A lot of … stuff … is hitting the fan these days, and state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, wants to know how it will affect Oregon’s public retirees.
She joined 15 of her fellow Democratic legislators Aug. 3 to call for a hard look at how artificial intelligence, climate change, vulture capitalism and a whole host of 21st-century perils could hurt the Public Employees Retirement Fund.
The lawmakers called on State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner to assess the threats and crunch the numbers.
Vulture capitalism (called “private equity” in polite circles) casts a particularly ominous shadow, the Democrats said.
“The concern over excessive investment in private equity, in terms of both transparency and the reliability of return on investment, goes back many years,” state Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Rogue Valley, said in a press release.
“The Legislature determined back then that a comprehensive investment-program audit was needed to rationally address these concerns and assure sound stewardship of treasury investments over time,” he said.
The letter was also addressed to the Oregon Investment Council. “Our letter asks the treasurer and the Investment Council to comply with this legally required safeguard,” Golden said.
Lawmakers outlined specific issues an audit should address. How investing in the vulture capitalists of private equity firms may ultimately do more harm than good. Investing in companies with contracts with Immigration and Custom Enforcement could also be really bad optics, legislators said.
Golden and his colleagues emphasized those sorts of issues should have been addressed a long time ago.
Such audits are required every four years at a minimum under state law, but the most recent audit of that type was conducted 10 years ago.
Gelser Blouin and the other signers point out that a 2026 audit of private equity contributions to PERS does not meet the audit standard under law.
Other Democratic state senators signing the letter included Chris Gorsek of Gresham, Courtney Neron Misslin of Wilsonville, Deb Patterson of Salem, Khanh Pham of Portland, Floyd Prozanski of Eugene and Kathleen Taylor of Portland.
On the House side, signers included Tom Andersen of Salem, Farrah Chaichi of Aloha, Mark Gamba of Milwaukie, Susan McLain of Hillsboro, Lesly Muñoz of Woodburn, Travis Nelson of Portland, Sue Rieke Smith of Wilsonville and Andrea Valderrama of Portland.
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