What the Public Sees in Regards to
Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System
Highlights from The Oregonian on April 27, 2004
In 1981, legislators adopted formulas designed to provide 50 percent of retirees’ pay after 30 years of work; police and fire workers would get that amount after 25 years.
As recently as 1992, the PERS board’s official goal was to provide 75 percent to 85 percent of pay for career employees, including Social Security. State officials count on Social Security to provide 20 percent to 40 percent.
In 2003, one in four longtime workers got a pension equaling or bettering their salary, not including Social Security.
No other statewide pension system in the nation has benefits that match the PERS retirements in 2003, said Jim Voytko, former PERS executive director who prepared a report on other state plans for the Legislature before he resigned in October. "Those benefit levels are substantially higher on average than any of the pension systems I studied," Voytko said Monday.
"In pension systems that base benefits on a formula, the most common provides 45 percent after 30 years of service," said Dallas Salisbury, president and chief executive officer of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. "The most generous plans offer 75 percent after 30 years," he said. "In the private sector, the more lucrative pension plans aim to provide 75 percent after 30 years when combined with Social Security," Salisbury said.
