Ain't That a Kick in the Head

The PERS Recovery effort has gotten under way, although no formal, official collection letters have gone out yet.  PERS is still waiting for a decision on their budget request to the Legislative Emergency Board.  

In the meantime, the little, niggling things I mentioned in my last post are starting to clarify, and the little people are finding that PERS has a variety of groups that are suddenly discovering that they owe PERS money even though they either retired before the 1999 earnings crediting, or after the so-called adjustment.  In other words, there are far more people affected by the recovery than just the so-called "window retirees".  We've encountered people from the Police and Fire group who retired after the recrediting action, but who purchased Police and Fire units while the 20% crediting was still in force.  Those units were not adjusted at the same time that the Tier 1 regular account recrediting took place, and thus were surprised to receive a collection letter.  There are approximately 1300 retirees affected by this untimely notice.  People who took the partial lump sum (retired prior to 2004) in the late 1990s and decided to have PERS distribute it in some (up to 5) annual payments.  The money remaining in PERS after electing the partial lump sum was also credited for 1999 earnings at 20% and so many of those people found themselves receiving an ugly surprise letter from PERS last month.  The original default repayment amount started out at 2% and was, unthinkingly and uncritically, selected by PERS staff without any analysis of the actual impact on the timing of repayments.  While most people would retire their obligation in under 10 years, a significant number wouldn't.  Some extreme outliers wouldn't be recovered in under 40 years.  Thus, PERS has had to revisit the minimum payment and revise it to between 2% and 5%. The people most likely to be affected by the higher percentages, some as high as 10%, are people who took partial lump sums.

We've also heard from people who asserted that they had no obligation to PERS yet they received letters.  The largest percentage of instances were people who retired in May, June, and July 2005, supposedly after all the account adjustments were made and before they could possibly have received a single overpaid monthly benefit.  PERS initially denied that there were any confirmed errors, but I now know of at least three cases in which PERS has acknowledged erroneously sending the letter.   I'm pretty confident that there will be more.  I have heard from no one who did not receive a letter who believed he/she should have.  At this point it is probably safe to assume that if you haven't received a letter, you probably won't receive a letter.  However, some of the cases are so complicated and involve so many issues that there may be a few stray letters yet to come along.

The most common question I'm getting is:  "when will we actually see the invoice and have to start repaying?"  The answer depends on whether the Legislative E-Board approves PERS' request for additional spending authority.  If they get the approval, I would expect invoices to start going out in August and probably take about a year to complete.  I have no idea how PERS will stage the invoicing, although if I were doing it, I would go after all the low-hanging fruit first (i.e. retirees receiving a monthly benefit).  These make up about 75% of the total, so the low-hanging fruit also yields the greatest return for the least expense.  There will probably be a much more protracted effort to contact all the people in the other categories, especially if PERS does not have an ongoing relationship with them.   If PERS does not get the additional budget, the process will take much longer.  I have a hard time imagining that PERS won't get the money since the benefit to cost ratio is so extremely high.  

Meanwhile, the silly season is in full tilt, the structure of next year's Legislature is in doubt until November, and early returns suggest that a few well-known players want to revisit PERS yet again in February.  The cockier Legislators, or legislative wannabes seem to think there is still legal low-hanging fruit to be harvested from PERS, but I'm doubtful that the bigger pieces will withstand legal review.  Nevertheless, we've been kicked in the head so many times in the past decade, that I'm not willing to let up on my scrutiny of the big (or small) picture.  A new Attorney General might let up a bit on the privacy matters, but that may be a small victory if we attain it.  The price of a PERS retirement now seems to be eternal vigilance, something none of us anticipated when we retired. 

 

Swallowed Up

Little niggling things continue to concern me about the latest campaign PERS has organized to collect from "window retirees" for the overpayments we were paid.  Part of my concern was raised in yesterday's post, and will be elaborated on in today's post.  However, another issue has bubbled to the surface as well.  I've been hearing from more and more PERS retirees from  2004, 2005, and 2006 (outside of the "window") who also received the pre-collection letter.  Since these members did not, to the best of my knowledge, receive any documented "overpayments" (their accounts were completely debited for the entire over crediting from 1999 after the settlement agreement was executed in January 2004).  Thus, they received no overpayments, yet are receiving a letter charging them with receiving overpayments.  One went so far as to call PERS and received the unwelcome news that there is a group of about 2000 post-window retirees whose accounts are being reviewed for possible overpayments.  It is hard to figure out how these retirees could have been overpaid, and the idea that PERS is using the cover of the Strunk/Eugene remediation to go after possible mistakes long after the statute of limitations has expired is more than a trifle worrisome.

