A task force delivered its final report on October 27 to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on options to shrink the state’s bloated pension-fund deficit by $5 billion over the next five years, the Associated Press reported. Brown had convened the task force to identify opportunities to pay up to a quarter of the Public Employee Retirement System’s, or PERS, unfunded liability. That deficit has ballooned to at least $25.3 billion, according to a calculation released in September. The task force examined state assets, one-time revenue streams, and assets of other public employers that could be sold, bonded against or otherwise leveraged in order to cut the pension system’s unfunded actuarial liability. One option looked at several state-controlled entities that maintain substantial amounts of cash and short-term investments to cushion against financial downsides, and said the money could be pooled, with some transferred to PERS to reduce the deficit. “This ‘risk capital’ is rarely needed and may, in fact, never be drawn down.” the report said of the entities’ excess funds.
