Secure PERA is proud to announce our bi-partisan endorsements for the November 2022 election. These candidates earned our endorsement based on their positions on PERA. Below you will find their websites so you can learn more about the candidates, volunteer for them and donate. Due to redistricting, legislative districts have changed. You can find out more about these new districts on the Colorado General Assembly Website.

In 2020, while facing a $3.3 billion budget deficit due to the COVID pandemic, the General Assembly cut its $225 million direct contribution to PERA. This annual contribution is required under SB18-200 to make up for the state’s past underfunding of PERA. Later that year, as revenue returned, the General Assembly restored funding for many of programs and projects that it had to cut, except for the $225 million direct contribution for PERA. When PERA posted a 17.4% rate of return for 2020, the loss of the $225 million was exacerbated.

Fast forward to this fall, the Pension Review Commission, which oversees the Fire and Police Pension Association (FPPA) and PERA, approved a bill draft that would pay back that missed 2020 contribution plus lost earnings for a total of $303.57 million. This direct contribution would be in addition to the $225 million direct contribution required for 2022. The bill draft is set to be bipartisan and carried by Representatives Shannon Bird and Shane Sandridge and Senators Chris Kolker and Kevin Priola.

The bill draft isn’t official yet. It must be approved by the Legislative Council of the General Assembly, an oversight committee comprised of party leadership that reviews all legislation developed by interim committees such as the Pension Review Commission. If the Legislative Council approves the bill draft, it will be introduced in the 2022 session starting in January.

Secure PERA’s top priorities for 2022 are ensuring the state makes it annual $225 million direct contribution and pays back the missed 2020 direct contribution.

Why is this important? The state’s direct contribution is a critical component of the plan to reach full funding by 2040. In addition to increases in employee and employer contributions and reduction in the COLA for retirees, the state committed in SB18-200 to make this annual contribution. Without this annual contribution, there will be more adjustments that will be needed, and public employees and retirees will have to carry that burden.

This month, PERA released its 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, also known as the “CAFR”. The CAFR provides a full summary of how PERA and its investments performed each year and the overall funded status of the pension plan. It is released every June.

Despite the tumultuous year, PERA’s rate of return for 2020 was 17.4%. This is significantly higher than the 7.25% assumed rate of return that PERA uses for its benchmarking and future planning.

Even with this high rate of return, employee and employer contributions rates will increase and retirees’ annual increase will drop again starting in July 2022. That’s because last November, PERA adjusted some of their main assumptions, namely that PERA participants are living longer than expect and the workforce has not increased as previously assumed. These changes have such an impact on the long-term costs of PERA that last year’s rate of 17.4% could not offset them. Therefore, the auto-adjust provision will get triggered to put PERA’s funded status back on track.

According to PERA’s CAFR, the number of years, or projected amortization period, that it will take until each division is fully funded increased from where it was in 2019. With the implementation of an auto-adjust provision, the amortization period improves as detailed in this chart.

Starting in July 2022, employee and employer rates will increase by 0.5% and the annual increase for retirees will decrease by .25%. The following chart from PERA’s 2020 CAFR details the changes.

The continued auto-adjustments, particularly after two years of double-digit rates of returns, highlight the challenges that continue to face PERA – primarily past years of government underfunding the pension. The state legislature’s decision to not make its 2020 contribution of $225 million is the most recent example. PERA’s actuaries noted that the loss of this contribution meant a $990 million long-term loss to the pension overall due to not having the investment returns or compounding interests that the $225 million would have generated over time. The Colorado Sun covered the board meeting and issue here.

The Governor will soon sign the 2021-2022 state budget. Last week, the Colorado Legislature finalized its work on the $34.1 billion budget, which funds many of the programs that were cut last year, sets aside additional funds for next year, and renews the state’s commitment to the long-term viability of PERA.

This means the state will make its $225 million obligation on July 1, 2021 and already has the money set aside to pay it next year as well. These actions are being done through two bills – the “Long Bill”, SB21-205, and a companion bill, SB21-228.

Thank you to the Secure PERA members who advocated with JBC members and legislators and sent more than 2,600 emails to make this happen. Your efforts had a big impact!

Secure PERA is proud to endorse four candidates this year for the PERA Board of Trustees. PERA is managed by a 15-member Board of Trustees. Eleven of the trustees are elected by PERA participants. The others are appointed by the Governor, except for the State Treasurer, who serves on the board as part of their elected position.

Beginning May 3, PERA will send out ballots to all PERA participants who are in divisions with elections. This year, there are elections in the State, School and Retiree divisions. PERA members have until May 31 to vote.

The following candidates measured up on Secure PERA’s values and beliefs on public pensions. You can read their official PERA bios here (as well as the bios of all candidates running).

