PERS individual employer rates show another significant increase

The Public Employees Retirement System Board has posted individual employer rate summaries for 2019-21. School districts’ average rate increased 4.78 percentage points.

The PERS Board is scheduled to meet Friday morning in Tigard, where state actuary Milliman will present the proposed rates. If approved, PERS will send employers detailed reports, and the rates will go into effect July 1, 2019.

The rates are based on the Dec. 31, 2017, valuation of PERS’ assets. A booming stock market and other PERS changes have reduced PERS’ unfunded actuarial liability to $22.3 billion, but rates are still going up. Rate collaring kept employer rates from rising fast enough in past years to keep pace with the debt, so rates are expected to rise until at least 2021. 

School districts’ average base rate will be 28.93 percent, but the actual rate varies wildly depending on districts’ percentage of more expensive Tier 1 and Tier 2 employees and districts’ side accounts. Side accounts lop an average of about 10 percentage points off the base rate. 

School districts’ PERS costs have more than doubled since 2015-17. OSBA has made cost containment a key plank in its revenue reform campaign for the 2019 legislative session. 

- Jake Arnold, OSBA
jarnold@osba.org