There is little doubt that some public employees in Oregon are wildly over compensated, but the AVERAGE teacher gets nothing like the outlandish amounts cited in this article. A close friend is a teacher, with 15 years experience and a masters degree; Her salary is less than $45,000, her medical < $14,000, and PERS is unknown (tier 2) but a retired co-worker (tier 1) gets $1200 a month.

The simple solution is to cap PERS benefits at a $40,000 annual maximum for all PERS retirees, and get rid of OEBB and the OHA/MODA mess, to cut medical insurance costs.