The hole in Brown’s budget

In a nutshell, the PERS challenge is about an unfunded actuarial liability of more than $20 billion. To close that gap, school districts and local governments will face extraordinary budget strains. For some school districts, the new PERS payroll burden will mean dismissing teachers in order to pay the retirement liability of those retired from the profession.

In Umatilla County, for example, Gov. Brown’s budget calls for closing the state crime lab in Pendleton, costing local jobs and detrimentally affecting the local justice system. It would hold the line for BMCC and local school district — which is a feat — but it still leaves them well below the funding levels where they need to be.

Once more Gov. Brown has failed us. Fortunately there are legislators who are willing to think about solutions that will pass constitutional muster.

The proposal most actively being discussed would invite three constituencies to participate in a solution: public sector employers, PERS members and Oregon taxpayers. It is a realistic coalition of shared sacrifice.

The greatest political advances in history have occurred when a leader goes against his or her native values to break new ground. President Richard Nixon, the arch anti-Communist, opened diplomacy with what was then called Red China. President Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner, passed landmark Civil Rights legislation.

For there to be a breakthrough and a remedy on PERS, a similar act of courage must come from Oregon Democratic leaders, because they are most beholden to the public employees unions.

Gov. John Kitzhaber did that in 2013. Kitzhaber proposed PERS reforms, which the Legislature enacted. Elements of that package were subsequently thrown out by the Oregon Supreme Court.

Gov. Kate Brown seems to lack the courage to take up that fight and win new ground. Leadership on PERS must come from someone or some group in the statehouse. To ask local governments and school districts to strip services because of a flawed pension system is unacceptable, yet it is the current predicament that looks to only get worse in the future.