Latest news with #PERS
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Oregon schools get some relief from rising retirement costs amid tough budget season
The Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, building in Tigard, Ore., on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019. (Bryan M. Vance / OPB) In a budget season rife with cuts and constraints, school districts have some good news. The Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, known as PERS, has announced a reduction in pension contribution rates for K-12 school districts. Agency leaders said the one-time move will provide much-needed budget relief to districts across the state for the 2025-27 biennium. 'Thanks to the support of Gov. Kotek and the Legislature,' Oregon PERS Director Kevin Olineck said, 'we were able to recalculate employer contribution rates and deliver real, measurable cost reductions for our school employers.' School districts, large and small, are facing another year of multi-million-dollar budget deficits. And they were expecting a big hit from PERS. Back in the fall, school leaders learned that the increase in PERS costs in the upcoming biennium was going to be more than Gov. Tina Kotek's initial budget increase for the State School Fund. In other words, despite her investing more in education, that money would be wiped out quickly by the rising costs of Oregon's retirement system. But in December, Kotek doubled the proposed increase in K-12 spending, which more than offset the PERS increase. Lawmakers further reduced the costs this spring by passing Senate Bill 849. The bill, introduced by Kotek at the request of PERS officials, changes how the state retirement agency distributes money from its School Districts Unfunded Liability Fund. That brought down the estimated retirement costs for schools from $670 million to just over $500 million. The changes from the bill reduce some of the burden on school districts to absorb rising retirement costs. Contribution rates for school employers will drop 1.68 percentage points as a result, reducing costs by about 6% over the next biennium. For school districts, this translates into $168 million in savings statewide — money that can now be used for other needs. It's not certain yet how these rates will continue or change for school districts in the next biennium. Analysts are already expecting an increase in 2027-29, followed by a significant decrease. But for now, the change is significant for local districts. In Portland Public Schools, for example, this change is expected to pay for dozens of teachers. That's a welcome development considering the state's largest school district had a $40 million budget gap when approving its budget for next school year. '[This bill] is estimated to reduce our expenditures in one year (by) about $7.6 million, which is equivalent to about 50 teaching positions,' explained Michelle Morrison, chief financial officer for PPS, when giving testimony to lawmakers in April. 'As you are aware, the School District Liability Fund has been kind of sitting and unable to offset our costs actively in the moment,' she said to lawmakers. 'So, this is an excellent opportunity, while those rate increases are significant, to put those dollars to work.' The Oregon School Employees Association, AFT-Oregon, the Oregon School Boards Association and the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators were among the supporters of the bill. It passed with only four dissenting votes in the Oregon Senate and unanimously out of the Oregon House. Louis De Sitter with the Oregon Education Association spoke to that in his testimony. 'I think the bipartisan nature of the bill,' he said, 'and the fact that both management and labor are so supportive of this, is indicative of a really good process, and a bill that we do believe will have a big impact for our districts across the state.' This article was originally published by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nevada charter schools keep falling behind on retirement contributions, says PERS
NV Prep is one of two charter schools currently in a repayment plan for PERS. ((Photo: April Corbin Girnus/Nevada Current) Charter schools made up five of the nine public employers in Nevada that at some point over the past 2 years fell more than 90 days delinquent on retirement contributions, state lawmakers learned Wednesday. The Public Employees' Retirement System of Nevada — better known as PERS — is now backing a bill in the state Legislature to establish a mechanism that allows them to recoup the delinquent contributions. 'The category of employer we've had the most trouble with is charter schools,' PERS Executive Officer Tina Leiss told lawmakers on the Assembly Government Affairs Committee Wednesday. With other types of public employers, such as local government, PERS is able to turn to the Nevada Department of Taxation, which has the authority to withhold payments of public dollars to the county, city or agency behind on the payments. 'Over the years we've been able to use that process successfully,' Leiss added. 