The name is only four letters long, but the issues with it can take volumes to explain. PERS, Oregon's , has billions of dollars on hand to pay to retired public workers.
The trouble is that there's a gap between what it will need to pay workers in the future, and the projections for its income. The gap is more than $26 Billion, and closing the gap requires ever-larger payments into the system by state and local governments.
Former Oregon AFL-CIO president Tim Nesbitt and his former boss, Governor Ted Kulongoski, have proposed a pair of ballot measures to bring PERS into line. Their organization is . Tim Nesbitt joins us to explore the measures, PERS director Kevin Olineck will give the view from the agency; we are also joined by national pension expert.