Now, back to the 2%-5% issue.  While I now know the reason why PERS had to revise the minimum payment, I still cannot understand two things about it:  1) why wasn't this obvious to PERS when they first proposed the 2% default payback; and 2) how they are going to determine who is going to have to pay more than the 2% minimum.   If PERS stuck to the 2% repayment plan, some individuals would be in payback status for as long as 40 years; most are not anywhere near that long.  About 80% of "window retirees" receiving a monthly full benefit (i.e. did not take any lump sum) will be able to repay their entire obligation in 10 years or less.  PERS has decided, unilaterally I might note, that the collection process should not run for longer than that.  About 18% of regular monthly recipients would require longer than 10 years to repay their debt and these are the people PERS will tag with higher monthly reductions (up to 5%).  For the rest of the people - about 2% of regular monthly benefit recipients, and a large proportion of people who took a single lump sum payout - the reduction required to liquidate their "overpayment" in 10 years or less will be substantially higher than 2%, possibly as high as 10%.  PERS will be in contact with this group of individuals to arrange for some additional payment commitments to ensure repayment is complete in 10 years.

One question does not yet have a clear and unambiguous answer.  I serve as a perfect example of the problem.  My "overpayment" is in the mid 5 figure range.  If I take 2% of my current benefit and divide it into the amount I owe, it will take approximately 10 years and 4 months to repay the debt.  However, that calculation does not take into account cost-of-living increases I will receive along the way that will leverage up my benefit and my repayment amount (it is always set to be 2% of whatever my gross benefit happens to be at the time).  So, if I figure on getting a 2% COLA annually until my debt is repaid, it will be less than 9 years of actual repayment.  So, my question of PERS is this:  how is it determined whether an individual will need to pay the minimum 2% or something greater?  If the amount owed is divided by 2% of the current base benefit, I fall into the "more than 2%" category; however, if the amount owed is divided by 2% of the average expected benefit over the next ten years, I fall into a completely different category.  PERS would be wise to answer this question because I know an awful lot of people who will be swallowed up by this piece of arithmetic sleight of hand.  

Again, I remind all that WE DID NOT CAUSE THIS ERROR TO BE MADE.  Therefore, PERS' obligation is to be reasonable and not arbitrary.  The process started out to be quite reasonable and most people I've communicated with thought it was fair and equitable.  If now, every time we turn around, PERS starts changing the rules and making exceptions to the simple approach initially proposed, there are going to be a lot of people very angry, and a more vocal and intimidating group will start showing up at Board meetings to express their displeasure.

 

Nasty Letter

Most of the "window retirees" probably have received the initial letter from PERS concerning the beginning of the "payback" of the 1999 over credit of interest to Tier 1 regular accounts.  While this should not be news to most "window retirees", I'm sure that a large percentage of the 29,000 recipients were probably shocked to learn that they still owed PERS money, and that PERS was going to start collecting it sometime over the next year.  The letter was relatively simple to understand, although a fair number of people I know who have already repaid their "overpayment" back to PERS received the letter.  This will, no doubt, trigger some anxious and anguished phone calls to the PERS Customer Service group.  This group already has the reputation of being not very helpful, and occasionally downright obstreperous.  This will mean more work for the second level support people.

