Should Oregon lawmakers provide major boost in PERS retirement benefits for county prosecutors?

Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System headquarters in Tigard, photographed in 2018.LC- Mark Graves

Despite ongoing money issues in Salem and the already stratospheric costs of the Public Employees Retirement System, lawmakers moved a bill Tuesday to give Oregon's deputy district attorneys a significant boost in their pension calculations to match those of police and fire employees.

It's a proposal that's been floated before by public prosecutors and failed. And it's a golden ducat that various groups of public employees have sought over the years with mixed success.

The motivation is clear. By designating public prosecutors as police employees, House Bill 2054 would increase the multiplier used in their current retirement formula and boost pension benefits for about 430 eligible deputy district attorneys by 20%. It would also allow them to retire between five and 10 years earlier with no reduction in their retirement benefits. The change is prospective, for new and existing prosecutors, and would not be retroactive to those already retired.

This year's version of the bill arrived with bipartisan backing from both urban and rural legislators and county commissioners who contend enhanced retirement benefits would help solve growing recruitment and retention problems. Meanwhile, the Association of Oregon Counties, whose members would pay the bill, has adopted a neutral position after opposing past versions.

The Oregon District Attorneys Association and the union representing public prosecutors have long contended that such a proposal is a matter of fairness and necessity.

The general rationale behind higher police and fire retirement benefits is that those employees have physically demanding, high-stress jobs and typically retire earlier. They also, incidentally, have slightly lower life expectancies than general service employees, according to the PERS actuary, Milliman Inc.

Prosecutors say they are already defined as law enforcement employees in many statutes and are the only strike-barred class of public employees in Oregon who aren't designated as public safety employees for PERS. They contend they work long and unpredictable hours directly alongside police; regularly go on callouts to major crime scenes, autopsies and meetings with victims; and face similar stresses and risks to their own safety, including stalking, threats, and physical and psychological harm by those they prosecute.

The groups and several counties supporting the bill also told lawmakers the enhanced benefits would be a vital recruitment and retention tool at a time when many prosecutors are leaving the profession for less stressful private sector jobs that offer better pay, predictable hours and more stability.

Umatilla County District Attorney Dan Primus, who is currently president of the state DA association, said he's allotted nine full time deputy district attorney positions, but regularly has two or three of those jobs open, which puts higher demands on remaining employees.

Since being elected in 2011, he said he's never had a fully staffed office, and attorneys routinely leave after short stints.

"In exit interviews, it's always the same thing they tell you," he said. "As a DDA in rural Oregon, you’re never off duty. You’re always on call. What I hear routinely is it's a workload issue, the ability to control my own schedule and the pay is better. I really think this could make a difference."

Prosecutors are already often among the best paid public employees in the counties they serve. A Multnomah County salary database maintained by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows many DAs listed near the top of the county payroll, for example.

In testimony submitted earlier this year in support of the bill, local prosecutors cited a 2017 study that found turnover in the Multnomah County DA's office was a substantial problem. It said 46% of attorneys had less than five years’ experience and pre-retirement turnover approached 45%. Many attorneys don't stick around long enough to vest in PERS.

The bill under consideration would not extend extra retirement benefits to Oregon's 36 elected district attorneys. A bill passed unanimously in late March by the House Committee on Emergency Management, General Government & Veterans, included DAs but an amendment by House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, cut that perk.

Rayfield did not immediately respond to a query about why he stripped that benefit from the bill, but several members of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Public Safety expressed deep discomfort with the amendment Wednesday afternoon.

Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, repeatedly called it a slap in the face to the elected DAs and said he’d be interested in future legislation to "unwind what's been done here." Rep. Dacia Grayber, D-Southwest Portland, also said she was more comfortable with the original version extending enhanced benefits to the elected DAs.

Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth and co-chair of the committee, said the committee did not have that bill before it, and the amended version might not make it to the Senate anyway. Faced with what he called a choice between "half a loaf and no loaf," the committee unanimously moved the bill to the full Ways and Means Committee.

The bill for the enhanced retirement benefits would fall on counties and their taxpayers, which pick up about three quarters of the cost of local prosecutions.

The Legislative Fiscal Office says the bill, on average, would increase counties’ required pension contributions by about 0.2 percentage points of payroll, the collective equivalent of $3.2 million each biennium. Including the elected DAs, who are paid by the state, would have cost another $491,000 per biennium.

The Association of Oregon Counties adopted a "neutral" position on the bill after getting mixed feedback from its members. Some counties supported the concept, citing similar reasons as the prosecutors. Others were concerned with the fiscal impact and believed the current financial status of the pension system should be addressed before any expansion in benefits is considered. Actuaries estimated in February that the system has a deficit of about $25 billion, with about 75 cents in assets for every dollar in liabilities.

PERS itself doesn't take position on such bills. But agency director Kevin Olineck noted that backers of bills to expand the definition of "police officer" typically offer similar rationales for the change and the more expansive definition is not consistent with federal tax law. That could have tax consequences for members, he said, and subject the pension plan's tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.

One solution, he said, would be to offer prosecutors the earlier retirement dates, but maintain their current pension formula, which is how the state dealt with a similar request by 911 operators.

It's unclear what will happen with the legislation in the three weeks remaining in this year's regular legislative session. The ongoing Republican walkout has halted any action in the Senate, and hundreds of bills are likely to die if legislators can't solve the impasse. Democrats have already rejected an offer from Republican senators to reconvene on the final day of the session to pass budget bills.

--Ted Sickinger; [email protected]; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger

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