Secure PERA, a lobbying group for public employees and retirees, calls state Treasurer Walker Stapleton’s plan to reform the public pension system a disaster.

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Stapleton appraised the state of the retirement plan, the handling of which he has long criticized. The two-term Republican treasurer is running for governor.

“About 90 percent of PERA (Public Employee Retirement Association) recipients live here and spend their money here,” said Lynea Hansen, executive director of Secure PERA. “That’s $3.5 billion into the state economy, so once you talk about decreasing their benefits, you actually talk about impacting Colorado’s whole economy.”

Hanson, who helped co-author Senate Bill 1 in 2010, said Stapleton’s plan also gives retirees no cost-of-living increase for the next 20 years, no protection for any kind of inflation coming down the road.

“That is very, very, very bad for our retirees,” she said. “His plan would also require a 5 percent increase of contribution of public employees, that’s 5 percent of their paycheck each month. I can’t imagine any public employee would be supportive of that.”

She agrees the policy needs updating but said this is a time everyone needs to come together to form a solid plan that works, not a time to play politics.

In 2016, two decisions were made by the PERA board that altered how the pension fund was financed and negatively impacted its growth, she said.

“One was to lower rate of return to 7.25 percent; the second was to change life expectancy … because folks are living longer, that costs more money.”

Another problem, she says, is that in 2001, employers stopped paying into what’s called “unfunded actuarial accrued liability,” 100 percent of what was required to fully fund the plan, meaning $432 million that should have been paid into PERA in 2001 wasn’t, and that amount has continued to grow each year.

Secure PERA is working with legislators to form a plan to overhaul Senate Bill 1 and get the plan back on track, but in no way is the pension system on the verge of being broke, Hanson says.

“The treasurer is running for governor and he basically just put half a million Coloradans who are not going to be pleased with his plan,” she said.