'With charter schools there really is, right now, no one that we can go to that has authority over them.' Senate Bill 418 would enable the State Superintendent of Public Schools to withhold a charter school's per-pupil dollars in order to pay PERS. That option would only be available after the charter school is more than 90 days behind. The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this month and heard by the Assembly Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday. No groups have registered opposition to the bill. Any public employer falling behind on PERS contributions is a problem because it affects people's ability to retire. PERS cannot pay out a person's pension if the employer is behind on their contributions. Kent Ervin, who follows the Retirement Board as part of his work with the Nevada Faculty Alliance, called it 'outrageous and simply unacceptable.' 'These public charter schools have deducted the PERS contributions from employee's paychecks but did not forward even those amounts to PERS. Some have also not reported the service credits,' he said, referring to the amount of time a person has worked in a PERS-eligible position, which affects pension levels. 'It's a disgrace.' With charter schools, there is the added concern that they could shut down and never pay what they owe, leaving the state on the hook. 'I'm not picking on charter schools,' Leiss said, 'but charter schools are one of the few government entities that cease to exist. Our cities, counties, school districts, fire departments don't close.' Two charter schools — TEACH Las Vegas and Eagle Charter Schools, both in Southern Nevada — were delinquent on PERS payments before they shut down last year. PERS was paid the amounts owed as part of the closing of those schools. According to a memo from Nevada State Public Charter School Authority Executive Director Melissa Mackedon to the Charter School Board, NV Prep and Equipo Academy are on PERS contribution repayment plans approved by the Nevada Retirement Board. PERS staffer Teresa Chalmers told lawmakers that, as of April 12, the two charter schools had a combined outstanding balance of $266,120. The SPCSA memo lists a third charter school, Sage Collegiate, as being delinquent as of mid-April. The school was also identified by the SPCSA as being delinquent in late 2023, though it caught up. At least two other schools were identified by SPCSA as being delinquent but have since caught up. Leiss said that at one point charter schools had a combined $1 million in contributions delinquent. She also said she had no insight into why charter schools might be more prone to falling behind on PERS contributions than other public employers.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Several legislative priorities died this year in exchange for tax cuts, retirement reforms
As the sun set on the 2025 legislative session, by Thursday, it ended pretty much in stalemate between the Mississippi House of Representatives and the Senate. That stall of the legislative process came mostly over disagreements over a local projects funding bill, a $200-to-$400-million bill to fund project requests all over Mississippi, and the state's $7 billion budget, which died by a legislative deadline after lawmakers could not agree on a final budget proposal and died again when lawmakers couldn't agree to revive the budget. Those issues also appeared to arise from beefs developed during other debates such as income tax elimination, grocery sales tax cuts, gas tax increases and state retirement reforms. As a result, several other major priorities for the year died either once or repeatedly throughout the session. "Republicans had a lot of big issues this session, and that took their attention," said Spence Flatgard, chairman of Ballot Access Mississippi, a statewide nonprofit advocacy group and someone who has been observing the Legislature for decades. "There are things that matter to people, but it's not a lot of people's No. 1 issue. I think the reason that (issues such as ballot initiatives) didn't move (as easily) is taxes and big picture stuff, priority list things." Tax cut finale: Mississippi governor signs income tax elimination bill. How are you affected? Because of those financial issues not getting solved, and huge tax cut debate this session, the fact of the session is that other than sweeping changes to the state's tax structure and changes to the retirement system, not a whole lot of major legislative big to-dos got done. "I think the priority this year was the elimination on personal income tax, because, for some reason, our state leaders wanted the elimination of personal income tax," said Derrick Simmons, Senate minority leader. "Also, what we saw was the really big national issues (with President Donald J. Trump) like DEI, our state leaders just got caught up in that." Several big issues laid out by House Speaker Jason White, R-West, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in January just didn't happen this year. Among them Medicaid expansion, restoring ballot initiatives to the people, restoring voting rights to certain nonviolent felony holders, education reforms such as expanding school choice and legalizing mobile sports betting. One of the reasons for those bills' death could have been, according to Simmons, due to more hot-button issues, such as tax cuts and PERS reforms, becoming as controversial as they did throughout the session and that allowed other issues to fall through. Simmons also said that because of the conservative