A bad investment year at a precarious time for Colorado’s public workers’ pension will mean more sacrifices than state lawmakers expected when they approved a sweeping deal to stabilize the retirement system’s finances in 2018. The good news: Unlike the legislature’s prior attempts to fix the Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s funding woes, safeguards are kicking […]
Public Employees Retirement Association
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Politics and Government
Low pay. Cuts to PERA. For some state workers in Colorado, it’s like the recession never ended.
When Colorado state workers took a temporary 2.5% pay cut in 2011 to shore up the state’s pension plan, Jane Wilson didn’t like it, but she understood. The country was in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And the stock market’s 2008 freefall had put the Public Employees’ Retirement Association […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
PERA lost $1.8 billion after brutal finish for 2018 stocks. Now public workers and taxpayers will pay more.
The hits just keep on coming for the Colorado state employees pension fund. But now there are safeguards in place to absorb the latest blow. Thanks to a brutal December for stocks, Colorado’s pension lost $1.8 billion on its investments in 2018, according to the annual financial report released Friday. That’s a 3.5% drop for […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Get to know Brian Watson, the Republican candidate for Colorado treasurer
Brian Watson overcame a crowded field of Republican primary candidates to win his party’s nomination for Colorado treasurer. It’s the 46-year-old businessman’s second real foray into Colorado politics. He lost a bid to become a state lawmaker in 2012. Watson grew up on the Western Slope, in Olathe, and graduated from the University of Colorado […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Get to know Dave Young, the Democrat candidate for Colorado treasurer
State Rep. Dave Young jumped into the Colorado treasurer’s race after serving eight years in the Colorado General Assembly and being termed out of that office. He is a former junior high school math, science and technology teacher from Greeley, where he boasts of being the only elected Democrat in Weld County. Young lacks the […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Walker Stapleton’s PERA crusade: His warnings came true, but he missed the big moment for reform
Heading into his eighth and final year as Colorado’s state treasurer, Walker Stapleton could finally say, “I told you so.” The term-limited Republican had spent his entire tenure on a lonely crusade for public pension reform, warning that a “long-term fix” passed in 2010 hadn’t really fixed anything at all. So when the Public Employees’ […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s PERA board may ditch its longtime financial adviser after $1.3 billion mistake
The Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s board of directors is considering jettisoning its longtime financial adviser after an accounting mistake caused the firm to underestimate the Colorado state pension’s liabilities by $1.3 billion. The error was spotted by an internal audit, triggering what the board president described as a “serious fire drill” to rewrite the pension’s […]