Oregonian
August 27th, 2014
Two bills passed in the Oregon Legislature last year were not a breach of contract with government employees because they cut benefits under the Public Employees Retirement System that were never written into contracts at all, according to the brief the State of Oregon filed before the Oregon Supreme Court earlier this week.
The brief was filed along with four others, all of which argued that Senate Bills 822 and 861 were legal even though they reduced the cost-of-living adjustments for current and future PERS retirees.
Both reduced the COLA for retirees in the PERS system, and SB 822 also ended a payment originally meant to compensate out-of-state retirees paying Oregon state income taxes.