How PERS became the behemoth that consumes public budgets

Beat Check with The Oregonian

The Oregonian/OregonLive is in the midst of its annual update of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System beneficiary database.

Last week, we published an update that showed nearly 6,000 retirees tapped into the pension benefit system in 2023. In a week or so, we’ll have our database fully updated and available so readers can lookup all current retirees and their benefits.

Reporter Ted Sickinger, who has examined the system for more than a decade, joined Editor Therese Bottomly for this week’s installment of “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about the challenges facing PERS and Oregon public agencies. Sickinger talks about his analysis of the new retirees and their benefits and also the outliers in the system as a whole. The conversation covers:

--How we got here and the real-life impact of the system’s shortfall

--What reforms have already been made to the system?

--What the Legislature and the PERS board can do about the shortfall?

--What’s behind some of the outsized benefits packages?

To learn more about PERS:

How did we get here? A short video

How a serial killer kept receiving PERS in prison

The Oregonian wins Pulitzer Prize for PERS editorials

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