying the decision even longer and letting PERS have free rein over my retirement benefits for even longer. They are definitely living out the string. I can only hope that when Judge Kantor finally gets time to write and to issue his ruling that it smacks PERS so hard that their collective heads are coming out their collective arses. Growl.

Here it Goes

PERS should get my appeal today. I dropped it off at the post office yesterday. I waited 54 days before filing it, hoping that it would be smack in the middle of the pile about the time Judge Kantor issues his final rulings in the Arken and Robinson cases. I based my appeal on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Strunk case, concluding that PERS had no legal authority to do what it did and that, instead, PERS owed me a considerable amount of money. I used my own calculator (see left) to estimate the amounts of error and adjustments in my favor. I doubt that this will sway PERS. I'm just perplexed about the system for appeals. PERS gets to rule on the wisdom of its own wisdom. It follows that if they didn't think they were right, they wouldn't have sent out the letters in the first place. I'm not sure how one is supposed to get a fair, impartial, and unbiased review of the facts of the cases. Indeed, PERS has never been known to be fair and impartial in contested cases. I've been attending Board meetings on and off for more than 15 years. Not once during an open meeting did the PERS Board ever overrule the staff recommendations, and not once has the staff ever recommended in favor of the appellant. This does not mean that there aren't cases where PERS has ruled against itself, but I'm not aware of them. Thus, I doubt that we'll see even the smallest victory in any of these pro forma appeals. The only reasons for filing them - and I encourage everyone to do so - is to protest the way PERS has treated retirees, and to clog up their system. (Of course, if they don't bother to read the appeals and just rubber stamp reject them, then it won't do much in the clogging department either.)

There is nary a peep from Judge Kantor about when his ruling in these cases might be forthcoming. If he doesn't issue them within the next 10 - 14 days, it won't be until after January 1 before the rulings come out. And, frankly, if that happens, I wouldn't even hazard a guess when he might actually rule. I had heard that he was slow, but he's rapidly redefining that word for me. Look to the left at my counter and you'll see how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds it has been (real time) since Judge Kantor had the status conference to clarify his ruling.

Turn, Turn, Turn

My posts here are not usually personal. This weekend I celebrated my 60th birthday. My birthday present was a visit from all my children and my granddaughter. At dinner last night, the entire crew enjoyed a meal at one of Portland's nicest restaurants. I am very proud to share with you the entire Fearless clan - the only time I will digress from my routine to report on PERS-related news. I took a vacation this weekend and these are the 8 reasons why:

P.S. The two handsome guys in the top row are the "outlaws". The girls are mine, with the granddaughter being the one in the middle of the top row. The rest are either my daughters or my wife. Forgive me if I beam a bit at this group. I love them all dearly and they are all the source of incredible pride and joy.

Looking for Elvis

That's an ugly rumor started to explain what Judge Kantor is doing instead of making his final ruling in the Arken/Robinson cases. It has been quite awhile since the last status conference (see over to your left and you'll notice this little counter that keeps ticking off the seconds, minutes, hours, and days since that status conference in August). At the time I'm writing this, Judge Kantor has managed to tick off more than 103 days since hearing the latest arguments. That works out to about 3.5 months so far. I *hope* he's not trying to best his previous record for delaying a preliminary ruling in those same cases - almost 8 months if I recall correctly. In the meantime, Judge Kantor, if you are really looking for Elvis, here's a tip direct from the source. Elvis is dead. Kicked the bucket. Pushing up daisies. Singing to the Lord. In short, it's a great snark hunt in which nothing ever will be found. Stop looking already and rule.

