Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Day: December 12, 2005”

Retirement blues

The headlines about the possibility of a Measure 37-style land use initiative heading north from Oregon to Washington have so far obscured another large shared interest: Paying for public employee retirement.

Oregon has had problems with its massive PERS funds for years, largely because of massively over-average benefits guaranteed from the beginning - a case study that should have served as a warning to any number of other states.

Now Washington is dealing with its own, as a spate of recent news stories have outlined.

As one Associated Press piece noted, "In recent years, lawmakers have financed pensions on the cheap, skipping payments and relying on Wall Street investments to keep the system relatively healthy. It was a painless, if imprudent, way to help balance state and local budgets during the post-Sept. 11 recession that hammered Washington state."

The problem is not as extreme as Oregon's has been, but it may prove equally tough to resolve.