Oregon’s Public Workers Can’t Find Out Which Private Investments in Their PERS Fund Actually Made Money

This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.

At a recent public meeting about the financial health of OPERF, the $100 billion Oregon Public Employees Retirement System Fund, an activist criticized the Oregon State Treasury for losing money when it recently sold $4.5 billion in private equity holdings from the fund.

State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner responded sharply. She told the activist, Rick Pope of Divest Oregon, that he had no idea how much PERS made or lost on the sales because the prices were not public information.

“You don’t know—nor are we allowed to disclose specifically what we get,” Steiner told him at the Sept. 3 meeting of the Oregon Investment Council, which was streamed live from the State Treasury’s Tigard headquart