So we did some research. During his tenure as Treasurer, Walker has attended only 53% of the PERA Board Meetings and even when he was present, he often didn’t stay for the whole meeting.
Click on our video below to see the truth!
On February 21st while testifying in front of the Senate Finance Committee in support of Senate Bill 158, Walker Stapleton stated that he personally attends 90% of PERA Board meetings. You can listen to the testimony on Senate Bill 158 in its entirety by clicking here, it is about 45 minutes. Or, click below to listen only to Walker Stapleton’s testimony on his PERA Board Meeting attendance.
Then he doubled down on that assertion later the same day with Kyle Clark. You saw a clip of that interview in our video. You can see the entire 13 minute interview below.
Walker Stapleton claimed to attend 90% of PERA meetings. That just didn’t seem accurate. See, we at Secure PERA attend nearly every PERA Board meeting and didn’t recall seeing him there very often, so we decided to do some research. Lo and behold, he rarely attends meetings and even when he does, he only stays for part of them.
Here is what we found out:
- In 2011, PERA had 12 Board Meeting, Walker attended 8 of them – 67%
- In 2012, PERA had 11 Board Meetings, Walker attended 3 of them – 27%
- In 2013, PERA had 7 Board Meetings, Walker attended 2 of them – 29%
- In 2014, PERA had 8 Board Meeting, Walker attended 6 of them – 75%
- In 2015, PERA had 11 Board Meetings, Walker attended 9 of them – 82% (getting better, but still not 90%)
- In 2016, PERA had 11 Board Meeting, Walker attended 4 of them – 36%
In total, he attended 32 out of the 60 PERA Board Meetings.
During his tenure as Treasurer, Walker has attended only 53% of the PERA Board Meetings, and even then often didn’t stay for the whole meeting.
Having busted this blatant falsehood, we looked more closely at some of his other statements. He also claims 100% attendance from his office (he or his deputy) over his tenure. This also isn’t true. In 2015, the office was not represented at one meeting; same story in 2016. That doesn’t count the meetings when his deputy swore at the other Board members and left early – click here for more on that.
Walker also claimed he has one of the highest attendance records among Board members. We looked back at 2016 and here are the results. Spoiler alert: Walker Stapleton has the worst attendance record.
| 2016 | ||||
| Total # of Meetings | Attended | % Attended | ||
| School Division Representatives | ||||
| Marcus Pennell | 11 | 7 | 64% | |
| Karl Fisch | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Bill Parker/ Amy Nichols* | 11 | 8 | 73% | |
| Guillermo Barriga/ Scott Noller ** | 11 | 5 | 45% | |
| Judicial Division Representative | ||||
| Will Bain/Brian Campbell* | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Retiree Representatives | ||||
| Carole Wright | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Tim O’Brien | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Local Division Representatives | ||||
| Robert Lamb*** | 10 | 7 | 70% | |
| State Division Representatives | ||||
| Maryann Motza | 11 | 10 | 91% | |
| Carolyn Jonas-Morrison | 11 | 10 | 91% | |
| David Hall/Richard Delk* | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Appointees | ||||
| Susan Murphy | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Lynn Turner | 11 | 10 | 91% | |
| Roger Johnson | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Treasurer | ||||
| Walker Stapleton | 11 | 4 | 36% | |
| Deputy Treasurer Jon Forbes | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
| Non-Voting DPS Representative | ||||
| Amy Grant | 11 | 9 | 82% | |
*Some of the seats switched mid-year so we combined the two people who held these seats.
**Scott Noller had to resign his seat due to personal reasons, thus the reduced attendance.
***Bob Lamb was appointed to fill a vacancy and wasn’t appointed until the second meeting of the year, thus his total of 10 meetings, not 11.
You can do your own research, too; here are all of the meeting minutes from PERA:
- 2014-2016 are available on PERA’s website
- 2011-2016 – we requested these from PERA and placed them here for you to review