Pension tension in Colorado

PERA finances hit “critical juncture” as unfunded liabilities top $32 billion


Colorado’s three largest public pension funds now have about a 40 percent chance of running out of money in the coming decades, putting the Public Employees’ Retirement Association on its most precarious financial footing since the Great Recession.

According to financial projections released last week, Colorado’s public retirement funds are now only 58.1 percent funded, down from 62.1 percent last year and 64.7 percent in 2010 — the year the legislature enacted sweeping reforms to shore up the pension fund.

Because taxpayers and public employees are contributing more money into the fund, the state retirement system is actually on more solid financial ground than it was in 2010. But seven years later, it’s increasingly clear that those reforms — which trimmed benefits and boosted contributions from employees and taxpayers alike — have fallen well short of what was needed.

Friday’s financial report is the first since PERA adopted new formulas to reflect slower stock market growth and longer life expectancies.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/27/pera-funding-unfunded-liabilities/