nature of the top two issues of the session, Democrats were largely left out of the big discussions between House and Senate leadership, leaving roughly a third of the Legislature in the dark as the supermajority pushed some legislative priorities forward and left others behind. "Democratic leadership has not been at the table for the priorities of Republican leadership," Simmons said. That sentiment was shared by House Minority Leader Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, in a March press conference when he noted how House leadership was essentially ignoring concerns from the Democratic caucus regarding tax cuts. "Nobody has talked to us," Johnson said during the February press conference in the Mississippi State Capitol. "Nobody wants to hear what we have to say about it. We (Democrats) represent 40% to 50% of the state of Mississippi, and nobody has said a word about how (tax cuts) will impact your community (and) what can we do to help." Below is how those bills died: PERS reforms: New retirement benefits incoming for MS employees. See how you are affected Early in the session, both ballot initiatives and disenfranchisement died in the House chamber after passing out of committee. Both ideas were heavily pushed for by House leadership in the 2024 session, with several proposals being advanced to the Senate before dying either in a committee or were left to die on the Senate calendar. Simmons said this year he believed a serious effort was in underway in both chambers to address those issues, but because a few key lawmakers opposed those ideas, as well as energies spent elsewhere on the tax cut, they just didn't make it. Flatgard, in talking about ballot initiatives, said it is likely legislative efforts were saved for larger debates. Simultaneously, Flatgard said that a few key senators opposition to it killed ballot initiative legislation. "I know a lot of things were collateral damage, but even without the tax deal, I just think there's some senators that aren't there yet (on ballot initiatives)." This would be the second year that disenfranchisement had become a priority for the House but died by legislative deadlines. It's the fourth year in a row that restoration of the ballot initiative will die in the Legislature. Up until 2020, the state had a ballot initiative process. That changed when a group led by long-time Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler sought to challenge Initiative 65, which legalized marijuana, and the entire initiative process in court. The law, they argued, was outdated because it required signatures to come in equal proportion from the state's "five" congressional districts. The state had dropped to four congressional districts in 2001. Disenfranchisement has its roots deep in the soil of Jim Crow South. During the 1890 constitutional convention in Mississippi, the practice was adopted to prevent Black voters from reaching the polls, according to Clarion Ledger records and reporting. At the time of the bills' deaths, House Constitution Chairman Price Wallace, R-Mendenhall, said he let both bills die because of a lack of interest in the Senate. Throughout the 2025 session, both the House and Senate kept a "dummy bill" alive that had the ability to expand Medicaid should the opportunity have presented itself. The prerequisites for that were decisions made by Congress and Republican President Donald Trump regarding federal spending cuts and Medicaid funding. Even though the federal government has begun making massive cuts to federal spending, the Medicaid program and its federal-to-state Medicaid funding structure have remained largely untouched. Meanwhile in the Legislature, the Medicaid dummy bills died by a legislative deadline as the tax cut debate became the big issue of the session. "Off the heels of the 2024 regular session, the very first piece of legislation that we would have wanted to see on the Senate side and the House side was to pass both chambers with a Medicaid expansion, but it was not," Simmons said. While tax cuts and retirement reforms were the big attraction this session, school choice and education reforms were a major contender for the spotlight as lawmakers moved past the first few legislative deadlines. By March, approximately five separate proposals to reform education policies in Mississippi had died in the Senate after passing the House. For that, the House killed several Senate education priorities as well. The most notable of those proposals were several bills seeking to expand school choice, a loaded term for expanding education options for parents' children through various methods, including funneling public dollars to private schools. School choice dies: MS House Speaker says school choice bill doesn't have consensus among House GOP. See why When all was said and done, House Speaker Jason White said the Legislature might not have been ready to broach full school-choice expansion, but he will continue pushing the idea to give parents more options for their children's educations. "We have shown here in the House and last year and this year, a measured approach at looking at ways to move the ball down the field that the average Mississippian feels in their everyday life, and school choice, whether anybody in this Capitol likes it, is coming," White said at the