The Oregon state employee., August 01, 1944, Page 6, Image 6

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A RETIREMENT PLAN
For Public Employees of Oregon
By H erman K ehrli , Director Bureau
of Municipal Research and Service
University of Oregon
There are today many public em­
ployees in Oregon that have served
faithfully for years in some city, coun­
ty ,or state department who because
of old age, are no longer able or soon
will not be able to carry the full re­
sponsibility of their jobs. Anyone who
visits the city halls, the courthouses,
and the various departments of the state
government in Oregon will be told
about employees who because of age or
health or physical condition must be
favored in the assignment of work or
are not expected to do as m uch as for­
merly.
Oregon is far behind many other
states of the Union in meeting the prob­
lem of the superannuated public em­
ployee. The Census Bureau’s latest re­
port on retirement systems for state
and local government employees indi­
cated that in January, 1942, 46 per cent
of the state and local employees in the
United States were members of a re­
tirement system of some type. In Ore­
gon only 7.6 per cent of the public
employees of the state and local gov­
ernments were members of a retirement
system. Over 70 per cent of all state
and local employees were covered in
New York, Ohio, and California and
more than 50 per cent of the public’
employees of Florida, Illinois, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Rhode
Island were members of a retirement
system. Public employees in Oregon
that are today covered by some type
of .pension system include Portland fire­
men, Portland policemen, Portland
teachers, part of the University of
Oregon faculty, circuit and supreme
court judges, under a plan adopted in
1943— incidentaly after seven supreme
court judges had died in office— and
Salem firemen under a plan approved
by the voters of Salem in May.
There has apparently been a growing
demand for retirement legislation in
Oregon during the past 15 years. Prior
to the war every session of the legis­
lature considered a number of pension
measures for public employees. Most of
these measures would have provided
pensions for some specialized group of
public employees. Recognizing this de­
mand, Governor Sprague on August 22,
1939, appointed a special committee to
study the problem of public employee
retirement. In calling that committee
together, Governor Sprague said:
The state and civil subdivisions and schools,
for the moat part, make no provision for
retirement annuities for their employees,
though that is now a requirement of indus­
try. Government should not be laggard in
this regard, and steps should be taken soon
to establish some pension system for public
service,
"There has been agitation for years for pen­
sions for special classes of public service such
as teachers, police and firemen. It has seemed
to me wiser to approach the problem as a
whole rather than piece meal; and to make a
study as a base for a system of retirement
annuities for all public employees instead of
for special groups.”
The majority of that committee,
which was headed by H enry F. Cabell,
then chairman of the highway commis­
sion, reported that:
"It is in the public interest that a statewide
public employee retirement system be estab­
lished to provide a retirement income for
public employees of the state of Oregon and
locaP governmental units thereof, and that a
financially solvent and actuarily sound re­
tirement system be established.”