94/62
U.S.A. BEATS
JAMAICA IN
GOLD CUP
ARLINGTON
CAR SHOW
UP
CLUE NO. 3 REVS
REGION/3A
SPORTS/1B
REGION/3A
THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2017
141st Year, No. 203
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
Board to
vote on
change
to PERS
Associated Press
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Kuper Bracher, 13, loads a trailer with a soft white wheat from a bank-out wagon on Tuesday in a fi eld outside of Helix.
WHEAT HARVEST
IN FULL SWING
Yields look signifi cantly
improved over 2016
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
S
itting in the cab of a John Deere tractor
overlooking golden hills of wheat,
Kuper Bracher waited patiently Tuesday
morning and watched as a pair of combine
harvesters passed slowly in the distance.
This is the second year that Bracher, 13,
has worked wheat harvest at the family farm
north of Helix. His job is to drive the bank-out
wagon, ferrying loads of grain from combines
out in the fi eld to delivery trucks bound for the
storage elevator.
“It’s either fast-paced or it’s really, really
slow,” said Bracher, adjusting his camoufl age
baseball cap. “Right now, it’s going pretty
slow.”
Soon enough, Bracher receives a call over
the radio and shifts his massive rig into gear.
Traversing uneven terrain, he moves carefully
into position alongside the closest combine
ready to empty its cargo.
The process requires Bracher to keep his
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Bank-out wagon driver Casey Evans lines up to take a load of
wheat from a combine as another combine harvest wheat in a
fi eld Tuesday outside of Helix.
“Personally, this is my vacation.
If you make sure you have a
good crew ... it makes it fun.”
See WHEAT/8A
— Randy Bracher, Helix wheat farmer
SALEM — The board overseeing
Oregon’s public pension system is
set to vote on whether to downgrade
assumptions about how much return
the system will get on its investments.
Changing the assumptions about
returns on the investments that
fund payments to public employees
in retirement could increase the
pension’s unfunded liability from
$22 billion to $50 billion, meaning
that state agencies and school
districts would have to put more
money into the system in the coming
years, The Oregonian/OregonLive
reported. The decision would also
impact employee
benefi ts, employer
benefi ts, public
services and the
state’s long-term
economic compet-
itiveness.
The
Public
Employees Retire-
ment
Systems
Board currently
assumes its investments will earn
7.5 percent annually. Market experts
have said that is a gross overestimate
that does not refl ect the real size of
today’s underfunded public pension
system and it minimizes required
contributions from government
employers. The state’s actuary,
Milliman Inc., estimates the board
will make a 6.7 percent earning on
its investments over the next two
decades.
The board has voiced its inten-
tion of lowering the rate, but it is
unclear by how much the rate will
be lowered. Board member and
Eugene businessman John Thomas
said should the board vote for a rate
higher than what is being recom-
mended “we better have some very
specifi c reasons and methodologies
to back that up. I personally don’t see
where those changes would be.”
Some employers support cutting
employee benefi ts that they say are
too generous as an alternative solu-
tion — in addition to lowering the
assumptions.
“If they’re trying to cover
someone politically, stop it,” said
Jim Green, deputy executive director
of the Oregon School Boards Asso-
ciation. “The system needs to be
looked at and reformed, and keeping
the assumed rate high, or using rate
collars is just allowing policymakers
at the state level to say, ‘It’s really not
that bad.’”
If the board does not lower its
assumption on Friday, Milliman has
said it will fl ag the discrepancy in its
next report card on the system. The
action could cause hurt Oregon’s
credit rating.
PENDLETON
Post Offi ce goes to cluster boxes on North Hill
In response to carriers
being attacked by dogs
East Oregonian
Two angry dogs have changed the way
some North Hill residents get their mail.
Kerry Schwartz, the postmaster at
the U.S. Post Offi ce in Pendleton, said
two dog attacks last month spurred the
organization to install two cluster boxes
and forgo door-to-door delivery.
Schwartz said there is no imminent
push in Eastern Oregon to convert door-
to-door service to cluster boxes — a free-
standing structure that contains several,
individually locked mailboxes — but
rather an attempt to keep their carriers
safe.
Schwartz said cluster boxes are easier
for postal workers, who can stay near
their truck when fi lling mailboxes.
“They can jump away into the truck
faster than a dog can get to them” she
said.
Because of the nearby dog attacks
— one of which necessitated a trip to
the hospital — the post offi ce installed
a 16-unit box at the corner of Northwest
Furnish Avenue and Sixth Street, and
another on Northwest Ninth Street. There
is now a 24-unit cluster box on the corner
of Furnish and Ninth and a 12-unit box on
the corner of Ninth and Ellis.
Elderly or disabled residents who may
have trouble navigating their way to a
cluster box can contact the post offi ce and
ask for a “hardship delivery” that would
resume direct delivery of the mail.
See MAIL/8A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The U.S. Postal Service is putting in cluster box mail boxes in
neighborhoods in Pendleton on a case by case basis.