By Dirk VanderHart, includes “Worries over a potential funding gap in Oregon’s next two-year budget turned into a different sort of problem on March 11. … All in all, the framework presents a far sunnier outlook than lawmakers once expected.”
Editorial, includes “The federal government is not taxing the stimulus payments. In Oregon, they are not taxed as income, either. But the payments can impact the federal tax calculations used on your Oregon income tax. And so the stimulus payment may mean you owe state tax on more of your income and wind up paying more taxes or get a reduced refund.”
The 2020 Financial State of the States report surveys the fiscal health of the 50 states prior to the coronavirus pandemic. This data is released today by Truth in Accounting (TIA), a think tank that analyzes government financial reporting.
The Ashland City Council last week discussed the city’s response to a drop in revenue as a result of the pandemic. The cuts Interim City Administrator Adam Hanks outlined are in line with what vocal critics of city spending have called for, but we’re not holding our breath waiting for any acknowledgment of that.
How large could the shortfall in state government general revenues be, amidst the coronavirus and related crises?
Treasurer Tobias Read is pushing an investment policy change for Oregon’s public pension fund that would promote unionization of the workforce at buildings and other facilities in which the fund has a majority ownership interest.
You’ve got Oregonians seeking to cascade into Idaho, Virginians who identify as West Virginians, Illinoians fighting to escape Chicago, Californians dreaming of starting a 51st state, and New Yorkers who think three states are better than one.
Programs include two rebate programs through the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, a federal tax credit, and local utility rebates though local utility rebates generally tend to
The board of Oregon’s public pension system voted 3-to-2 Friday to stand pat on the system’s key funding assumption, maintaining their assumed rate of return on investments at 7.2% annually.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has released her plan to improve the funding for the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). The state’s retirement system currently has a funded level of 80%, and rates are projected to increase until 2035.
Municipalities or municipal corporations – including school districts - are only allowed to file bankruptcy if that authority is granted under state law.
“Joe Gall is the city manager of Sherwood, a city of about 20,000 people in Washington County. Over the last four years, the amount that his city pays in PERS costs has nearly doubled. … Gall says the solution to the very real problem Sherwood and other communities are facing is not going to come at the local level. 'The solution, quite honestly, is in Salem,' he said.”
The Public Employee Retirement System’s chief number cruncher, actuary Milliman Inc., delivers projections to the PERS Board once a year detailing what the system’s funded status, unfunded liability and employers’ costs will look like under various investment return scenarios.
Grappling with Oregon’s $22 billion public pension debt has always involved difficult tradeoffs — such as cutting pensions or pouring more tax money into shoring up the system.
An audit of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System’s IT security management practices found a slew of problems that “pose substantial risks” to its members and the state.
The most frequently asked questions about the financial fiasco in Oregon's public pension system are: What happened? Why did it happen? Who created this mess?
The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Oregon's pension fund managers to stop investing in private equity funds run by Portland-based Endeavour Capital until the firm stops investing in the "exploitive" bail bonds industry.
John Thomas, a Eugene financial consultant who has chaired the board of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System for the past six years, ran his last meeting this month.
The Central States pension is projected to run out of money in six years.
The U.S. job market is so tight that some cities are offering bonuses to employees willing to relocate.