Oregon PERS Ponders Pension Payback Details
In fact, the board of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) is scheduled to consider a suggestion that the retirees make up for overpayments five years ago by paring pension benefits over the course of their retirements – spreading out repayments for some pensioners until they die, the Associated Press reported.
However, the pension board first must decide if it should
take money back from retirees and others who left the
pension system and, if so, how the money might be repaid.
Instead of going after the retirees for the money, some
retirees and union leaders want the pension system to
instead use reserves or take the money out of future
investment earnings.
The issue arose when Marion County Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb ruled that the pension system’s board should have put more of the pension fund’s 1999 earnings into reserves instead of beefing up workers’ pension accounts. The Oregon Supreme Court last month let Lipscomb’s decision stand (See Oregon Supreme Court Turns Away PERS Ruling Challenge ).
The ruling affects workers who joined the system before
1996 and received pension investment earnings in their
accounts for 1999. Pension accounts of those employees who
still are working are to be reduced. Workers who retired
from April 1, 2000, through March 31, 2004, or otherwise
left public employment could have to pay back some money to
the system, according to the news report.