In January and March of 2012, the PERS Board meetings revealed the method that PERS was going to use to collect the overpayments.  Out is the actuarial recovery method (ARM) that some people were trapped in before Judge Kantor ruled in June 2007 that PERS could NOT collect overpayments.  Since the case was appealed, PERS simply stopped billing those not yet repaying, but left the payments in tact for those already in repayment status.  Based on discussions and conversations with PERS staff, OPRI, the PERS Coalition, and many others, PERS decided (wisely) to discontinue the ARM for new payees, and instead come up with a mechanism that is both fair and enables retirees to repay only what they owe - no more, no less.  This mechanism set 2% of the gross benefit as the default amount to repay.  Thus, a member receiving $1000 per month (before taxes), would see $20 per month deducted from the gross benefit and assigned to the repayment.  Under typical circumstances, window retirees would see their benefit reduced for about 6.5 years, after which the benefit would become the current gross benefit without the reduction for the Strunk/City of Eugene repayment.  Alternatively, members could write a check for a lump sum to repay in a single payment.  Members who wanted to accelerate their repayment could choose any amount in excess of 2% and repay sooner.

This method is both fair and reasonable, so what is nasty about it?  There is nothing nasty about what is described above.  It is exactly what the Board authorized at its March 2012 meeting.  To many people, the letter yesterday contained a very rude, very unexpected, and, if true, very nasty surprise.  The 2% minimum payment seems to have evolved into a less specific "2% to 5%" minimum payment.  In other words, we no longer know for certain that the default minimum will be 2% of gross monthly benefit.  Now, the minimum could be as much as 5% of gross monthly benefit, making what was a very reasonable minimum now become a much harsher minimum.  Who will be stuck with the larger payments?  Dunno.  There was a buried hint in the letter yesterday.  There was a reference to a 10 year period.  What has possibly occurred is that PERS' actuaries ran analyses using the actual cohort of eligible retirees and found that under a 2% minimum, some people might be paying for a really long time, possibly 10 - 20 years.  At this point, I'm just guessing because PERS hasn't gotten back to me to answer my question about the unexpected change.

In the meantime, even though PERS has discouraged phone calls about the repayment plan, I think that if you are concerned enough about this, you ought to email PERS and ask for an explanation.  This is a badly FUBARED public relations nightmare, not to mention an unexpected fiscal surprise for a group of people just coming to grips with the 2% reduction in benefits.  To confront a possible 5% reduction may be the tipping point for many retirees.  PERS ought to stick to their word.  The agreement they reached with the stakeholders was for a 2%, with the OPTION for individuals to increase the size of their repayment if they desired.  With this move, PERS has taken away another degree of freedom.  Just remember:  the overpayment was PERS' fault, not ours.  Anything that penalizes retirees is going to make a lot of people angrier than they already are.

Time for PERS to feel some of that wrath.

Do You Think I Really Care?

PERS is notorious for making some totally mystifying decisions.  The latest mystery is why PERS is NOT going to give those retirees already in payback mode, the option of switching to the newer system adopted for later retirees.  Back in 2006, PERS made its original (bad) decision to permit retirees two options for paying back monies owed due to overpayments between 2000 and 2006 from 1999 earnings crediting.  PERS gave retirees the option of either an Actuarial Recovery Method (ARM) or repaying the entire balance in a lump sum.  The ARM took the member's balance due, computed his/her actuarial life expectancy and divided the balance by the number of months the retiree was still expected to live.  This became the ARM amount.  The catch with this method is that there never was a mechanism in place to stop the payments after a member had fully repaid his/her debt.  Thus, the mechanism was designed so that longer-lived retirees (and their beneficiaries) would subsidize the accounts of shorter-lived retirees.  This proved to be immensely unpopular, although the repayment amounts were typically so small that retirees didn't ever bother to complain too much about it.

Once the Supreme Court ruled that PERS could begin collections again, OPRI, the PERS Coalition, I, and many others began to petition PERS to come up with a more reasonable method that would insure that retirees paid no more than they owed.  This led to a higher repayment amount, but over a shorter time period and with the certainty that members would pay what they owed and no more.   I expected, perhaps naively, that PERS would offer the same deal to retirees already under a payment plan using the ARM.  To my surprise, and many retiree's chagrin, PERS does not currently plan to make the new payment plan available to any member already under the ARM.  This is both unfair and also contrary to PERS' objective of recovering the money faster.  It is unfair because it saddles retirees under the ARM with the continuing burden of repayments for an indefinite period of time.  They risk paying significantly more than others, although at a much reduced monthly amount.  I fail to see how this is an equitable treatment of people who, for no other reason than pure bad luck, had the misfortune of being billed before Judge Kantor issued his original restraining order.

