• Introduced in the Senate on 1/27/2017
• Senate Committee on Finance passed the bill on 2/02/2017. See vote summary here.
• Passed by the Senate on 2/13/17.  Vote is 18-16-1.  See how your senator voted here.
• Postponed indefinitely (PIed) in the House committee on State, Veterans, and Military Affairs on 3/01/17.  The vote was 6-3.  See vote summary here.

BILL INFORMATION

Senate Bill 113 is sponsored by Senator Neville (R- Littleton) and Representative Everett (R- Littleton).

You can read the bill in its entirety by clicking here.

This bill would cap employer contribution rates at 2018 levels. This bill concerns us for several reasons:

• PERA’s Board has voted to conduct an outreach tour this spring and summer to educate us all on the status of PERA and what that status would look like if any changes were made to contribution amounts or benefit structure. With this process going on, it is very important that we leave all options on the table and not mislead employers about what their contribution rates will be well into the future. In essence, the three Senate Finance committee members said that any changes would have to come from employees and retirees – that is unacceptable to us.
• In the past, employers have not paid 100% of their required annual contribution. This under-funding of the divisions is part of what led to the need for Senate Bill 1 in 2010. In SB10 1, we strived to bring employers up to 100% funding. We will spend the next few months reviewing with PERA how all of the pieces of Senate Bill 1 worked – there were 33 changes in SB10 1 along with numerous assumptions. This comprehensive review by PERA, Secure PERA and the numerous other stakeholders and interested parties needs to occur before we talk about locking in any contribution rates.
• Lastly, the judicial division went into the yellow category this past year, causing us and PERA some concern. Many of the solutions the judicial division and PERA are talking about to reduce the number of years before the judicial division is 100% funded require additional employer contributions. This bill would prevent that fix.