Ya know, I think reporting on this subject is not balanced.  Yes, this year the stock market was flat to lower and we get this article decrying loss of funding status.  Yet the preceding several years saw market returns that were quite good yet I don't recall any stories about how the PERS reserves grew.  So we get stories in bad years and silence in good years.  I wonder how the reserves stand relative to 5, 10, etc. years ago.