PERS' rationale is that they didn't plan for the "extra" work required to (a) turn off the ARM and calculate a retiree's current balance, and (b) turn on the new method that takes a minimum of 2% per month.  I have no idea how many people are affected by this, but I don't imagine it is very many compared to the number of people who will be placed under the current repayment system.  There are 28,000 members affected by the new repayment system.  It is estimated that there were approximately 35,000 "window retirees".  So, assuming all of the ARM'd retirees are still living, or have living beneficiaries, we are looking at no more than 7000 people.  PERS has a brand new computer system and it is hard to imagine (at least for me), that programming their database is that difficult.  Presumably, it is a variant of Oracle or mySQL or something common like that.  A good programmer armed with the structure of PERS' database ought to be able to cobble up the code to make the necessary adjustments in an afternoon and test it out fairly thoroughly the next day.  Even if PERS does the calculations with a spreadsheet, we are not looking at THAT many calculations.

I basically don't buy PERS' current excuse for not offering the new system to members repaying under the ARM.  PERS has asked the legislature for 3 limited duration positions to handle the initial calculations for the affected 28,000 members.  I wonder how much PERS will save by not doing this compared to the cost of defending themselves in litigation complaining about the inequitable treatment of retirees in the same class.  Somehow, I think this falls into the category of "penny wise, pound foolish."

Right Down The Line

There are lots of questions about how PERS will implement the recovery of monies owed by "window retirees".  PERS has tried to answer these as best they can in their FAQ posted at the PERS website.  One recurrent theme in the discussions surrounding the repayment is the fact that members want flexibility to repay PERS at higher than the minimum 2% of gross benefit that PERS came up with.  But, in wanting flexibility, window retirees seem to want to have it both ways - flexibility to increase the amount of the payment in good times, and the flexibility to reduce the payment back to the minimum in harder times.  While I know that PERS will consider these arrangements on an individual basis, I think it prudent for those affected by the repayment to consider agreeing on an amount - 2% up to 10% of gross benefit - as permitted by ORS 238.715, and sticking to the payment amount they decide on.  It is not PERS' obligation to permit "window retirees" to constantly change their payment over the life of the debt.  PERS has enough trouble now keeping records straight; it hardly behooves them to introduce a fail-safe mechanism doomed to failure from the outset.  My advice would be to pick an amount, any amount, and stick with it until the debt is fully repaid.  If 2% doesn't pay back fast enough, increase the percent, but don't expect to fall back on the minimum if life deals you a bad hand.  Once you agree to an amount, stick with it unless you want to write a check and pay the balance off at some future date.  Don't put PERS in the position of having to decide whether you are destitute because you made a poor decision at the beginning.

Easy Money

In a surprise development last Friday, PERS officials received the latest "purchasing power" study from Mercer actuaries.  It shows that with the rise in gas prices over the past few months that the purchasing power of retirees from 2000 on have lost more ground than their counterparts who retired in earlier years.  With COLA increases so limited despite increases in the actual cost of living, PERS announced that it would be suspending efforts to collect from "window retirees" for at least a year, and would petition the state E-Board to declare all PERS recipients eligible for a one time $50 ad hoc benefit increase.  When asked about this, PERS officials stated "…we know the last decade has been brutal on the retirees from the same period.  The combination of uncertainty about the outcome of litigation, the short period when retirees had their COLA frozen, and the repayment of all the litigation costs, we felt that those retirees who had actually managed to survive the decade should be rewarded for their persistence in the face of nearly insurmountable challenges."  Dennis Richardson (R-Gold Hill), a member of the state's e-board, announced that he thought this was a great way to preserve morale amongst PERS retirees, and he thanked all of them for their perseverance in helping to get this decade behind us.  He agreed that the $50 benefit increase was a small price to keep retirees spending their hard-earned dollars to fund the Oregon economy.  OPRI and the PERS Coalition were, for once, speechless.

Splitting The Atom

Now that the PERS Board has decided on the method for implementing the collection of the 1999 overcredit, there are a number of important details that remain to be decided.  Moreover, there exists considerable confusion among those "window retirees" for whom the collection is only a dim memory.  The purpose of this post is to summarize what is known, so far, about the collection effort, what remains to be answered, and to clarify a common misperception about the 2003 effort to freeze the COLA for Tier 1 members charged with an over credit.