Livin' in the Future

This post is a reprint of an earlier post. The FUTURE is NOW, TODAY. PLEASE GIVE SERIOUS THOUGHT TO DONATING. WE ARE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO OUR GOAL. HELP US PUSH PAST THE TARGET AND GIVE US SOME BREATHING SPACE. WE NEED ABOUT $500 MORE TO REACH OUR GOAL
For the past three months, a small group of PERS retirees have been working to construct a comprehensive library of Oregon PERS material in an attempt to address the public information access problem. This repository will eventually include more than 1,000 documents containing material related to litigation, legislation, studies, communications, audit reports, administrative rules, internal but public e-mails, and articles. The site currently offers a manual search of a limited number of documents. The manual process has many limitations especially when trying to follow a sequence of events about an issue over time.

Team members (myself included) have volunteered time, expertise, and money to get us to this point. Now the library development group has contracted with a developer to construct a database that will greatly simplify and amplify the process for locating records. Other database options have been considered and rejected. We believe this is the best and most cost effective solution. The cost of the database is estimated to be between $3,000-4,000. Half of this amount has already been pledged by members of the development group and generous donors have contributed nearly $2000. We're so close to our fund raising goals that I'm hoping another repeat of this message will send us over the top.

In the past, many PERS retirees have expressed interest in contributing to the struggle to preserve retirement benefits. While not directly related to current litigation, the PERS document library will be an important resource of information for the public about PERS decisions.

Contributions can be sent to:

OPDG Library Project
c/o PEG
6550 Huntington Cir SE
Salem OR 97306-1481

Make checks out to: OPDG Library Project. Credit card donations may also be made through a Pay Pal link at the library site.

For a better understanding of this project and for a view of the density of material already collected, visit the library web at:
http://oregonpers.info/

I have written previously about this in my entry "Power To The People" (October 5, 2007). Support for this grass roots effort affords all PERS workers and retirees an opportunity to make a difference in the struggle for our retirement benefits. No donation is too small. We will publish a final accounting of the project when work on the database is complete. Questions should be directed to :
info@oregonpers.info
In the information age, documents are the raw material that fuel research, analysis, and understanding of decisions and events. Complex issues unfolding over many years produce a flood of documents. Often these originate from many sources and are stored in many forms. Access can be difficult under the best of circumstances which means that most people don't know where to go or how to locate needed records. Over time, documents are destroyed, lost, archived, or otherwise made unavailable. With critical information unavailable the media and public are often unaware about key facts in events which can lead to skewed perceptions of events and decisions. Your support for this effort is one direct way you can make a difference.

PERS Library Development Team:

JRS, Marc (mrfearless47), PEG, & Greg

**Post appeal footnote:
When the project is complete, any balance in the donated development funds will be returned to contributors on a proportional basis. The only exceptions will be for refunds that are less than $1. To be eligible for a refund, contributors will need to provide a return mail address with their donation.

P.S. If this note looks familiar to subscribers to OPDG, it is because Greg, our chief cook and bottle washer, entered a variant of this appeal on the OPDG newsgroup. We are looking at empowering as many PERS members, retirees, legislators who do not always have a clear view of history, journalists who also do not always understand the central issues or the seemingly peripheral elements that make the trivial seem meaningful and the reverse, lawyers, indeed anyone with an interest in PERS history over the past dozen years. We hope you'll contribute to this incredible asset and we hope you'll use it. It is there, and once the new searching suite gets posted, will be quite simple to use for complex searches.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

One of the last of the true believers, Steve Delaney, has announced his resignation from PERS effective soon. He will become the Director of the Orange County (California) Public Employee Retirement System. I always found Steve to be one of the nicest, most courteous, and most helpful PERS employees. He never failed to answer a question, was always helpful whenever I had meetings with senior PERS staff (not recently, alas), and has been a true professional during this entire period where PERS has been "front and center" in the news. I wish Steve nothing but the best in his new position. It sounds like his experience within the Oregon PERS System will prepare him well for the Directorship in the land of Disney. Goodbye and good luck, Steve.

