4/28/2012: Ted Sickinger of the Oregonian continues his PERS investigations, with a story on double dipping. Lorraine Davis gets a shout-out, but no mention of her family football plan. Word is that Lorraine is furious about me exposing that deal – but not embarrassed enough to give back the money. Bill Graves did a hatchet job on Berdahl over double-dipping a month or so back. Berdahl’s current UO contract is here. Must be a nice car.
None of this compares to Sickinger’s amazing story from December, on how UO and the athletic department helped Mike Bellotti trick state taxpayers into paying PERS on his Nike earnings – giving him a $490,000 a year pension to top off his $2.3 million Frohnmayer/Grier payoff.
The discussion section of the Oregonian article has some interesting points (if true):
While there are a few instances where people are receiving extraordinary large retirement amounts from PERS, that is not the case for most of the PERS retirees. The following if from PERS:
System benefits
In 2008, the average monthly benefit for all living PERS retirees was $2,060, while the nationwide average monthly public pension benefit was $2,004, a difference of $56 per month.
The average monthly benefit for those retiring in 2009 was about $2,671 per month.
For 2009 retirees, the average annual retirement benefit equaled 53% of final average salary.
Average age at retirement: 60
Average years of service at retirement: 23
The average figures above include those retirement benefits that are extraordinarily high, so at least 98 percent of the retirees are actually receiving slightly less than the figure stated.
More garbage from UOMatters. An old recycled story from December. Mike Bellotti “tricked” PERS. Oh yes! He must be the smartest football coach in the universe if he can do all that. And of course UO was in on the plot. What garbage! I will use my allotment and say it more clearly: pure dogshit!
Those “retirees” also include quite a few people who worked for a few years in PERS, then left public employment. So saying the average benefit is “53% of salary” can be highly misleading.
I was in PERS for about 6 1/2 yrs. in the 1990’s and my PERS pension will be almost 1/3 of my final UO salary. (I’m in ORP now, so I’m still receiving pension contributions, just not to PERS).
Admittedly the 90’s were an unuusal time for the stock market. But the 8% guarantee for Tier 1 people is part of the story too. All in all, I think my PERS pension will turn out to be an incredible deal.
Ironic, because all through the 90s I thought I was underpaid, because of my low salary. Now with PERS I’m not so sure.