There are four groups of people to be subjected to collection efforts.  The first group is the 20,000 or so retirees who were notified in 2006 of their adjusted benefits and were sent an invoice for overpayments, but whose invoices were suspended by Judge Kantor in his initial ruling on the Robinson case.  The second group consists of window retirees who took either a single or double lump sum, who've been invoiced, but collections were also suspended.  Third, are members of the two previous categories who have been invoiced and who started paying via actuarial recovery beginning in about 2006 or early 2007.  Finally, there are beneficiaries and alternate payees who are receiving benefits after the death of a PERS member, or a divorce from a PERS member who have not been invoiced or collected.

The most complicated group will be those retirees who collected their PERS benefit as a double lump sum settlement and have no ongoing business relationship with PERS.  In order to collect what is owed, PERS first has to locate these individuals.  If they remain in Oregon, the Oregon Department of Revenue will locate them.  If they are outside of Oregon, the Revenue Department does not have reach; consequently, PERS will have to contract with collection agencies who will use skip tracers to find these retirees.  (Heck, if they wanted to pay me, I could probably locate about ⅔ of them with a simple web search).  If found, and if these retirees work with PERS, PERS will allow these members to set up a payment plan to recover the lump sum that will span approximately 6 years.  This is a far better deal than before.

For any window retiree, beneficiary, or alternate payee in a current business relationship with PERS - i.e. receiving any sort of monthly benefit - a current address already exists, and PERS has an easy way to notify affected retirees.  The default repayment option is a base 2% reduction in benefits (from the gross benefit) for however long it takes to repay the amount invoiced.  In most cases, overpayments will be recovered in approximately 6.5 years, at which time the reduction will stop and members will have repaid all owed benefits.

Members have the option of repaying the benefit as a lump sum, or they have the option of accelerating the repayment by selecting a repayment amount greater than 2% of the gross benefit.

More details will be forthcoming next week as PERS prepares a "Frequently Asked Questions" document for posting on their website.

One question that has appeared with some frequency in my own mailbox has been the question of whether PERS will "finally" apply the "lost" COLAs for the years 2003, 2004, 2005 and possibly 2006.  The answer to this question is an unequivocal NO.  Regardless of what you think PERS has or hasn't done, PERS has already applied the necessary COLA payments to the revised benefit you're receiving now.  When PERS recalculated your benefit to comply with the court-ordered, legislatively approved and mandated 11.33% for the benefit year 1999, it went back and recalculated the benefit it actually owed you when you retired.  The original benefit was computed with a 20% credit for 1999.  The new benefit was computed with the "correct" credit of 11.33%.  Once they computed the correct benefit, they then applied subsequent COLA for 2003, 2004, 2005, and, if relevant, 2006.  The effect of this was to raise the corrected base benefit to nearly the level (or surpass it) that the un-COLAd benefit was at the time of the adjustment.  Thus, according to PERS, the courts, and the Legislature, there is no additional COLA to which members are entitled.  You may not agree with this, but this is exactly what happened.

I will update information as it becomes available.  Suffice it to say that the re-invoicing will take place sometime beginning this summer, and repayments will follow 30 days after you are re-invoiced and choose or default to the method of payback.  The initial billings are planned so that they coincide with the new 2% COLA for July, payable on August 1.  It will barely hurt.

Better Days

St Pat's Day turned out to be the magic day when this site crossed the 1,000,000 visitor mark.  Thanks to all who have made it possible.  Many eyes keep our legislators on the ball; many eyes keep PERS on the ball; many eyes TRY to keep the media in check.

I have been complaining for some time since the Supreme Court finally overturned the Robinson verdict that PERS was engaging in financial chicanery in calling their "actuarial recovery method" an "interest free" way of repaying money paid to "window retirees" (retired between 4/1/2000 and 3/31/2004) erroneously.  We may disagree with the verdict, but we are stuck with it.  In recognizing that fact, and also recognizing that collections would resume soon, I have been on a tear trying to convince people that the ARM is fiscal "sleight of hand".  Apparently, my words and the pressure brought to bear by OPRI, the PERS Coalition, and others have finally resonated inside PERS.  At their next Board meeting, members of the PERS Board will vote to implement a significantly revised recovery method for the 28,000 "window retirees" who haven't yet started paying, and to presumably revise the terms of repayment for those who began repaying before Judge Kantor enjoined PERS from further collection efforts.