time. Examples of those bills that failed were ones to allow students to spend state education dollars on private schools in failing school districts, increasing tax-incentive programs that allow people to donate money to private schools in exchange for a tax break and a bill just to allow students to more easily move between school districts. A bill that would have allowed mobile sports betting died in several versions that were sent from the House to the Senate, where they were killed by legislative deadlines. This is the second year in a row the House sent a proposal over to the Senate to allow people to bet on sports using mobile devices, such as smartphones. Currently, players can only bet on their phones while at physical casinos. The idea has been pegged by proponents to be both a method to curb some illegal mobile sports betting taking place in Mississippi while also generating more than $50 million in new state revenue via lottery taxes. Much of the reason given for the Senate's hesitance to consider mobile sports betting has been laid on the state's casino operators. According to Senate Gaming Chairman David Blount, D-Jackson, about half of the state's casinos have opposed mobile sports betting on the grounds it could drive away their business. Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@ or 972-571-2335. This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Tax cuts, retirement issues took spotlight while other issues got left behind
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mississippi governor to sign income tax elimination bill
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Governor Tate Reeves (R-Miss.) announced he will sign House Bill 1, which eliminates the state's individual income tax. The signing will take place at the Mississippi Governor's Mansion on March 27. House Bill 1 passed earlier this session with the major goal being the elimination of the state income tax. The bill does not include everything the House wanted, but it retains the elimination of the state income tax as a non-negotiable element. The House recently agreed to changes made by the Mississippi Senate, but a typo in the trigger language of the bill could accelerate the state's shift into tax cut mode. House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III (D-District 94) said the language error will push the state income tax elimination into action faster than initially planned. Mississippi Democrats not happy with tax overhaul bill 'The trigger is actually no longer a trigger because at the 80/500 of a percent, we essentially are in tax cut mode right now,' Johnson said. The bill also reduces the grocery tax from 7% to 5% and raises the gas tax by a total of $0.09 over three years. 'Regardless of the other features or how you feel about other aspects of the bill, there's no denying it eliminates the income tax in as soon as 14 years. While that's not fast enough for some, the House plan was a little faster than that—11 years,' said White. Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate have voice strong opposition to the bill, particularly because of its impact on the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). Starting in 2026, new state employees would see their retirement contributions split between a traditional pension and a 401(k)-style plan. State Senator David Blount (D-District 29) argued that this change will hurt Mississippi's public employees. 'This bill is wrong for the retirement system, and it's going to make it harder for school districts, for first responders, firefighters, law enforcement to be retained to do those vital jobs when their retirement benefits are not nearly what they are now,' Blount stated. According to White, the Senate invited conference on Senate Bill 3095 last week. He is willing to negotiate about a trigger, but they want it to be reasonable. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mississippi House passes tax plan, fate uncertain
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Mississippi lawmakers approved a plan to phase out the state income tax, cut the grocery tax and raise the gas tax, but the final outcome remains unclear. The House voted 92-27 to concur with the Senate in its changes to House Bill 1. The bill now advances a tax overhaul that would cut the income tax by a quarter of a percentage point each year, starting in 2027 with future cuts tied to economic growth. State Board recommends relocating MSMS to Mississippi State The plan lowers the grocery tax from seven to five-percent starting July 1, but it also adds a $0.09 gas tax hike over three years. Some lawmakers question shifting from income tax to higher gas taxes, warning it could burden lower-income residents. There's also a big change for the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). State employees hired after March 2026 would split contributions between a traditional pension and a 401(k)-style plan. The bill remains on a motion to reconsider, leaving its final status in limbo. On Wednesday, the House also passed its amended version of Senate Bill 3095, and it calls for the complete elimination of income tax, which Gov. Tate Reeves (R-Miss.) has pushed for. The governor has not said whether he would sign either bill. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
