I think it is intersting to see this in the article:

"I had no inkling about this," Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who has spearheaded reforms to the disability and pension fund, said Wednesday. Commissioner Randy Leonard, a former Portland firefighter and former pension fund trustee, said he didn't either. He called the Police Bureau pension fund's practices "inappropriate."

Followed by this:

In October 1993, the pension fund's board of trustees decided -- against a city attorney's advice -- to begin including executive leave payouts when computing final pay for pensions. According to a transcript of the Oct. 12, 1993, board meeting, the trustees voted 7-3 to do so. Then-firefighter Randy Leonard chaired the meeting and voted with the majority, police union and fire union representatives and then-Police Chief Charles Moose.

So good old Randy had no idea this was going on, but yet he was one of the people that voted to start doing it? (It was 13 years ago, so maybe he just forgot.)

Randy has selective memory. He's all vocal against SoWa abatements now that they are being scrutnized, but where was he two or three years ago?

Same story on FPDR. What a scam. And we're supposed to vote to tax ourselves to pay for this mess?

Great - this is like that line from Woody Allen "I didn't know he was Adolph Hitler, I thought he worked for the phone company."

This is who we have managing $2B a year for us? Mr Snethen was right, I gues most Portlanders just don't care.

"I guess most Portlanders just don't care"

I think by in large they do care.

The ones who don't care are the ones
Randy and company pander to and get out the public employee and labor union vote.
Along with a few other groups who don't care about anything but their inner circle sefl interests, that's enough to sway evey election around here.

I mean give me a break. Does anyone think the police or fire unions care how much their disability & pension systmes cost the taxpayers or other basic services?

Some of their rank and file may but so what.
And by extension or affiliation the other unions don't care either.

Ever heard the teachers union, for instance, ever beef about any of this sort of thing? Never.

How about the Portland Schools Foundation?
Not a word.

Not a word about any Urban Renewal scheme either.
Pick the waste and not one word is heard from these folks who elect their pals every cycle.

Wish I could agree with you, but we keep electing the same bozos (I'll give Potter a break, he is just mis-focused) year after year. Each guy has his pet project that he swaps votes for and the taxpayers get screwed.

Adams wants to end up on the cover of some obscure architecture mag read by 3 professors, Randy runs interference for FPDR, Saltzman and Sten have death grips on their jobs since they know they will never get a gig at $100K/yr w/great benefits where they can set their own agendas.

Meanwhile, potholes grow, we let criminals out of jail because we have no space and never enough money for schools. Then we screw the working young in the future with finance schemes from wonderland by sticking them with huge future property tax levies and bad credit ratings for Portland.

The ones who care are the ones who directly benefit - and they care most when their benefits are threatened. Of course when caught out, as Leonard has been, the doubletalk, spin and victim reactions kick in (see Bad Brad's comments on this last week, if they're still there). If this doesn't work their lawyers take over. Oh they care all right - just not about anyone but themselves.

Unfortunately, (with a very few exceptions) the local media kiss up to elected and appointed city officials like CNN to Saddam. Better biased, slanted news than no news. There's another "caring" group. Without the help of these (at best) willfully blind hacks,
abuses like this would be splattered above the fold at least once a week.

The PFPDR just continues to thumb their noses at the general public with Tuesday's 5-4 vote to base a retiring lieutenant's pension on the double payments. Guess from whom 4 of the 5 "caring" votes came - the police and fire unions' reps and Chief Rosie who must appease them. They were joined by Nicolette Johnston, a citizen member. (any backgound on her?) Missing from the vote was David Marshall, another citizen member. It seems to me that when faced with the narrowly-interested bloc of union members (usually including Potter - but this was too obvious even for him), the citizen members of the board ought to show up for decisions like this.

Watch the players obfuscate, dither and hide 'til this blows over.

Which it will, since we'll probably not see any more prominent coverage by the O.

Unfortunately.

If you think this is bad consider what's been going on for years with PERS via a firetruck-wide loophole that nobody wants to talk about.

It's the practice of the mostly "emergency services" departments steering overtime hours (not comp time) to employees who are within 3 years of retirement. That's the time period where an employee's total compensation is averaged to be used as the base for calculating retirement pay. It's why your average firefighter is able to retire with an income either close to, or in excess of, their final base salary.

Naturally the unions love it and, as far as management goes, it helps keep the peace. And, best of all, it's helping our heroes and it's not coming out of anybody's annual operating budget - it's just another liability to PERS. Think any politician wants to go anywhere near this one? You have to wonder if this continuing financial shell game made the PFPDR switch to PERS palatable.