The revised method, to be discussed and/or voted on March 22, 2011, will recover ONLY what an individual owes, not a penny more.  The mechanism for those eligible (monthly benefit recipients or alternate payees or beneficiaries receiving monthly benefits) is to set 2% of the gross benefit as the minimum repayment amount.  If implemented in August, as originally proposed, this would result in the sacrifice of the 2012 COLA until the bill is paid off - approximately 6.5 years for the typical retiree.  Retirees who want to accelerate their repayments can choose a larger amount (say 5%) and shorten the repayment period.  Of course, anyone can still write a check for the whole amount and be done with it.  This method, as far as it goes, satisfies my two requirements for fairness:  1) no interest is charged and 2) retirees obligated to pay ONLY what they owe, not a penny more.

There are some unanswered questions about PERS' proposed methodology.  First, will the deduction be taken pre-tax, as logic and tax fairness dictate it be (otherwise, we are subject to being taxed on money previously taxed).  Second, does the repayment amount remain constant at the initial 2% of the 2012 benefit as of August 1, 2012,or does the amount change every August when a new COLA is granted? Finally, will the 1099-R report this amount as an adjustment to box 2 (taxable amount), reducing further the obligations since the amount repaid has already been taxed?  The analogy here is that for those of us who worked prior to 1979, our PERS contributions came from our own money that was taxed at the time of contribution.  Thus, a small portion of our current retirement benefit is not subject to any taxes.  That amount is the difference between Box 1 and Box 2 on the 1099-R, it is also shown in Box 5 (Employee Contributions) on the same form.  Since we have already paid income tax on the money that we will be repaying, there is no reason why we should have to either (a) be taxed on it a second time, or (b) have to do anything special to try to recover it.

It strikes me that if PERS can clarify and resolve these questions/objections/challenges, those of us facing a large bill for amounts we had no control over will see better days ahead.

I will save my comments about the Sunday Oregonian editorial for another day.  Onwards towards 2,000,000.

 

Memories are Made of This

Eight years and nearly 1,000,000 visitors.  By the end of the coming week, this site will have crossed that magic marker that distinguishes the occasional blogger from the serious blogger.  Thanks to all of you for this honor.  I hope to continue in this vein until my blood becomes blue.

Yee Haw.

 

Shackled and Drawn

Sometime late this afternoon PERS turned over the latest data dump on 117,000 retirees who were listed on PERS' rolls as of December 1, 2011. This increased the number of retirees exposed by almost 12,000 since the last exposure in October. This release was more specific and included information about final salary, length of employment, and current percent of final salary received. Already The Oregonian is carping about all the information PERS didn't release because it wasn't available easily from the newest computer upgrade PERS completed this past year. You would think that the Oregonian believes it has a right to participate in the RFP process for securing a computer system tailored for The Oregonian, rather than PERS. I'm really sorry to let the Oregonian know that computer systems are developed to meet the needs of the agency designing and paying for the system. I'm sure PERS would be more than pleased to accept large cash donations from the Oregonian to assist in developing a computer system that simultaneously meets PERS' and The Oregonians' needs. Unless and until the media wants to contribute to the costs of such a system, they should be damned grateful for the information received and they can go piss up a rope for any information they feel they deserve but didn't get. Information costs money and the Oregonian didn't have to pay a nickel for what they got. They've already posted the new data and those of us exposed feel just a bit more shackled and drawn by the latest financial colonoscopy.

