PERS unfunded liability data added to state transparency website

Rep. Gene Whisnant

TRANSPARENCY OREGON ADVISORY COMMISSION ADDS PERS UNFUNDED LIABILITY DATA TO STATE WEBSITE

Rep. Whisnant’s proposal will provide PERS data on state, local governments, school districts.

SALEM–The Transparency Oregon Advisory Commission during their December 11th meeting  approved Rep. Gene Whisnant’s (R-Sunriver) request to publish PERS unfunded liability data on the Oregon Transparency website.

This action will make it easier for the public to discover how state, local governments and school district have managed this significant expense.

The information can be found on the website at www.orgen.gov/transparency.

“My objective is to better inform the public on the status of the PERS liability for the state but also for your city, your county, your school district, or your local service district,” Rep. Whisnant explained.

Commission chair, Senator Richard Devlin, offered a friendly amendment to add to the requested data a link to the “PERS: By the Numbers” report, which was accepted.

Rep. Whisnant submitted this concept as a bill in the 2012 session but was advised to ask the Transparency Oregon Advisory Commission to add this information on the website as authorized by HB 2500 in the 2009 session.

“The Commission’s approval of this additional data was aided by the fact that three of the HB 2500 chief sponsors – Senator Richard Devlin, Rep. Kim Thatcher, and Rep. Jefferson Smith – are members of the Commission,” Rep. Whisnant stated.  Speaker Arnie Roblan and Rep. Whisnant were the other chief sponsors.

Rep. Whisnant added, “The support and work of PERS Director, Paul Cleary, and Sean McSpaden, DAS Deputy State CIO, were critical to the approval and the fact that the action will be accomplished with no additional state funds and without the personnel cost of submitting and working a bill.”