Kitzhaber at odds with Tina Kotek on PERS reform

by NW Spotlight

Tina Kotek isn’t even the House Speaker yet, and she’s already gotten crosswise with the Governor.

After last Tuesday’s election, Kotek said in a Eugene Register-Guard article “What people want to talk about is schools and jobs. They don’t want to talk about PERS.”

Oops.

It looks like people, notably Governor Kitzhaber, DO want to talk about PERS. Over the weekend, the Oregonian ran an article that reported that Gov. Kitzhaber had declared “that reform of Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System will be a top priority as he seeks to boost support for the state’s ailing public schools.”

Kotek’s remarks show that’s she’s either completely out of touch with the state’s finances or that she’s so beholden to the public employee unions that she doesn’t dare talk about the painfully obvious need for PERS reform.