Give Me Something

Anything. According to my little widget PERS has been failing to comply with state law for 1599 days, 19 hours (for those who don't think that way, that has been since 7/1/03). While PERS would argue that they HAVE been following the law, the key elements of HB 2003 were overturned March 10, 2005 and specified that PERS members be restored to their position on 7/1/03. To date, that has never happened, and if PERS has its way, it never will. If I were you, I'd be angry, very angry. But being angry isn't enough. You have to be willing to do something about it. Electing the right candidates is one approach. Organizing a large constituency to petition Judge Kantor to hold PERS in contempt f Court would be another matter. Sitting on your hands is not, in my opinion, an option. The more inactive you are, the flatter you will be when the PERS steamroller runs over you. Use every lick of intellect you have. Fight back and get others to fight along side you. The PERS Coalition can't do all the heavy lifting. At some point personal responsibility comes into play. As we rapidly approach 1600 days of willful disobedience of the law, now is as good a tiime as any to start kicking ass and taking names. Better late than never.

Changing of the Guards - Part 2

I was sorely tempted to title this post "Alas poor Orrick", but I decided that was stretching artistic license too far and would break my music oriented theme. In any case, I finally have my answer about how Orrick came to be the attorneys of record for the PERS Board. Rather than try to rephrase the complicated story, I'll let David Crosley's answer speak for itself:

"In August 2003, acting upon a request by PERS, the Attorney General granted approval for PERS to retain fiduciary and litigation counsel independent of DOJ pursuant to ORS 238.657. An answer or other first appearance to the Oregon Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court was due by August 21, 2003 in response to lawsuits relating to PERS Reform.

The request for proposal (RFP) required each firm to provide a statement of qualifications and answers to questions regarding its background and qualifications.

Using the authority granted in OAR 125-247-0295, the PERS Board received responses to the RFP from Lane, Powell, Spears, Lubersky LLP (Lane Powell); Bullivant Houser Bailey PC (Bullivant); and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Orrick).

The factors in choosing Orrick were based on the selection criteria in OAR 125-247-0295: (A) The knowledge, skills and ability of the Firm that will provide Authorized Legal Services. The Firm's ability to provide Authorized
Legal Services includes the training and expertise of the Firm attorneys, including Outside Counsel. Outside Counsel must be a member of the Oregon State Bar pursuant to ORS 180.235(2);

(B) The Firm's experience, level of expertise and suitability to perform the Authorized Legal Services; (C) Whether the Firm's available personnel possess any required licenses or certifications required to perform the legal services for the Authorized Legal Services, such as licenses to practice law in the appropriate jurisdiction, or to appear in a certain forum; (D) The Outside Counsel's availability and capability to perform the Authorized Legal Services and meet the Agency's needs; (E) The commitment the Outside Counsel and Counsel's Firm can make to the Authorized Agency to meet the Agency's needs; (F) The value of the Firm's legal services, taking into account the cost of the Firm's legal services; and (G) Other factors the Authorized Agency considers relevant to accomplish an optimal, timely outcome. "

So there you have the story of how Orrick came to have the contract with PERB to represent it in the ongoing litigation. I'm particularly interested in how Orrick met criteria (B) and (D) and how (F) and (G) can be reconciled with the actual costs being incurred. I still have this visceral feeling that the deck was stacked in favor of Orrick and nothing in the responses to the RFP would have changed that outcome. I don't know what leverage Orrick has over State agencies and why it has insinuated itself into almost every level of state and local government. I *know* the firm specializes in certain fiduciary instruments, such as bonds, but I still cannot find a whit of evidence that they are experts in public employee pension law. And so, for $750 an hour, PERS (and its members) are paying for a firm that specializes in bonds and high stakes litigation. Draw whatever conclusions you wish. I'm still not buying the argument that the RFP process produced a level playing field. This was a time for a changing of the guards and I suspect Orrick was right there ready and willing to jump into the fray. They acted just like Willie Sutton, the infamous bank robber, who robbed banks because that's where the money was. Orrick robs our public employee pension fund because that's where the money is in the State of Oregon. Nice work if you can get it.

