(The Wall Street Journal) Turmoil in Europe, the sluggish economy and low interest rates are intensifying pressure on public pension-fund systems to reduce the annual-performance assumptions they use to determine contributions from taxpayers and employees. Some lawmakers and pension officials are pushing to abandon the roughly 8% annual-return assumption set by many public-employee funds, saying [...]
(OregonCapitolNews) Proposed changes to add unfunded pension liabilities to government balance sheets may end up increasing Oregon governments’ liabilities by more than $13.5 billion. The Government Accounting Standards Board, a non-profit accounting standards body, recently released a new exposure draft of changes to pension accounting rules. Under the proposed rules, governments will have to start recognizing [...]
Each Oregon taxpayer’s financial burden equals $2,600. Read report here: 2009 Oregon Financial State of the State Share and Enjoy:
(Wall Street Journal) When President Obama signed H.R. 1586—the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act—last Tuesday, sending $26 billion in aid to the states, Democrats called it an economic stimulus plan necessary to save jobs. Republicans said it allows states to postpone making tough decisions to balance their budgets. The truth? It does both. The problem [...]
(TheOregonPolitico.com) Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s final approval over agency budget cuts has reverted Oregon’s General Fund spending to approximately 2007 levels. Oregon’s General Fund budget accounts for about 22 percent of the entire Oregon state budget. Despite cuts to the General Fund, the state’s total budget has increased by over $11 billion since the last biennium. [...]
On February 18 the Pew Center on the State issued its comprehensive study on the states’ huge amount of unfunded liabilities. The report is titled: “The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems And The Roads To Reform”. After studying the 2008 financial reports of all 50 states Pew determined that states’ retirement systems had [...]
Hallelujah! Jacob Szeto, Cascade Policy Institute, found an actuarial valuation report that breaks out the state agencies’ amounts from the total retirement plans’ amounts. This Actuarial Valuation Report 12/31/03 is for the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System – State Agencies. On page 6 it has the “allocated SLGRP T1/T2 UAL” ( unfunded accrued liability). A [...]
On p. 13 of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS or “the System”) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009 under “FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS” the following comment is made. “PERS’ assets exceed its liabilities at the close of fiscal year 2009, with $46,020.2 million held in trust [...]
It is good I have a lot of hair to pull out. Just spent an hour trying to determine the State’s actual contribution to PERS. Unfortunately, most of the schedules I can find show the employers’ contributions, which is for all the 887 employers. On p. 67 of the PERS Actuarial Report and the PERS [...]
From Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS or “the System”) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009. p. 13 – During 2009 the financial markets as a whole declined significantly in what has been described as the second worst recession in history. PERS’ investment portfolio incurred significant [...]
