A proposal to place future members of the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association into a 401(k)-style plan won’t make the ballot this fall.
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the group backing the measure, dropped it Wednesday after the governor and the legislature reached a deal last week on changes to the state’s largest pension plan and its board of trustees.
Under the compromise, PERA members will divert 0.5 percent of their salaries each year for the next six years to shore up an $11.3 billion shortfall in the plan. The governor will get to appoint three seats on the 15-member PERA board.
“If the legislature had not come up with something, we would have definitely gone forward,” said Christine Burtt, state director for the foundation. “We put a lot of time, energy and thought in doing this.”
The threat of a ballot measure to gradually convert PERA to a defined-contribution plan put pressure on groups wanting to preserve it as a pension plan.
After weighing the political landscape and estimated $3 million cost of a campaign, backers of the ballot measure told the Colorado secretary of state that they would not go forward.
Instead of being able to argue that PERA was broken and needed a fix, any campaign would have faced the more difficult task of convincing voters that a fairly technical reform proposal didn’t go far enough, Burtt said.
The foundation will watch PERA’s performance closely over the next couple of years.
“If it is not on track, we will be revisiting this issue,” she said.
More than 370,000 public-sector workers, former workers and retirees are covered by PERA.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-820-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