Good Times Bad Times

As Dickens once wrote, "these are the best of times, these are the worst of times." In the latter category, more people than ever are being invoiced and readjusted from PERS and more people are waking up after 5 years of somnolence to discover that while they slept, the Legislature and PERS did a whole big bad number on them and now they're pissed. I'm glad to have these folks now at the party; I just wished they'd been paying attention in school when the Legislature was giving them their assignments. Just keep reading folks - the party isn't over until the fat lady sings (or until Judge Kantor gives his opinion, whichever comes first).

On the best of times department, I am happy to report that the subject of one of my blog entries "Linda" has finally won her victory over PERS. "Linda" persisted until PERS accounted for every penny of her account, correcting error after error along the way. You'll recall that I told Linda's story back in September ("Fixing a Hole", September 26). Hers was a case of impeccable records butting heads with sloppy files. "Linda", the CPA, wasn't going to back down and, with my encouragement, tracked down some helpful people at PERS who *finaly* got her account straightened out. It only took her two and a half months, not 30 days, but would have been impossible without some intervention. What Linda's case communicates to me is that PERS is shooting itself in the foot over and over again, pissing members off, making others suspicious, and contributing to a culture of incompetence and/or malignity. It is awfully nice to hear of these stories of victory. They are all too rare these days.

On another note, our database project is growing daily. We're getting good community support with donations coming in nearly daily. We haven't reached our $4000 project goal, but we can make it with your donations. If you read this blog, please consider giving a donation as recognition of what this blog contributes to your information content. Now, imagine the information level times 50, which is what the document site is. It is a collection of a staggering array of documents to help you understand this entire mess and help you to understand how things got where they did. It costs money to build a first rate search engine. People have asked what they can do for ME to repay ME for my hard work. Donate to the library. I'm involved there and it is a project that I've contributed many documents from this site to. You can get all the information you need at OregonPERS.info

Excitable Boy

I woke up this morning and checked in with the blog to see if there were new comments to moderate. I hadn't been paying attention to the hit counter for quite some time. Today I see that we're past the 499,000 mark and closing in rapidly on 500,000 hits since October 2003. That's pretty amazing and I'm excited. Half a million page views in 4 years is pretty impressive. Not CNN and not Jack Bog, put compelling nonetheless. Either PERS members have nothing else to do, or the site has proven to be a valuable source of unexpurgated opinion, facts, and (occasionally) humor. The information never stops flowing; my brain never stops working overtime trying to figure out this whole mess. I guess I'm just an excitable boy who's enjoying retirement. Keep up the entertainment PERS. If I didn't have you to kick around, I guess I'd have to kick my dog. She's too cute to kick, so I guess I'll have to console myself that you're not cute, you're not cuddly, and your actions are ugly, mean-spirited, and illegal.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

We had a pretty good turnout for yesterday's poll. About 77% of the respondents wanted Governor Ted Kulongoski to advise the PERS Board to settle the litigation with the PERS Coalition and be done with this mess. I'm not really surprised by those results, as that has been what the PERS Coalition has been aiming for all along. We want OUR settlement agreement along the lines of the City of Eugene settlement agreement, only in reverse. This time we want what we have won, legally, in court. If we happen to win the Arken case outright, that is icing on the cake, but we've already won and people just can't figure out why we have to keep fighting to get what is already ours.

