Two Oregon Senators are looking out for small businesses through the creation of the Bipartisan PERS Solutions Workgroup.
Discussion of Oregon’s underfunded public pension may not yet be completely off the table.
Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) and Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend) recently created the Bipartisan PERS Solutions Workgroup in an effort to get the underfunded public pension back into the conversation, according to The Oregonian.
However, this work group “isn’t officially sanctioned,” its “meeting was not a formal hearing,” and “participants’ comments were not official testimony for the public record.
Knopp and Johnson feel they still have a chance in addressing the system’s $22 billion deficit and subsequent increases in cost to taxpayers and public employers.
“We want them to be bipartisan,” Knopp said. “We want them to be fair and we want them to be constitutional. … We’re not trying to have specific legislation, but we do want to have a conversation.
NFIB/OR State Director Anthony K. Smith was invited to attend the first meeting of the workgroup, which was held in late September.
“As painful as the process may be, Oregon has to develop a PERS solution that addresses the short-term and long-term sustainability of the program,” Smith said. “Every year we wait makes the task all the more daunting. Small businesses, and Oregon taxpayers in general, should be extremely grateful to Senators Johnson and Knopp for their willingness to refocus the PERS reform conversation on a legal, fair, and bipartisan solution.”
Smith added that he hopes the process continues and that NFIB can be a part of the conversation.
But there may be tough times ahead. Gov. Kate Brown, Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem), and House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) “are all reluctant to reopen the debate. They all say they see few or no options that would pass muster with the courts and generate big savings,” The Oregonian reports.
That didn’t stop Johnson and Knopp from having their work group’s first informational meeting, with topics such as “a proposal to reduce the interest rate that PERS uses when calculating a member’s annuity under its lucrative money-match formula.”
Because there are currently no plans yet for further meetings, Johnson said to “just stay tuned.”