A Thousand Kisses Deep

This blog is going on 9 years old.  In that time we've covered a lot of ground and antagonized a lot of people.  That's OK; that's its purpose.  We are approaching a major milestone and I wanted to use this opportunity to send my valentines and kisses to all those who have faithfully read this site in hopes of gaining some insight into the labyrinthine ways of PERS and the Legislature.  Sometime in early March, we will cross the 1,000,000th visitor mark.  No blog can survive without eyes.  Yours have been the reason I keep going.  While I've threatened to let go soon, there is some magical draw to keep writing.  Maybe it is the thousand ways the legislature, the politicians, and the media find to continue to gang up on all public employees and retirees.  I just can't help myself; we did our part of the bargain.  We worked our collective asses off for, in many instances, sub-standard wages with the promise that the state (or local government or school district) would make up our inequities in retirement.  So, now here we are in retirement, and the assault never stops.  It is relentless and I'm quite bored with it all.  We PERS retirees are taking nothing we weren't promised.  Nobody gamed the system.  The system is ungameable.  So, all those people out there who think we have somehow collected more than we earned need to go back and do some collective reading.  I started working for Oregon in 1970.  I've looked over every contract I got from the Oregon University System.  No matter how I slice and dice the contracts, I seem to be getting exactly what they promised me - not a penny more, not a penny less.  I frankly think that all those people who want to rob me of benefits I've lawfully earned need to take a deep look inside themselves.  Would you willingly submit to the financial colonoscopy that we've all be subjected to?  Probably not.  So, you'll probably not be surprised when I say to them that they can just go "F*ck off" and leave me alone.  In the meantime, for the rest of you out there, I will keep writing this blog until I no longer see it is necessary to defend what I've (and you've) earned.

In the meantime, I want to thank all of you out there who make this blog a regular part of your web day.  If you want to help support the efforts here - this blog isn't cost-free - you can either donate through the link at the top, or purchase stuff through Amazon.  It won't cost you a dime extra and the small commission Amazon pays me helps pay for the cost of running the extra servers needed for uninterrupted access, software needed to keep the  blog current, and bandwidth required (Comcast and Century Link are not charities).

I'm trying to figure out a way to have balloons and fireworks go off once we hit the 1,000,000 mark.  If I figure it out, you'll be able to see it here.  Thanks again.

 

 

El Corrido de Jesse James

Just when you thought it was safe to relax for a few months over possible changes to PERS, the group of 14 robbers in the Oregon Senate have come up with the latest attempt to perform a financial colonoscopy on those Tier 1 members still in the system and Tier 2 members getting close to retirement.  All 14 Republicans in the Oregon Senate have pooled their collective IQ to come up with SB1593.  This bill, if enacted would instantly change the actuarially assumed interest rate used for determining benefits at retirement from 8% to 6% and would reduce benefit payouts for those retiring on or after July 1, 2013 (note the date, it isn't a typo) by about 25%. Disregarding the likelihood of this bill passing and getting through the Supreme Court, note that there are somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 current Tier 1 members who are both age and/or service eligible to retire now.  If all decided they didn't want to hang around to find out whether this bill passes or not, survives inevitable legal challenges or not, they could really mess with PERS.  Not only does PERS not have the capacity to deal with that vast number of retirements in a short period of time, removing that much money from the system into the BIF would probably destabilize PERS.

If you take the time to read this bill you'll find that it is both simplistic and simple minded.  The actuarially assumed interest rate for retirement benefits does not exist in a vacuum.  It is tied to the actuarially assumed interest rate used to set employer contribution rates; it is tied to the actuarially assumed interest rate used to credit Tier 1 member accounts with the "guarantee"; and finally, the actuarially assumed interest rates are used to determine the mortality table conversion factors that are used to generate benefits at retirement.  These rates are all coupled.  The actuaries determine the rate using the best evidence they have in complete knowledge of the way this single number interacts with the three component parts of the system.  I'm not sure whether it is possible to arbitrarily change the actuarially assumed rate for one part of the system independent of the other parts of the system.  That's the nature of the coupling.  SB1593 makes no mention of the statutes that cover the assumed rate and appear to amend no existing statute of any kind.  It seems to be a blunt force attempt to just uncouple the rates without bothering to mention that they are all interconnected.

If my counting is right, there are about 12 days left in this legislative session.  In order for this bill to pass, it has to get at least two democrats to agree to the bill in the Senate, and then it has to pass in the House, be reconciled if there are any differences of opinion in the House, and then has to be signed by the Governor.  I doubt that there is enough time for this to happen, but if it should make it to the Governor, I don't think our current Governor is afraid to say NO (at least I hope he isn't).