The perverse twist in all this is that we've got this California law firm, called Orrick, that keeps billing PERS at $750 per hour and has no incentive to settle. They've got this cash cow going and they're milking PERS (the members and retirees) for every nickel it can get. Digging deeper into this manure, Orrick has its fingerprints all over Oregon government, dating back to at least the 1980's. So they've been suckling at the public teat for a very long time. What's odd is that if you look at Orrick's legal portfolio, they clearly have little or no experience in public employee retirement plans or litigation thereof. You have to wonder why, of all the law firms in the US, in Oregon, in the Northwest, would a Public EmployEE Retirement System hire a firm with so demonstrably little experience in litigating pension legislation. Head wide boy Joe Malkin, who oozes sleaze from every pore, specializes in "high stakes litigation" and has represented such clients as the tobacco and drug industry. While I realize that the current PERS litigation is "high stakes" (for retirees, chump change for PERS), nothing in it has any resemblance to product liability litigation. Maybe I'm just living in a different world, one where you'd choose your attorney on the basis of his/her skill set in representing your interests in the type of litigation needed. While I haven't a shred of evidence to support my conjecture, I'd almost be willing to bet that there's a Neil Goldschmidt connection somewhere in all this. Orrick just appears, like Minerva from the brow of Zeus, to rescue PERB in about October 2003, about one month after the new PERS Board takes over and not long before the Goldschmidt scandal breaks into the wide open. I've scoured the net and I find all sorts of possible connections and exposure to Orrick by current PERB members. Maybe they just knew Orrick's work and it was the first name that rolled off their collective tongues. Perhaps they didn't think that Stoel, Rives' great pension attorney - Greg Macpherson - might have a recommendation (or maybe he did. Wonder if Macpherson's run for AG is being financed in any way by donations from Orrick? Note to self - check finance lists).

This post is beginning to wander. In any case, the poll indicates that a large percentage of our readers today think Governor Kulongoski should get on the PERS Board's case to settle the litigation and move on. And I suspect that won't happen, not because of what we think or even what the Governor thinks, but because Orrick is milking too much money out of these cases to quit. Ah, I can see the jigsaw pieces falling into place.

Don't You Wish It Was True?

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Funny How Time Slips Away

I was bored this morning while waiting for my daughter to get ready for school. I have the new Mac operating system, Leopard. It comes with Dashcode - a very nice developers tool for whipping out Mac widgets. This are little tiny applications that run from OS X Dashboard and do things useful. I have a widget available to pull RSS feeds from this site. I've just built a new widget called "PERS Lawbreakers" just for fun. If you have a Mac running Tiger or later, you can download this widget just for fun from my personal widget factory. Stuffit will unpack the widget. Just click on the widget and it will load into your Dashboard. For your information, the base date is July 1, 2003. Have fun - or get really pissed off, take your pick.

Bodysnatchers

It's revenge of the bodysnatcher's day - Halloween (or is that tomorrow, All Saints Day?). Whatever. PERS seems completely without shame. They are sending out recalculation notices with reckless abandon. Some members have received notices dated as recently as 10/29 (two days ago) announcing benefit adjustments to be effective on November 1 (tomorrow, All Saints Day). The ratio of bad news to minor good news is about 4 to 1. Polls of retirees on OPDG indicate that only one retiree for every four is getting a small benefit increase from the recalculations. This is diametrically opposed to what PERS brazenly told Judge Kantor on August 16, 2007. This qualifies as PERS' sleaziest move to date. Let's cut the benefits of 80% of recent retirees with a day or two's notice. Kinda hard to plan a budget based on a fixed amount that suddenly changes. I hope that Judge Kantor not only smacks PERS upside the head for this blatant flaunting of the law (see e.g. Judge Kantor's June 2007 ruling, or, perhaps, the Supreme Court's Strunk ruling in March 2005), but I hope they leave the entire PERB and senior PERS officials in a room with Jack Bauer or Alberto Gonzalez for some torture for their behavior. If all this doesn't constitute an "abuse of discretion" or worse, I can't imagine what qualifies.

Whatever Judge Kantor does I want him, the PERS Coalition, the Governor, and all retirees to know that it my humble opinion that what PERS is currently doing is blatantly criminal. It rises above the crap floating around about what Ted K knew about Neil's peccadillos (or is that pecker dildoes - sorry if I offended, I'm in a really foul mood today). It rises above Bernie Guisto's sleaze. What PERS and PERB are doing is just plain wrong and criminal. They deserve jail, not merely a trip into a court to have their hands and faces slapped. They deserve a visit from the Bodysnatchers and the Dementors. Please feel free to add your own opinions here. I know PERS is reading....

