By Sam Paris
PERS Chief Operating Officer

An important part of the PERS system is the relationship we have with our participating employers. PERS has more than 900 of them, and each one does two key things:

• They send PERS, the agency, information about you that will be used to calculate your future retirement benefits.
• They contribute money into the pension system that will be used to fund your future retirement benefits.

In return for these things, the agency helps PERS-participating employers administer your benefits and provides them with support in a number of ways.

PERS maintains a unit that serves employers, much like our Member Services unit and its call center help answer your member questions. For employers, this unit is called the Employer Service Center, or ESC.

ESC helps employers to submit member information that is timely and correct by providing instructional guides, trainings, and one-on-one support that help employers to do their reporting effectively and efficiently.

A representative from ESC is assigned to your employer so that they have someone to call or email with questions when needed. Some of the questions that ESC staff help employers with relate to these topics:

• How an employee qualifies for PERS membership.
• Reporting employees’ personal information, such as your age, address, and phone number, which PERS uses in various ways, including to send you your member annual statement.
• Recording employees’ positions, salaries, and contribution types.
• Employer contribution rates and any rate changes.
• Resolving records issues.
• Reporting your final salary information when you apply for retirement.

ESC provides this and other support to your employer during their regular payroll cycles. If you are paid monthly, for example, that means PERS is working with your employer throughout each and every month.

Over the course of a year, PERS receives and processes about 3.5 million records from employers. ESC and other PERS staff review those records to maintain accuracy and data integrity, which are crucial when it comes time for you to retire.

The records we receive about you help to establish when you became a member, how much service time you have, what your final salary is, how much gets contributed to your Individual Account Program (IAP) account, what may be redirected to your Employee Pension Stability Account (EPSA), and whether you have chosen to make additional voluntary contributions if you had money redirected to EPSA.

When you apply for retirement, PERS reviews your records and uses that information to determine how much your monthly pension payments will be along with other aspects of your retirement benefits, such as your tax deductions. Ultimately, this helps the agency to fulfill our mission, which involves paying our members the right benefit at the right time during retirement.

As such, the relationship between PERS, the agency, and PERS-participating employers is an important partnership that helps make the overall retirement system run. You can keep things running smoothly, too, by making sure you keep your contact information up to date with your employer while you’re still working, name your beneficiaries, and let us know about major life changes (e.g., marriage, divorce, etc.).

While PERS and its participating employers have a pivotal partnership, let’s not forget the other two key entities in the PERS system: the Oregon Legislature, which sets the rules for your retirement benefits; and Oregon State Treasury, which manages how PERS funds are invested.

Learn more about how all of these entities work together in our How Does PERS Work? video, and get to know more about your benefits through the resources available on our website.

Two changes are coming soon to the target-date funds in the Individual Account Program (IAP) lineup. 

Starting in January 2025, the following will happen:

• A new IAP 2070 Target-Date Fund will be added to the lineup.
• The IAP 2025 Target-Date Fund will be consolidated into the Retirement Allocation Fund (RAF).

These changes are part of a normal adjustment process that occurs in the IAP every five years or so.

The reason for the adjustments is twofold:

• To limit the number of target-date funds managed in the overall IAP program.
• To keep the overall target-date-based investment strategy working as intended.

How are target-date funds intended to work as an investment strategy?

Target-date funds (TDF) are used within retirement plans throughout the public and private sector, not just at PERS. TDFs are tied to your age by date of birth and/or the age at which you wish to retire. They are intended to age with you, with investment managers adjusting the investments and levels of risk within them as time goes by. The closer that funds get to the anticipated retirement year in their names, the more conservative the mix of investments within them becomes, which reduces risk from market volatility.

For example, as the 2025 TDF moves into the RAF, its final asset allocation will be 34% in growth assets (including real estate and public and private equity investments) and 66% in conservative assets (including bonds and Treasury inflation-protected securities).

Meanwhile, adding the 2070 fund to PERS’ IAP lineup will create a new fund for younger employees just entering public service.

To learn more about the IAP TDFs, visit our IAP target-date funds webpage, which includes a table that lists all of the IAP target-date funds as well as information about how you can change your TDF as part of Member Choice (read the section "Can I change the IAP TDF in which I am invested?").

For more information about IAP investments, visit Treasury’s Individual Account Program webpage, which includes fact sheets about each TDF.

Also read more about TDF adjustments on our Individual Account Program target-date fund shifts webpage.

The investment manager for the IAP is the Oregon Investment Council (OIC).

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’ Tier One/Tier Two steps to retire webpage and follow the instructions.
• Attend an education session, which are available to you throughout your career.
• Schedule a retirement application assistance session (RAAS) for a date within the 90 days before your PERS retirement date.
• Get a written benefit estimate when you are within 24 months of being eligible to retire; the form to request a written estimate is available online. You also can create estimates online earlier through your Online Member Services (OMS) account.

