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Forum Targets PERS Improvement
Oregon’s Public
Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a drag on
Oregon’s taxpayers, its economy and state
services. It also puts its member’s life
savings at undue and unnecessary risk. We all
know it should be fixed, but how?
Fixing PERS is a
major issue now and was a battle in the last
gubernatorial election. Republican candidates
are again focused on PERS and promising to save
taxpayers millions if elected. As Oregon
schools, health care and public safety once
again face a funding crisis that pits the public
against legislators, school leaders against
parents, and government program managers against
each other, a financial consultant says there
are solutions that will protect PERS members and
taxpayers. What it takes is political will to
make unbiased decisions.
That is the
conclusion of Jesse Villarreal, Jr., founder of
PERS Help, a private organization providing free
information and education to PERS members.
Villarreal has studied and compared retirement
systems across the country. “Oregon’s next
governor can protect recipients’ benefits, free
up state revenues and lower the taxpayers’
burden by forcing the PERS system to stick to
rules and procedures already in place,”
Villarreal said.
“This is such an
important issue affecting not only the 311,000
members statewide, but all Oregonians whose
concerns and awareness of the problems continue
to grow. The cost of PERS is critical to every
state and local government program and to how
much we pay in taxes and fees,” Villarreal said.
“Now is the time for a new, active governor to
work more closely with PERS members to protect
and even improve their benefits,” he added.
As in the previous
gubernatorial election, Republican candidates
are again addressing PERS in their campaign
platforms. Candidates for Governor Jason
Atkinson, Kevin Mannix and Ron Saxton in
particular continue to talk about the problems
with PERS and how the system needs reform.
A focus of State
Representative Linda Flores (R- Clackamas
County) during the 2005 legislative session had
been to improve PERS. Representative Flores and
Jesse Villarreal, Jr. worked on several PERS
reform bills in the 2005 session that would have
enhanced funding for education.
“It’s time to fix
the system, and the next governor not only has
the power, but I believe, has the political
climate, to implement successful reforms to the
system. That’s why we want to know: ‘what would
they do and what is their plan?’ We are
offering a forum for these candidates to discuss
how they will fix PERS,” Flores said. Flores
and PERS Help are hosting the forum.
The forum is:
Wednesday, May 10th at 10:00 am,
at the Crowne Plaza, 217 and Kruse Way.
“Improving PERS has
been a Republican issue in the state since the
2002 election,” Flores said, “and for the
candidates it has not gone away. For taxpayers
and PERS members, the risk of current PERS
management practices continues to grow, and the
damage of wasting the money we all pay leads to
one funding crisis after another. Now is the
time for the candidates to lay out their ideas
to fix this mess,” she said.
For more
information on the PERS Improvement Candidates
Forum, go to
www.pershelp.com or
www.floresteam.com.
For more
information, call
Jim Haynes, 503-502-5981
PERS Help © 2004 All rights
reserved.
Last Revised:
May 14, 2006
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