Live Out the String

I haven't vanished. PERS news is slim right now. The only thing disturbing this period of quiescence is the fact that PERS seems to be sending out recalculation notices at an incredibly rapid pace these days. My guess is they are trying to get as many people as possible recalculated before Judge Kantor issues his ruling on what PERS is permitted to do. If Judge Kantor rules that PERS is NOT permitted to recalculate benefits, then PERS can drag its feet recalculating them back to what they should be according to the Supreme Court ruling in Strunk (Sartain). I can see it now: California wideboys standing before Judge Kantor smirking and telling him that these are really difficult calculations and that PERS just can't do it quickly. We beg you Judge to permit us to delay just a tiny bit longer. And I hope Judge Kantor has the huevos to tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine.

To entertain myself in this period of lull, I'm upgrading my entire home network to Apple's new operating system "Leopard". Leopard is Apple's answer to Windows Vista, except done correctly IMO. It took me nearly two weeks to upgrade a single computer to Windows Vista from Windows XP. Microsoft had so many different versions of Vista that I kept getting the wrong one to match what version of XP I had before. Apple, on the other hand, has a single version of Leopard that includes the same features for all users. They even sell a family pack that allows installation on up to 5 computers. How convenient: my home Apple network has exactly 5 Apple computers. And I don't think Apple counts all that closely. The first computer took just slightly more than an hour to upgrade. As far as I can tell, it was flawless. I found a couple of programs that require upgrades before they will run properly under "Leopard", but none are critical. Most programs just run as is. My second computer upgrade was on my primary network server. This was a leap of faith but I had three backups of the system in case something disastrous happened. I can't say the upgrade went flawlessly, but it only took me one perusal of the Apple newsgroups to figure out how to fix a problem created during the upgrade. It took a little bit longer to download all the needed upgrades to various pieces of the network software and all the utilities I normally use to make life easier. I've been using the updated system for about 6 hours now and I've only run into one piece of software that just plain doesn't run. This piece is important to me, but there are a dozen alternatives I can use in the meantime. While I'm writing this, system number 3 is "doing its thing". I expect no problems there either.

So, if you're bored, have a recent model Apple computer, and want a way to live out the string on a Saturday afternoon, pick up a copy of Apple's Leopard and install it. Your life will be much improved .

Changing of the Guards

Once upon a time there was an organization called OPRI (Oregon PERS Retirees, Inc). It was started by a small group of people in Jack Sollis' den to fight a legislative change that made PERS pensions taxable. OPRI fought this legislative change, won in the Supreme Court, and established itself as THE force to deal with on PERS retiree issues. The OPRI website documents their history well; it is not my intent to repeat it. Fast forward to 2003. PERS Retirees are being lambasted by the media for lavish retirement benefits, the legislature gets in the act and OPRI goes into action again to fight all the changes by the Legislature. Enter Martha Sartain. She's the plaintiff OPRI selects to fight the Legislative change in HB 2003 that suspends (freezes) the COLA for certain retirees ("window retirees"). OPRI hires a top-flight attorney, Scott Johnson, who, along with pension expert Greg Hartman, successfully petition the Oregon Supreme Court to overturn two key provisions of the 2003 law. During the fight, OPRI raises a good deal of money from members for its legal defense fund. Jack Sollis promises members that their donations would be returned to the extent possible if they win attorney fees in the Oregon Supreme Court. Both Jack Sollis and Martha Sartain die during 2007 - Jack of a lengthy illness; Martha of a short illness. During Martha's time as a Board Member she expresses private frustration to me that the OPRI Board seems unresponsive to the needs of recent retirees. She is also frustrated by recent retirees lack of involvement in the process. We both agree that part of the problem stems from PERS' decision - mandated by State law - to NOT give OPRI space in the retirement package to include membership information as they had in the past. Consequently OPRI has no easy way to contact recent retirees. Nevertheless, modern communication technologies make it possible to reach many people at once using the web and various web technologies including blogs, newsletters, mailing lists, and newsgroups. During the peak of legislative activity, my own blog evolved out of an ever-expanding mailing list that reached close to 2500 at its peak. The Oregon PERS Discussion Group (OPDG) has currently over 1000 members and has over 20,000 messages posted since November 2003. Thus, despite the limitations imposed by privacy requirements, use of modern technology has enabled many retirees to get information they otherwise would not have. Martha's objective during her short tenure on the OPRI Board was to modernize its communications system to take advantage of the instant nature of Web 2.0. She was partly successful, but not successful enough to maintain her energy to fight the inertia she described on the OPRI Board.

