The Bulletin’s writer in the editorial “Right question, but wrong answer on PERS” seems to imply that the solution to Oregon’s public retirement program’s unfunded liability is to take money from retirees and give it to the state to hire more teachers and other public employees, thus enlarging the number of people in this troubled retirement program.

Presently, the PERS Unfunded Actuarial Liability (UAL) is estimated at between $14 billion and $16 billion. It is this unfunded liability that is requiring public employers throughout the state to deal with increased PERS costs.

I suggest a wiser and fairer solution would call for any money taken from present and future retirees be used to pay down the unfunded liability. This would attack the real issue in a meaningful way.

Bob Almquist

Bend