A4
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THuRSDAY, JANuARY 3, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Solid ideas for restructuring PERS
A
new legislative report
underscores that PERS
could be headed for more
trouble.
The report from the Legislative
Fiscal Office reaffirms that the Ore-
gon Public Employees Retirement
System remains highly dependent on
investment income for its financial
stability. That is not a surprise. How-
ever, it should concern Oregon offi-
cials, especially in light of the cur-
rent global economic swings.
Our federal leaders are not help-
ing, with their trade disputes and
partial government shutdown. Their
lack of fiscal leadership and political
cooperation adds to worries that the
U.S. will fall into a recession. Where
the nation goes economically, so
goes Oregon.
The legislative report is based on
a study last year from the Pew Char-
itable Trusts, which compared state
pension plans for fiscal 2016. PERS
had one of the worst ratios of operat-
ing cash flow.
On the other hand, PERS is one
of the better-funded public pension
plans. Cumulatively, state pension
plans amassed a $1.4 trillion deficit,
because they generally are paying
more in benefits than they receive in
AP Photo/Don Ryan
Students go through a lesson at Nancy Ryles Elementary School in Beaverton.
pension contributions. Poor invest-
ment returns also are factor, although
PERS has done relatively well.
So … PERS is not in danger of
imminent insolvency, it is in bet-
ter condition than many state funds,
but it is more subject to market
volatility.
It should be of little comfort that
PERS is not as bad off as other pub-
lic pension funds. PERS’ unfunded
actuarial liability forces schools and
local governments to cut current jobs
and services to pay for pensions. The
burden can fall disproportionately
on rural Oregon, as is detailed in the
winter edition of The Other Ore-
gon, a quarterly magazine from EO
Media.
Rural Oregon also has proposed
solutions. Dr. Mark Mulvihill, super-
intendent of the InterMountain Edu-
cation Service District in Pendle-
ton, has proposed changing state law
to allow longtime public employ-
ees to collect both their pension and
their salary for several years before
retirement. Schools and government
agencies would benefit from retain-
ing good workers who were con-
sidering retiring, employees would
have more money in the short term,
and they and their employer would
contribute 6 percent of their salary
toward paying down the employer’s
PERS liability.
The PERS burden is stagger-
ing, and it’s growing exponentially.
For Clatskanie and Ontario — cit-
ies on opposite sides of the state —
the burden is roughly the equivalent
of six times the city’s annual pay-
roll, according to 2017 figures from
PERS.
That is why the Oregon Busi-
ness Plan said in a report last month:
“Fixing PERS is Job 1, and it’s
doable.”
Among the plan’s recommenda-
tions: Oregon should again require
that public employees contribute 6
percent of their pay to their pension,
similar to what most states do. Ore-
gon could move to a defined-con-
tribution system, like a 401(k), for
future employees. The state also
could give current employees a
choice of staying with PERS or
switching to a 401(k).
All are solid ideas. All are reason-
able. Only one thing is missing —
leadership from Gov. Kate Brown
and the Legislature.
OTHER VIEWS
Selected editorials from
Oregon newspapers
The Bend Bulletin,
on transparency
not being valued
O
regonians like to pride themselves
on being leaders in such things as
protecting beaches and imposing
deposit fees on a variety of bottles. When
it comes to transparency of government,
however, we have nothing to brag about.
Just ask a group of journalism students at
the University of Oregon.
Earlier this year, the students asked dis-
trict attorneys in all 36 Oregon counties
for copies of public records appeals filed
with their offices. The DAs are the first
stop in an appeals process that includes the
Oregon Attorney General and, ultimately,
the courts. Students also wanted copies of
the DAs’ responses to those records and
asked to have fees waived. That informa-
tion, they argued, would give the public
an insight into how well district attorneys
carry out their duties under the state’s pub-
lic records laws.
The district attorneys’ responses were
surprising, though perhaps they shouldn’t
have been. While Deschutes Coun-
ty’s John Hummel had no problem with
accommodating the students, more than
a few denied the requests, arguing they
did not meet the public-interest test.
Even more, while they agreed to send the
records, failed to meet the deadline writ-
ten into Oregon law in 2017: Agencies are
supposed to acknowledge public records
requests within five business days and,
generally, respond to them within another
10.
