What happens when the government decides you aren’t smart enough to handle more than a simple, direct, but incomplete story?  What happens when that story is about an enterprise big enough to sink the state’s finances?

In 2018, Colorado’s legislature passed Senate Bill 200, a comprehensive reform of the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA).  The legislature acted because credit rating agencies had informed the markets that Colorado’s chronically troubled pensions had the potential to affect the state’s credit worthiness.

The stated goal was to have the pensions fully funded by 2048.  To monitor progress toward that goal, the law established a joint legislative subcommittee composed of four legislators and nine appointed citizen experts.  The panel is charged with asking critical questions of PERA and with making recommendations to the board and the legislature’s Pension Review Committee.  I serve as the Republican House Minority appointee on that committee.

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