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Employee Pension Stability Account (EPSA) overview

What is EPSA?

The Employee Pension Stability Account (EPSA) was created by the Oregon Legislature through Senate Bill (SB) 1049 (2019).

EPSA’s function is to help pay for part of your lifetime, monthly pension benefit when you retire.

EPSA rules apply to most PERS members, but the EPSA redirect (see more in “How does EPSA work?" below) is only triggered when your gross pay in a month exceeds the monthly salary threshold.

This threshold is tied to the annual Consumer Price Index (All Urban Consumers, West Region) and can vary year to year.

Each year, the salary threshold will be updated in January. It also can be found in Oregon Administrative Rule 459-080-0400.

Monthly Salary Thresholds by Year

Year Monthly Salary Threshold
2020
$2,500
2021
$2,535
2022*$3,333
2023$3,570
2024$3,688

*Salary threshold increased January 1, 2022, by House Bill (HB) 2906 (2021), not by SB 1049.

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If your gross pay in a month exceeds the monthly salary threshold, a portion of your 6% Individual Account Program (IAP) contribution is redirected to your EPSA. This redirect started on July 1, 2020, and is called Member Redirect.

How much of your 6% contribution gets redirected depends on your membership type:

The remainder of your 6% is contributed to your IAP as usual. (For Tier One/Tier Two, the remainder is 3.5%. For OPSRP, it is 5.25%.)

Member Redirect is based on pay dates, not pay periods, which can cause the monthly salary threshold to be exceeded in certain circumstances. Example: A member received a gross monthly paycheck of $2,450 dated April 1, 2021, and another gross paycheck of $2,450 dated April 30, 2021, because May 1, 2021, fell on a Saturday. As a result, this member’s gross pay for the month of April 2021 exceeded the monthly salary threshold and was subject to the redirect for April.

Note that you may not see anything on your paycheck stub that reflects the redirect. The redirect occurs behind the scenes at PERS, and many employers will only list a 6% total for your combined IAP and EPSA contributions.

Also note that Member Redirect is in effect whenever the PERS system is less than 90% funded*.

*The latest actuarial valuation shows that PERS’ funded status including side accounts was 79% as of December 31, 2022.

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If you earn more than the salary threshold for EPSA and are subject to Member Redirect, you have the option to voluntarily make additional after-tax contributions to your IAP.

Voluntary contributions are made on an after-tax basis and must match the amount being redirected to your EPSA:

For more information, read How to Elect and Update IAP Voluntary Contributions Online.

Remember: If you wish to save even more for your retirement, additional options may be available to you, including the Oregon Savings Growth Plan or other 403(b) or 457(b) options.

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EPSA was created by the Oregon Legislature to address the increasing cost of funding pension benefits. State lawmakers, Oregon State Treasury, and the PERS Board regularly analyze how PERS is doing financially as a retirement system, including annually calculating and reporting the degree to which PERS is funded. (PERS typically shares this information with our members each April in Perspectives, your member newsletter; and in our Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, which is accessible on our Actuarial and financial reporting resources webpage.)

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  • Contact Member Services representatives, who can answer specific questions relating to your membership.
  • Sign up for PERS' education sessions (Tier One/Tier Two and OPSRP), which can provide you with a general overview of your PERS retirement benefits.
  • Sign up for GovDelivery emails and texts to receive updates about your membership and other member news.
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Glossary

Subject salary is salary that is subject to PERS pension and IAP contributions and used in calculating PERS retirement benefits.