As for what does and does not meet the
standard of what’s in the public interest,
there is no “public-interest test” in Oregon
beyond the DAs’ own judgment on the
matter. In these cases, the DAs were being
asked to judge their own refusal, a situa-
tion that seems odd, at best. At the same
time, some DAs proposed charging stu-
dents upwards of $1,000 for the records,
though some reduced or waived the
charges as discussions progressed.
Moreover, your chances of getting a
public record upon appeal can depend
on where you live. District attorneys in
Multnomah County, and now Deschutes
County, post their orders regarding public
records on their websites. Hummel said he
did so because the students’ request made
him more sensitive to the notion of trans-
parency in his office.
Things are different in Lane County.
There, District Attorney Patty Per-
low orders agencies to release records
only about a quarter of the time, though
that figure does not reflect cases that are
resolved before a denial is issued.
Oregonians’ ability to see how their
government, no matter at what level, oper-
ates, should not be limited by the county
in which they live. Records in Lane
County should be every bit as accessible
as those in Multnomah or Deschutes, no
matter what a district attorney’s view of
the law is.
Lawmakers should be able to fix most
of these problems easily, if they’re of a
mind to. They can make it clear that Ore-
gonians expect their district attorneys to
understand and uphold the public records
law, deadlines and all. They should rec-
ognize that some agencies set fees high as
a way of discouraging requests, and deal
with the problem.
Doing those things would not solve all
the law’s problems, but it would surely
help.
Corvallis Gazette-Times,
on state trends helping
to drive 2018’s news
I
t’s no secret why newspaper journal-
ists spend so much time working on
year-end retrospective stories: These
stories fill space in their publications
during the last week of the year, when
news can be hard to find.
With that said, though, it can be inter-
esting to take a deeper look at 2018’s big-
gest Oregon news stories — and how, in
many cases, those stories are new chapters
of trends that long have been at play in the
state and, for that matter, across the west-
ern United States.
Let’s take, for our starting point, the list
of top Oregon stories for 2018 from The
Associated Press.
Now, you can quibble with the list that
AP’s writers and editors compiled (for
example, the No. 2 and No. 9 stories on
the list are different developments in the
same story), but many of the stories tie in
nicely to state and regional trends that in
some cases have stretched back now for
more than a century.
Let’s start with those two related stories
— No. 2 (President Donald Trump’s par-
don of ranchers Dwight and Steven Ham-
mond) and No. 9 (the acquittal of FBI
agent W. Joseph Astarita, charged with
making false statements and obstruction of
justice regarding his actions at the shoot-
ing that killed Robert “LaVoy” Finicum,
one of the leaders of the January 2016
takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge).
Both of these stories are new chapters
in a long-running saga in the West: the
debate over federally owned lands. That
story goes back more than a century and
isn’t nearly finished yet.
You could make a case that the No.
4 story, the wildfires in southern Ore-
gon, also are related to the federal land
issue, in that these fires often are burn-
ing on national forests that haven’t been
properly maintained for generations and
are clogged with fuel. Will congressional
action to safeguard money for forest main-
tenance and cooperative efforts to allow
thinning and controlled burns begin to
make a difference this year? We’ll see.
The AP’s No. 1 story, the re-election
of Gov. Kate Brown, continues a trend in
Oregon politics that’s been at play now
for at least a generation: The state’s emer-
gence as a solidly blue state. Brown bested
a well-funded and prepared GOP candi-
date, Knute Buehler, as the Democrats
also claimed narrow supermajorities in
the Legislature. Those supermajorities, if
Democratic leaders keep them in line, will
allow Democrats to raise taxes without
a Republican vote. How Brown chooses
to spend her political capital and how the
legislative session develops surely will be
among the top state stories of 2019.
The AP’s No. 10 story, the January vote
to impose a tax on hospitals and health
insurers to help temporarily pay for the
state’s Medicaid expansion, also is linked
to the state’s political climate: To a large
extent, the state’s continuing budget defi-
cit is because of that Medicaid expan-
sion. (It was surprising that the continuing
financial woes of the state Public Employ-
ees Retirement System didn’t make the AP
list. That unfunded liability didn’t make
much news during the year; it just grew
larger.)
Daily journalism, by its nature, some-
times is in too much of a hurry to place
these stories in a broader context. But it’s
important to take the time every so often
to see how many of these stories, as com-
pelling as they are on their own terms,
essentially are new wrinkles in broader
sagas.