Friday bombshell: Pernsteiner's quitting
The fancy-pants chancellor of the Oregon university system, hand-picked by Neil Goldschmidt and living high on the hog for years, has announced his resignation. Without explanation. For the real story, we know where to go, and it ain't the O. It's here, and then here.
| Posted at 2:47 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
This could be stating the obvious but shouldn't that be PERSteiner?
Posted by reader | January 25, 2013 8:27 PM
Indeed.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 25, 2013 8:29 PM
Yup. Presumably this is why Matt Donegan gave him a 5% raise, 2 weeks before firing his ass. Grease the ways, as they say. He's tier 1, payout will be Frohnmayeresque.
http://www.uomatters.com/2013/01/pernsteiner-to-resign-in-two-months.html
Posted by uomatters | January 25, 2013 9:03 PM
Well it's ONLY our tax money funding the PERS train.
Folks in Salem clearly understand taxes are an infinite well
that will never run dry. Right? Helluva a way to run a railroad!
Pensions which cannot be paid in a sustainabe mathematically
sound manner, quite simply will not be funded. The math does
not lie. Our legislature, executive branch, and judicial branch of
gov are the best at telling the lies. Oregon...progressive math!
The math is EZ. The PERS gravy train is running out of track.
Bucke up. Nobody will escape unscathed...
Posted by BB | January 25, 2013 9:56 PM
Goldschmidt is our favorite whipping boy, but he's not some pulp mag super mastermind who single-handedly comes up with all of these bad schemes that prey on a simple-minded and easily duped or distracted citizenry. He's gonna die soon, and THEN what?
Thanks so very much for helping us try to "follow the money," Jack.
And heavens knows, there's some great opportunities for some Pulitzer Prize investigative journalism abounding around that, but it sure isn't going to come out of The Oregonian or any other MSM in the state. Anyone?
Posted by Mojo | January 26, 2013 9:44 AM
It's not reasonable that the Lane Co. Elections Office could not find this guy guilty of voter fraud. What is wrong with government these days?
The real whipping boys ought to be the people on the board who signed off on all his perks. You can dislike Mr. Pernsteiner all you want, but he didn't pay himself - he had help. So it makes me wonder what the other fellas in the club get for their contribution to higher education. Does anyone know?
Posted by Nolo | January 27, 2013 3:04 AM
Jack - my understanding is that federal tax law now limits tax-exempt employer pension contributions for people making more than $250K or so. Bellotti was grandfathered in, part of the reason he was able to get $500K a year. I think this is why Pernsteiner's contract had an additional, deferred compensation payment of $12K which presumably he can put in an IRA himself. I've seen similar clauses in the contract for Frohnmayer - I seem to remember $150K or so. So the PERS amounts these guys end up with are probably underreports. Do you know any more about that?
Frohnmayer's contract and the state audit report on it are here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/971644/uomatters/Frohnmayer/Frohnmayer%20contracts%20and%20audit%202009-2012.pdf
Posted by uomatters | January 27, 2013 1:14 PM
Retirement planning isn't my specialty -- there are people who do only that. The only pension I'm expert on is my own, and so the rules "for people making more than $250K or so" are not my thing (not even close).
Deferred compensation is itself a form of retirement plan -- work now, spend later, don't get taxed until later. People who have already maxed out their traditional tax-favored retirement plans often resort to it. Basketball star Oscar Robertson was a pioneer in the area, and there's even something called a "rabbi trust," so named (albeit with a common noun) after another early adopter. It's become quite a complicated game of late, with the enactment of tax code section 409A in the 2000's. Not every tax person can keep up with it.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 27, 2013 7:22 PM