8
The League of Oregon Cities Sponsors
Retirement Plan for Public Employees
of Oregon
A t the Conference of the League
of Oregon Cities held in Portland, Ore
gon, May 26, 1944, the following re
solution was adopted:
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS it is desirable from the
standpoint of public agencies and of
the individual public employee that af
ter he has served the public for many
years and has reached old age he be
enabled to retire from public service
with adequate social security, and
WHEREAS for private employees
who have served for many years and
have reached old age, private enterprise
is increasingly providing systems of old-
age retirement, thus providing an in
centive for employment in private en
terprise which is lacking in public serv
ice of the governmental and educa
tional agencies of this state and its lo
cal governmental units,
NOW , THEREFORE, "BE IT RE
SOLVED that the state legislature be
urged to provide an adequate system of
old-age retirement benefits for the em
ployees of the governmental and edu
cational agencies of the state of Oregon
and its local governmental units.”
T h e N ee d o f a P e n s io n P l a n
The lack of a state wide pension plan
for employees of the governmental and
educational agencies of the state of
Oregon and its local governmental units
is recognized as a serious handicap to
the^ public service and a definite threat
to the public welfare in the future.
The state and local governmental
service is in competition with the
Armed Services, w ith war production
and private industry and is losing the
contest to the more attractive wages,
social security and retirement benefits
offered by private industry. There is
a serious shortage of competent help
and if the state and local governmental
agencies are to secure and retain their
fair share of the trained and skilled per
sonnel of the nation, they must make
their service more attractive by provid
ing social security and retirement bene
fits equal to those offered by private
industry. The welfare of the state and
its future for decades depends upon
the type of personnel attracted to the
public service after the war. Action in
this m atter should be taken at the ear
liest opportunity.
P r e l im in a r y M e e t in g C a l led
In an invitation to interested groups
to attend a preliminary hearing, Fred C.
Inkster, President of. the League of Ore
gon Cities, wrote as follows:
"Since it does not appear to be prac
tical for each, individual city in the
state to establish its own pension sys
tem, the League has decided to work
for the establishment of a state-wide
system which would be available to all
state and local employees in Oregon
similar to systems now in operation in
such states as New York, Ohio, Wis
consin and California.
"The first question to determine is
whether a program could be formulated
that would be satisfactory to all the
organized groups that are now inter
ested in state pension legislation and
whether these groups would unite in
support of a single measure. It is recog
nized, of course, that any pension sys
tem set up on this basis will have to be
flexible to the extent that it would
recognize the different types of em
ployment that make up the public serv
ice. For example, it would appear ne-