• Brian Tapley

• Tina Mueh
• Marcus Pennell

• Julie Friedemann

What does the PERA Board of Trustees do? Read more about it here.

The Colorado Legislature is hard at work this year. A top priority for Secure PERA is to ensure the state funds its $225 million direct contribution to PERA this year. This annual contribution was agreed to as part of SB18-200 to make up for the state’s past underfunding of PERA. Last year, while facing a $3.3 billion deficit, the Legislature cut the 2020 contribution.

In November, the Governor released his 2021-2022 budget request and included the $225 million direct contribution. Since then, the powerful Joint Budget Committee has been working to prepare the state budget and, thanks to the advocacy of our Secure PERA members, has pledged to include the contribution for the 2021-2022 budget.

Next up, the Joint Budget Committee will receive an updated revenue forecast for the state before finalizing the budget. After that, they will introduce the “Long Bill”, which is another name for the state budget. This year, the “Long Bill” will start in the Senate before proceeding to the House.

We will keep watch throughout the process to ensure the direct contribution is maintained. In the meantime, we encourage you to attend your legislators’ (virtual) town hall meetings and continue to ask about their support for PERA and the $225 million direct constibution. The best way to know about these events is to sign up for their newsletters. You can google your legislators to find their campaign websites and then sign up for their emails.

As part of SB18-200, the Legislature created the Pension Review Subcommittee to be another set of eyes on PERA. While it has no authority over PERA, it does serve to review PERA’s progress and make recommendations to the PERA Board of Trustees and to the Legislature.

The Pension Review Subcommittee is under the Pension Review Commission, which was previously called the Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Pension Reform Commission. SB18-200 expanded the scope of the commission from overseeing just the Fire and Police Pension Association (FPPA) to also overseeing PERA and established the subcommittee.

The subcommittee is comprised of four legislators, who also serve on the commission, and ten members with external expertise. These ten members are appointed as follows:

• The Governor appoints one member,
• The Treasurer appoints one member,
• The Senate President appoints two members,
• The Senate Minority Leader appoints two members,
• The Speaker of the House appoints two members, and
• The House Minority Leader appoints two members.

These members must have “experience or knowledge of investment management, corporate or public finance, compensation and benefit systems, economics, accounting, pension administration, or actuarial analysis.”

What is their charge?

The Pension Review Subcommittee is tasked with reviewing PERA’s overall financial health, their actuarial assumptions and progress to reaching full funding by 2048. They can make recommendations to the commission or PERA about their analysis and ways to improve the system.

The subcommittee began its work in 2019 and then paused in 2020 due to the pandemic when all interim committees were halted for the year. In 2021, the subcommittee is taking on the task of conducting an analysis of PERA’s efforts to reach full funding by 2048. It recently contracted with GRS, a national actuarial and benefits consulting firm, to do this analysis. Work on this project is just getting started.

In December of last year, PERA released its 2020 “Experience Study”. This study is done every four years and is used to set the actuarial assumptions, which are the underlying factors that affect PERA’s projections. The subcommittee’s review will include an analysis of this study, PERA’s overall assumptions and their projections.

You can learn more about the Pension Review Subcommittee on the Colorado Legislature’s website, including who serves on the Subcommittee now and their meeting information.

This week, Secure PERA and our coalition partner, CSPERA, hosted a webinar with over a 100 PERA retirees from across the state.

Rep. Julie McCluskie, who serves on the powerful Joint Budget Committee and represents House District 61 covering Delta, Lake, Gunnison, Pitkin and Summit Counties, joined us to discuss the 2020 budget and what it meant for PERA.

Ron Baker, Executive Director of PERA, provided an update on the status of the pension system and how the market changes and the loss of the $225 million contribution from the state could impact retiree benefits going forward.

You can watch a recording of the webinar here.  Presentations from the webinar can be found here.

At the end of June, PERA released its annual CAFR report, which reviews PERA’s investment performance for the previous year and funded status of the plan. PERA reported their second highest return in the past 20 years! In 2019, their investments grew by 20.3%, far exceeding the assumed 7.25% annual return.

This is good news as it means that at the end of 2019, the plan’s unfunded liability was reduced and the number of years that it would take to get to “full funding” improved. SB18-200 set the goal of full funding within 30 years. The chart below, from PERA’s 2019 CAFR report, tracks the changes from 2018 valuation results to 2019 results, including the state budget impacts.

However, PERA also warned that the quick downturn of the markets this year due the impact of the pandemic, which caused an 11% drop in investments so far, plus the actions by the state legislature to balance the state budget will hurt that unfunded liability. Further, depending on the how the markets play out over the rest of the year will determine if there will be more adjustments needed to keep the plan on track. Fortunately, the investment returns from 2019 provide a strong starting point.