More than 4,600 public employees explored this year’s PERS Expo, learning more about their PERS benefits to help them prepare for a secure retirement. Expo was again offered as an online-only event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this year, PERS built on the resources and materials offered virtually in 2020 to provide members with live, interactive, and on-demand presentations, as well as question-and-answer sessions.

Expo was launched in October, with live sessions presented October 5 and 6. If you were unable to attend in October, Expo resources and recordings are still available to explore online through December 31, 2021.

Expo’s offerings include:

• Checklists of key steps to take to help create a secure retirement.
• Overviews of PERS retirement plans — Tier One, Tier Two, and Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP).
• Options for extra retirement savings beyond PERS, including Oregon Savings Growth Plan (OSGP) and its advantages.
• Health insurance options offered to retirees by PERS Health Insurance Program.
• Various recorded PERS and OSGP presentations.

The goals of this year’s virtual Expo remained the same as always: to help members better understand their PERS benefits and plan for a secure financial future.

At PERS, a “subject salary” is used to determine member IAP contributions, employer contributions to fund the pension program, and the final average salary for calculating retirement benefits under formula methods. In 2020, Sena​te Bill (SB) 1049 began changing limits on subject salaries. The limits can vary each year based on the Consumer Price Index.

For more details about SB 1049 and salary limits, read the Senate Bill 1049 (2019) — Member Information, SB 1049 Changes: Salary Limit, and Partial Year Salary Limits webpages.

Naming your beneficiaries and keeping those designations current is a critical part of retirement planning.

Here’s why: If you have not designated a beneficiary prior to your death, PERS will pay your IAP balance to your survivors or estate in this order: your surviving spouse, surviving children in equal shares, or your estate.

Locating next of kin can be challenging and substantially delay payment of your benefits to your survivors. To avoid delays, PERS encourages members to complete and submit beneficiary forms for your Individual Account Program (IAP) account.

For your OPSRP pension, you do not need to designate a beneficiary because this is already set for you by law. If an OPSRP member dies before retirement, the only eligible beneficiaries are a spouse, a same-sex registered domestic partner, or a former spouse or a minor child as directed by court order. Therefore, no pension death benefit will be provided to the survivors of single OPSRP members.

Your spouse or registered domestic partner will receive a monthly death benefit for their lifetime. After January 1, 2022, if you are eligible to retire at the time of your death, the death benefit will be worth 100% of the actuarial value of the pension you would have received in retirement. If you are not eligible to retire when you die, the death benefit will be worth 50% instead. (Read more about retirement eligibility on the PERS website.)

As for your IAP, your beneficiary options vary depending on whether you are married or single. Read the IAP Pre-Retirement Designation of Beneficiary Packet instructions for more information.

If you have designated an IAP beneficiary and die before retirement, PERS will pay your IAP balance to your beneficiary.

Whenever a member dies, the member’s survivors or executor should notify PERS as soon as possible. PERS will request the date of death, city and state where the death occurred, a photocopy of the death certificate, and contact information for the spouse or executor.

Processing death benefits typically can take one to two months. To avoid processing delays, consider keeping you beneficiary designations current.

If you have questions, you can contact PERS at any time, but you may especially want to do this when major life events occur. Major events include marriage, divorce, or the death of a beneficiary.

You may have noticed something’s different about your member newsletter, Perspectives. Starting with this edition, PERS is providing you with member news in an email format. Previously, we emailed you links to where you could find a digital version of the newsletter on the PERS website.

Now, important member news and reminders will come directly to you — three times a year in your inbox. You can still access past editions of Perspectives on the News page of our website.

By Heather Case, PERS Senior Policy Advisor

The Oregon Legislature does many things that affect our daily lives as Oregonians, including serving as the “plan sponsor” for the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).

As plan sponsor, the Legislature sets the rules that govern the retirement system in which public employees participate. The laws that the Legislature makes define who a PERS member is, what benefits a member can receive at retirement, retirement eligibility criteria, and so on.

To put PERS laws into action, the Legislature established an agency in 1946 to administer the retirement system in partnership with more than 900 public employers. That agency also is known by the acronym PERS.

PERS, the agency, as part of its administrative role, assists more than 384,000 current and former public employees or their beneficiaries with their retirement benefits. The agency maintains information about PERS members, educates them about their benefits and retirement-related resources (including the Oregon Savings Growth Plan and PERS Health Insurance Program), helps them navigate the retirement application process, and pays them their benefits after retirement.

In total, three entities play critical roles in the PERS system, ensuring it runs efficiently and effectively:

• The Legislature creates the rules of the system.
• Oregon State Treasury — especially the Oregon Investment Council — invests and manages assets within the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund (OPERF), which is the source of PERS pensions.
• PERS, the agency, follows the rules set by the Legislature to administer the plan and ensure members get paid the right benefit at the right time.

Like the three legs of a stool, those three entities must work together to support the overall system.

For example, not every legislator is an expert in PERS. Because of this, PERS, the agency, works with lawmakers during and between legislative sessions to help them understand the plan and the effect that proposed laws can have if passed.

It is important for the agency to work with the Legislature because the agency must implement any legislative changes lawmakers make. The agency also works with individual legislators on PERS-related issues brought to them by their constituents.

This agency-Legislature relationship is vital to supporting the PERS system and ultimately important to serving you — our PERS members.

If you are about to retire and reviewing your health insurance options, visit the PERS Health Insurance Program (PHIP) website. The website offers information about PHIP eligibility rules; Medicare, non-Medicare, and dental plans;  PHIP rates; and answers to other health insurance questions.

Contact PHIP at 1-800-768-7377 or visit the PHIP website for more information.

Are you planning to retire in the near future? Don’t wait until the last minute to prepare.

Check out these helpful resources from PERS to get ready:

• Review PERS’ I Want to Retire page and follow the instructions.
• Attend an education session. Sessions are currently available only by webinar due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Schedule a retirement application assistance session (RAAS). These sessions currently are conducted by phone due to the pandemic. During your RAAS appointment, your forms will be reviewed by PERS staff for accuracy and completeness.
• Get a written benefit estimate when you are within 24 months of being eligible to retire. You also can create estimates online earlier through your Online Member Services (OMS) account.

Also, keep the following important points in mind:

• It can take up to 92 days from your retirement date (not the date of your application submission) for your first pension benefit to be paid. Your benefit will be paid in arrears.
• Once PERS receives your application, we will review all of your account information and reconcile data with your employer(s) as needed. Data discrepancies can sometimes cause your finalized benefit amount to differ from benefit estimates you received earlier. Remember that benefit estimates are just that — estimates.
• Checking your personal information in OMS or on your member annual statement and getting benefit estimates can help you avoid delays in the processing of your application. If you find errors in your personal/account information, contact your employer for corrections.
• Individual Account Program (IAP) retirement benefits can typically take from 90 to 120 days to process and complete payments or rollovers. Processing is done both by PERS and Voya, which administers the IAP for PERS.

If you have questions, contact Member Services for assistance.

PERS headquarters building in Tigard will reopen to the public on January 3, 2022. You can keep up to date about PERS’ operations as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions evolve via updates on our website and GovDelivery emails.