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PERS
Strings PERS is killin' me. Ginny Burdick, our sturdy senator from Portland, tells me I'm no fun anymore: "You just meander mindlessly muttering about DC's and DB's, risks, replacement ratios, 6 percent pick-ups, 8 percent guarantees — and lawsuits — and what the hell is an actuary, anyway?" There's been huge pressure in the capitol for a PERS solution since January; if there's no new plan by the first week of May, there will be no savings for the next calendar year — because the actuaries, those griffins of monopoly capital, have to know by May in order to defog their crystal balls by July, We've completed the easier stuff: the 8 percent cap, the new mortality tables, the new PERS board. We just can't agree on the successor plan; conservative House Republicans are demanding a vote on an insufficient "defined contribution" (DC) plan, instead of a more stable "defined benefit" (DB) plan. We had a meeting with the governor and all the leaders; Teddy tells House Majority Leader Tim Knopp at least three times: A DC plan won't cut it. Tim decides to run it out anyway. (It's this kind of partisan thinking that got Kitzhaber his 150 vetoes when both chambers were Republican — might not work as well this session.) The longest debate has been over current savings. The dam broke last Thursday with a compromise plan from the governor's office to the House PERS Committee. Players in the discussions and negotiations leading to this plan included: Tim Knopp, House PERS Committee chair, An ad hoc group made up of local government and school employers, and their lobbyists (headed up by Jim Green of the school boards), This employer group was joined by some of the "progressive" business types — the Portland Business Alliance and the Oregon Business Alliance. This entire group was represented by Bill Gary of Harrang Long (my all-time favorite name of a law firm), a guy who's been around the PERS scene for a while. The PERS Coalition: teachers, police, firefighters, social workers, librarians, school employees, higher ed classified staff and faculty — the actual workers, as they're known — represented by another seasoned veteran of the PERS scene, Greg Hartman, Margaret Hallock, the governor's labor staff, former head of LERC and a former economist for the state, Freshman Representative Greg McPherson, the man I call "Synchronicity." Think about it: We have the biggest PERS catastrophe in history and along comes a smart Democrat corporate pension lawyer. Although he's a rookie, Greg has a unique insight on Salem: His father, Hector MacPherson (a Republican farmer who created our original land use laws) and his grandfather, also Hector, served in the Oregon House. In all our discussions, Greg has the unfair advantage of being the only one who has actually written a retirement plan, except for, David Hendrickxs, our vowel-impaired legislative counsel, who has done nothing this session but write retirement plans. (A special provision of any new retirement plan gives Dave free room-and-board on any ward at the Oregon State Hospital in perpetuity), and finally, Me, because I chair the senate committee dealing with PERS. The hearing room was packed last Thursday; Margaret walked the committee through the proposed changes to SB2003. The plan creates huge current savings but at a cost to current PERS members and even to some folks who retired after 1999. The plan goes beyond what the PERS Coalition believes could survive court challenge — they're in shock. After her testimony, I walk up to the microphone: "This is a huge hit to people in the system now and folks who just got out of the system. … having said that, it's the right thing to do." I'm firmly convinced. Margaret and Greg and I, none of us had any authority to speak for the employees; but we felt we were there on their behalf, protecting their interests as well as we could, because they could not move. The system was in crisis and had to be fixed; but many public employees — who've seen their wages, their benefits, their very jobs, relentlessly attacked by the conservatives for years — viewed this as simply another part of an ongoing ideological war. It wasn't. But I'm still getting the stink-eye from union lobbyists and even some former co-workers, and it hurts. I knew it would happen. It's killin' me. Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us Hazzard
County, Oregon Every profession has its hero on television. Doctors have Marcus Welby. Lawyers have Perry Mason. Psychiatrists have Frazier Crane. Felons have Martha Stewart. When I became a county commissioner, I wasn't sure if my profession was represented on the small screen, but I was pleased to learn that we do have our own TV icon: "Boss Hogg" (nee Jefferson Davis Hogg), the corrupt county commissioner in that 1970s TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard. Sure, Boss Hogg had his foibles. These included graft, cigars, white suits and occasional cross-dressing. He also ate raw liver for breakfast. But the Boss was always rock-solid on one issue: traffic safety. He would drop everything to pursue them no-good Duke boys when they flouted the traffic laws of Hazzard County. Boss Hogg chided Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane for lax enforcement of speed limits: "Roscoe, you couldn't catch a three-legged horse in its own stall!" Asked when he would relent in his campaign for traffic safety, Boss Hogg responded, "I'll lay off them Duke boys when possums make love to hound dogs." We could use Boss Hogg in Lane County right now. Earlier this month statistics showed that our county ranks first among Oregon counties in traffic fatalities per capita. Serious accidents are particularly prevalent on rural roads. Three deaths have occurred on Highway 58 already this year. Our rate of rural police patrols per thousand residents is far lower than the Western average. This number declined further when the Oregon State Police reduced its presence in Lane County a few months ago. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) recently made matters worse. In March, ODOT diverted big rigs from I-5 to rural roads such as Highway 58 and Highway 126, because our bridges on I-5 are structurally unsound. Then ODOT backed out of funding a left turn refuge on Highway 126, requiring the Lane County Board of Commissioners to pay for fixing a state road! The intersection in question had seen 15 accidents over a four-year span. What's the best way to improve traffic safety in Lane County? There's no substitute for police patrols. The Board of County Commissioners needs to enable the Sheriff's Department to patrol some of the areas formerly patrolled by the OSP. Also, we should insist that the repairs of I-5 bridges take precedence over any other transportation project in Lane County, so we can take the big rigs off of rural roads. Our transportation dollars shouldn't just chase growth; the highest priority must be preventing deaths. The theme song for the Dukes of Hazzard includes this encomium to the lawlessness of the Duke boys: "Straightening the curves/Flattening the hills/Someday the mountain might get them/But the law never will." While these lyrics may be fitting for a TV show with three car chases per episode, they don't set forth a sound policy for managing our rural road system. Tom Lininger is the county commissioner for the East Lane District. Lininger does not wear white suits, smoke cigars or eat raw liver for breakfast. Rumors that Lininger wears "Daisy Dukes" are greatly exaggerated.
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