PERS as political boycott may further rip open $28B debt

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

There is an amendment move on HB 2200 to use the massive state Public Employee Retirement System ($28 billion in debt) as a political boycott weapon.   The effort is block any pension investment in companies that political environmentalist do not approve of such as oil and natural gas companies.   Injecting politics into government investments designed to protect our pension system can open up the State Treasurer to legal liability.   So there is a move to pass a law giving our State Treasurer more power to make our investments more riskier when investments decisions are made by politics instead of highest return.

By a somewhat similar measure, environmental ESG investment funds, by some have been shown to under-perform the non-ESG funds by as much as 5%.

This would make the already unsustainable $28 billion deficit taxpayers are on the hook for government pensions in Oregon.

PERS needs to be saved and not politicized or weaponized.

Coming to the rescue is Oregon State Representative Ed Diehl who has a bill to protect our state pensions.  This PERS protect bill is HB 2571.  HB 2571 reads, “The Act makes rules for people who care for public pension benefit plans. Establishes standards for fiduciary of pension benefit plan offered by public body. Limits factors that may be considered in investment of assets of plan.”

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