I'm glad you asked. The projected increase in the state budget over the next 3 years is made up of the following: 1. Backfill of one-time funds (federal stimulus, reserve funds) - 1.4 billion 2. Inflation (employee raises, medical insurance, equipment) - 907 million 3. Caseload Growth (Human Services) - 487 million 4. PERS (pensions for state workers, teachers) - 368 million 5. Increase in debt service (state hospital, emergency radio system) - 247 million 6. Increase in operation costs (state hospital, state police) - 247 million It's clear to me that PERS is a HUGE problem. Of course I'm only going to use one HUGE though. It's something we can actually do something about.
Yes. State revenue has been dropping rapidly due to the recession. PERS contributions have been going up due to the recession (because PERS lost a boatload of money in the stock market crash in 2008). Really? So you don't think school funding, which consumes 54% of the state budget, is as important as PERS (2%)? The way to solve Oregon's budget crisis is forced sterilization of the population. If we eliminate the children, we can cut our taxes by 50% and still have plenty left over to fully fund PERS. Whaddya say? barfo
Seems to me we could do something about all of those things, except inflation. If we wanted to. barfo
Sure, look at the success Arnold Schwarzenegger has had in California. Electing celebrity know-nothings can have a very powerful effect on a state, indeed. barfo
I think you miss the point. We have a budget of a certain size. We're in the worst recession since the great depression. We can't have pers rising rapidly while the budget is shrinking just as rapidly. That creates a lot of serious cuts elsewhere. Pers spending has increased 46% since 2005. And it's continuing to go up yearly while state revenues continue to drop. It's sucking money away from other programs and this situation only gets worse. And worse. And worse. And worse- with no relief in sight. It takes more and more and nobody knows where the money will come from.
I'm not denying any of that. [Edit: well, the certain size isn't correct. We have a budget of a very uncertain size.] But as TlongII pointed out, the increase in PERS is only 10% of the overall increase. So claiming PERS is *the* big problem is a little bit bogus. A big problem? Sure. We bet the state budget on the stock market, and the stock market tanked. Whoops. barfo