But, I don't think the intent is to pass the bill this session. I think the bill is an attempt to telegraph to eligible PERS members that it WILL be part of a major attempt at PERS reform during the longer 2013 session.  I'm not sure if they are trying to get most of the eligible to just commit and retire, or whether they are trying to see how stiff the headwinds will be for such a bill.  This is a very targeted attempt at a change that affects a modest number of PERS members who are eligible for retirement but haven't made the move.  I don't know how much they expect such a bill will save - it will be nothing if all the eligibles retire before the deadline - and I don't know if they really have any grasp of how all the parts of PERS interact.

Glad to meet all the Jesse James impostors of the world.  This crew definitely deserves some sort of award for sheer chutzpah.

If it affects you, I'd start by writing to your own Senator.  Then you might write to Senator Peter Courtney inquiring why this bill gets a hearing when HB 4033 was declared dead by Courtney before it was even heard in the House.

 

Money For Nothing

The official Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation rate for 2011 was published yesterday.  For the Portland-Salem area, the figures PERS uses for its COLA calculations, the 2011 rate of inflation was 2.86%  This means that for everyone retired by July 1, 2012, the August 1st PERS payment will go up by the statutory maximum of 2%, with 0.86% added to each individual's "COLA Bank".

For those members still on the hook for repaying the "overpaid" benefits during the 2000 - 2004 retirement period, the COLA will probably be used to disguise the fact that repayments will begin at the same time the COLA is paid.  Those opting for the "actuarial reduction" method of repayment will get little to no benefit from this COLA as it will probably be given with one hand and taken away with the other.  This truly meets the description of "money for nothing".

When The Whip Comes Down

Peter Courtney, President of the Oregon Senate, has decreed that HB 4033 will not get heard during this legislative session.  HB 4033 is an OPRI-sponsored and supported bill that would stop PERS from releasing the names along with the information about retirement benefits in the future.  The media (principally the Oregonian and the Statesman Journal) are exerting tremendous pressure on the Legislature over this bill, and it appears that Peter Courtney is not willing to have the bill heard unless he has overwhelming bipartisan support to withstand the onslaught of the newspapers' lobbying and bully pulpit.  I'm hardly surprised by these tactics; I fully expected them.

At this point, I don't know how much help it will be to flood Senator Courtney's office with letters, but I think it wouldn't hurt.  I would also cc my own legislators (House and Senate) to dial up the pressure.  At the very least, the Legislature needs to know that constituents view this as a high priority.  Please make it clear that you are NOT opposed to the information release; you are ONLY opposed to attaching names to the individual pieces of information.

We should not allow one person to determine the fate of more than 100,000 individuals who've already been exposed needlessly by the Oregonian and the Statesman Journal.

You Win Again

After several email exchanges with the good people at PERS, I now have an answer to the question posed in my previous post "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye".  Unfortunately for all the people retiring, the answer isn't the one they had hoped for, and I'm afraid that PERS is well-covered for what they do.  I won't bother with the first of the messages since it is largely unnecessary relative to the followup email.  From David Crosley, PERS' Communication Director:

"The IAP retirement application states: "IAP accounts are subject to earnings or losses. Your IAP disbursement is based on the account balance at the time PERS processes the payment, not the date you select to retire."

Tier One/Tier Two statute (Chapter 238) differs from IAP statute (Chapter 238A) regarding crediting.

For Tier One and Tier Two, Oregon Revised Statutes 238.300 states in part that interest is "credited at the time of retirement."

For the IAP, Oregon Revised Statutes 238A.350 states in part that "adjustments...shall continue until the account is distributed to the member or forfeited." "

Thus, the behavior PERS exhibits with regard to the distribution of the IAP account (however and to whom it is distributed) is entirely in conformance with the statute covering the IAP, written by the Legislature in 2003 and modified slightly in 2005.  If people are unhappy with the way PERS does things, it will require legislative action to change.  Like everything involved with the Legislature it is always wise to be careful what you wish for.  Moreover, PERS cannot be charged with failing to tell people as the application itself contains the key sentence (above) that describes exactly what happens at the time the account is distributed.