A constant theme in the OPDG discussion group is "where is OPRI?". The current OPRI Board is governed by an archaic set of bylaws that make it nearly impossible for newcomers to penetrate the inner circle. Board members are selected by Board members; bylaw changes are voted on by Board members. Who guards the guards? Once OPRI takes your money, you have no further voice in the operation of the organization. As an old commercial once asked: "Is this any way to run an airline?" A number of OPRI members worked out a proposal to amend the bylaws to make them more democratic. They were presented to the OPRI Board about a year ago. Not all Board members were present; there were enough for a quorum, which rejected the bylaw changes.

This month, two Board seat terms expire. OPRI put out a call for volunteers for these two seats. Kathleen Beaufait, current Board Chair of OPRI, announced some time ago that she intended to run again for her seat. The other seat, held by a public school administrative or certificated retiree, was being vacated by the incumbent and would be open. The current Board consists of 6 non-recent retirees (pre-2000) and 3 "window" retirees. The two vacancies were from pre-2000 retirees. Informed sources tell me that the 3 "window" retirees have little voice on the Board. Many people, including me, put out an appeal for qualified applicants to put their name up to OPRI for these Board positions. No one responded. Ms. Beaufait was reappointed; OPRI is still looking for the public school administrative or certificated retiree.

Although some may think that OPRI's day may have come and gone, I'm not yet persuaded. If we can gain one more seat on the Board, the pre-2000 retirees will hold a slim majority of 5-4, not unlike our Supreme Court. If the right person goes up for the Board and is selected, perhaps he or she might convince the Board of the wisdom of reaching out to this large group of retirees (numbers exceeding 40,000 if PERS' reports are accurate) and enfranchising them. This is not a class struggle, but the reluctance of the current Board to make the kind of changes needed to persuade new leaders to come forward is maddening and frustrating. The proposals introduced last year were fair, were necessary, and would have energized the organization. Moreover, they would have energized members, many of whom are questioning what they are getting for their dues (however small they might be). Of course, life would be much easier for recent retirees if they had a majority on the OPRI Board.

Since I've never been bashful before, I'm not going to be bashful now. It really is time for some of the current OPRI Board to step aside and let some new blood energize the organization. Let some of the recent retirees make the kind of changes needed to democratize OPRI. Let members have a vote in bylaw changes and in Board membership. OPRI is no longer the club it used to be. Public employment is no longer as civilized as it used to be in the 1960's and 1970's. Public employment no longer works at all like it did 30 or 40 years ago. It is a nasty world out there and there are some mean people out to trample public employees into the dust. There are people out to destroy public employee collective bargaining. There are people out there who want to take more pension benefits away from active employees as well as current retirees. We need a strong OPRI to fight off these changes. The current OPRI is limp, resting on its past victories, and completely ineffective in dealing with all the SOB's of the world. It is time for a change.

(P.S. For those current Board apologists who will argue that no recent retirees apply for their open positions, see the discussion of the archaic bylaws. There are plenty of people who would be interested in getting involved with an energized OPRI but are restricted by the bylaws which limit voting to members of the Board.)