Also, keep the following important points in mind:

• Retirement applications may be submitted to PERS up to 90 days before your planned retirement day.
• 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.
• Once PERS receives your application, we will review your account information and reconcile data with your employer(s) as needed. This process can sometimes result in a final benefit amount that differs from benefit estimates you received earlier. Remember that benefit estimates are just that — estimates.
• Filling out your application correctly, checking your personal information in OMS or on your member annual statement, requesting benefit estimates, and responding to requests from PERS for additional information can help you avoid delays in the processing of your application. If you are working for a PERS-participating employer and find errors in your personal/account information, contact your employer for corrections. If you are not working for a PERS-participating employer, read the inactive member section on our Change your address webpage for instructions.
• 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 IAPs for PERS.
• If you are purchasing time, contact PERS to make sure your payment was received — whether you mailed a check or used a trustee-to-trustee transfer to make the purchase.

If you have questions, contact Member Services for assistance.

At PERS, a member's “subject salary” is used to determine their Individual Account Program (IAP) contributions, employer contributions to fund the pension program, and the final average salary for calculating retirement benefits under formula methods. In 2020, Senate 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, read the Senate Bill 1049 (2019) member information webpage.

Are you thinking about working for a PERS-participating employer after retirement? Be sure you’re familiar with the latest guidelines.

Senate Bill (SB) 1049 (2019) simplified some previous work-after-retirement rules as of January 1, 2020. House Bill (HB) 2296 (2023) extended the rules set by SB 1049 through 2034. These rules, however, do not apply to some early retirees and disability retirees.

Read more on our SB 1049 and HB 2296 Changes: Work After Retirement and our Working after retirement: Tier One/Tier Two webpages.

Note: PERS is not involved in hiring decisions between retirees and employers. Whether a PERS-participating employer hires you, or places limits on you as a PERS retiree, is between you and your employer.

As year’s end approaches, you may wonder when you will receive your next member annual statement. Your 2024 statement will be mailed by the end of May 2025 and will reflect data submitted by your employer as of December 31, 2024.

It takes that long to prepare your statement for two reasons:

• The PERS Board must adopt final earnings crediting before statements can be finalized. This adoption will occur at the board's April 1, 2025, meeting.
• PERS must painstakingly check the accuracy of contribution information received from more than 900 employers regarding more than 190,000 nonretired member accounts.

While you wait, explore our Member Annual Statement FAQs webpage, which includes interactive examples and information to help you understand your statement. Also, check that your mailing address, phone number, and email address are correct through your Online Member Services (OMS) account. If you need to change your information, contact your employer to have it updated in the PERS reporting system. If you are not currently working for a PERS-participating employer, you can change your information yourself in OMS. Make any necessary changes as soon as possible.

To receive alerts about annual statements, sign up for GovDelivery emails on this topic from PERS. If you have questions, contact Member Services.

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 the balance of your member account in a priority order set by state law. Effective January 1, 2024, that order is:

• A surviving spouse or someone required by law to be treated as a spouse.
• Surviving children.
• 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 both your pension and your Individual Account Program (IAP) account. Submit beneficiary forms directly to PERS; turning them into your employer doesn't count.

If you have designated a beneficiary and die before retirement, PERS will pay the amounts in your Tier One or Tier Two member account and your IAP account to your designated beneficiary.

If your death meets certain criteria, your beneficiary may be eligible for an additional employer-funded amount that matches the value of your Tier One or Tier Two member account.

If your spouse is your sole Tier One or Tier Two beneficiary, they may be eligible to receive the Optional Spouse Death Benefit (OSDB), which is a lifetime monthly payment based on your salary and service credit, if certain conditions are met:

• You are working for a PERS-participating employer at the time of your death, or your death is within 120 days after your employment ended.
• Your spouse is your sole beneficiary.
• Your spouse completes an OSDB estimate/election form that PERS sends them. Effective January 1, 2024, PERS must receive the form from your spouse within 60 days of the date on the estimate. Postmarks do not count.

When a survivor or executor notifies PERS of your death, PERS will ask them to provide the date of death, city and state where the death occurred, a photocopy of the death certificate, and their contact information.

Processing death benefits typically can take months. To avoid processing delays, PERS recommends keeping your beneficiary designations current. Again, your survivors or executors should notify PERS of your death as soon as possible.

If you have questions about beneficiaries, contact PERS. Beyond the death of a member, you will want to contact PERS when other major life events occur, such as marriage, divorce, or the death of a beneficiary.

Thank you to the more than 8,800 members who took our 2024 member satisfaction survey earlier this year.

Your feedback will be used to help improve our services and how we assist you.

A presentation of survey results is available in the PERS Board’s October meeting packet online. The member survey presentation begins on page 120 of the packet.

You also can check out a recording of the full board meeting online.

Oregon PERS paid about $4.74 billion in benefits to retired members or their beneficiaries living in Oregon in 2023. The $4.74 billion figure does not include payments from the Individual Account Program (IAP).

PERS conducts an annual economic impact study to show how benefits paid to PERS' retirees support the state’s economy. Funding for PERS retirement benefits comes mostly from investment earnings on contributions previously paid by PERS members and public employers.

The financial impact of PERS benefits is not limited to $4.74 billion. Benefit payments also generate tax revenue and support jobs and related wages.

When adjusted to include tax revenue, jobs, and wages, the value of PERS retirement payments to Oregon’s economy grows to $5.44 billion.

Read the full Economic Impact Study 2023 online.