HOT AIR SOCIETY
BY TONY CORCOR AN
Amend this!
WILL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES REMEMBER 2017 WHEN THEY VOTE IN 2018?
s the Oregon Legislature wound down last week, I called a good
friend of 20-plus years, Bob Livingston, a lobbyist and president
of the Oregon State Firefighters Council. While we were often at
odds during the PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) re-
form fight in 2003, we’ve maintained a strong trusting relationship
over the years.
Bob was the only public sector union lobbyist to show up at my Senate retire-
ment party after the 2003 session. There’s not a smarter resource on public sector
collective bargaining and PERS in the capitol. Bob described the various maneu-
vers that resulted in Senate Bill 1067 and sine die. Workers be wary!
The 2017 Legislature ended like a scene out of Monty Python and the Holy
Grail. Remember the limbless Black Knight taunting his rival, who relents and
calls it a draw? That’s Senate Republican leader Ted Ferrioli and his “No!” party
getting their collective asses kicked by Speaker Tina Kotek and Gov. Kate Brown.
After getting snookered on a transportation package and the health care pro-
vider tax that saved Oregon’s poor, Republicans took one last shot at the so-called
“cost containment” package, Senate Bill 1067, that ended the session.
SB 1067 made major changes to public employee health plans, PERS, and pub-
lic sector collective bargaining rights. For example, to achieve $175 million in sav-
ings in our $20 billion biennial state budget, the bill would adversely affect health
insurance co-pays and deductibles where a married couple who work for separate
government entities — like a teacher married to a state worker — who both have
coverage through their employer. The bill also limits big hospital and specialists’
reimbursement rates to double the Medicare rate, and creates a state hiring freeze.
Of course, Republicans screamed SB 1067 didn’t go far enough. Their targets
for savings were clearly workers’ health care benefits and the PERS unfunded
actuarial liability (UAL). Anti-public employee Rep. Julie Parrish tried to insert
an amendment to SB 1067 that would force teachers and state workers into the
Oregon Health Plan and put them on Medicaid. That amendment failed in the joint
Ways and Means committee, thank god.
Then a last-ditch effort by the Headless Black Knight when the bill hit the Sen-
ate floor for a vote; Republicans made a procedural motion to send the bill back to
Ways and Means to adopt the mysterious -30A amendments. “-30A” refers to the
number of amendments submitted to SB 1067, and this was the last one standing.
If you thought the takeaways listed above were bad, the -30A amendments
are the nuclear option. The amendments lower pension rates for Tier 1 and Tier 2,
reduce individual accounts to pay down the UAL, cuts the assumed rate of return
by half, and lowers employer rates by 3.3 percent. The amendments also proposed
severe restrictions on public employees’ collective bargaining rights by changing
previous “mandatory” subjects of bargaining to “permissive” (employer is not re-
quired to bargain).
But the cruelest amendment of all denies survivor benefits to a PERS benefi-
A
ciary when the worker dies. The benefit would be used to pay down the PERS
UAL instead of going to the family! Thank god the Republican motion to adopt
the -30A amendments failed. And don’t forget when voting in
2018 what the Republicans proposed and the Demo-
crats defeated in 2017!
As firefighter Bob pointed out,
Senate Republicans and the cor-
porate business lobby clearly
provided erroneous and inac-
curate information regarding
health insurance and PERS
cost-savings throughout the
SB 1067 negotiations and all
30 of its amended versions.
Finally, Bob described a “rarity”:
He witnessed a joint presentation be-
fore Ways and Means by the attor-
neys from the employers’ side and
the workers’ side, Bill Gary and Greg
Hartman, who have waged the PERS
war for over 20 years.
Both testified that there is very little
that can be done from a legal standpoint,
and that the 2003 PERS reforms did what
they were intended to do: reduce the
benefit levels of members and establish
a new system that is more predictable,
less complicated but still provides a
reasonable benefit. That system is
now the majority system for the pub-
lic workforce and has very little to
nothing to do with the current UAL.
That liability can be attributed to
mainly retired Tier 1 members or
people who have left the system.
Seventy percent of the UAL is attrib-
uted to those retirees: The PERS UAL
is truly a “legacy” problem.
Next time, we’ll discuss Gov.
Brown’s legislative session and how
she fared. Stay tuned…
Former state Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove
is a retired state employee.
@EUGENEWEEKLY
IN CONCERT
DEOBRAT MISHRA
WITH PRASHANT MISHRA ON TABLA
11th Generation Sitar Player, Director of The Benares Academy of
Indian Classical Music Varanasi on the Ganges River
Wildish Theater
630 Main Street, Springfi eld
Wednesday, July 26: 7:30 pm
Tickets: Adv: $23; Door: $28
wildishtheater.com • 541-868-0689
All Proceeds to Benefi t Benares Academy Of Indian Classical Music
& Daya Foundation Prison Yoga Programs
benaresmusicacademy.com deobratmishra.com
DAYAFOUNDATION.ORG
6
July 13, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com