A bill to fill a $32 billion to $50 billion hole in the Public Employees’ Retirement Association won’t have the public employers’ help, if it keeps an amendment passed in Senate Bill 200‘s first committee vote Thursday.

In a five-member committee with three Republicans, Sen. Jack Tate. R-Centennial, needed to make the change to secure enough GOP support to keep the legislation alive.

“Right now it’s best to remove that and move forward without it,” he said of the bipartisan bill.

Lawmakers are trying to shore up the state’s pension fund for state, local and school district employees, which won’t be able to meet its obligations in the decades to come without more money from somewhere. Public officials fear that another economic downtown court sink the retirement fund and wreck the state’s credit rating, which could have devastating effects of higher interest rates for state and local governments.

The bill moved on to the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 4-1 vote, with the committee’s lone Democrat, Sen, Lois Court of Denver, voting in opposition.

Court, who strongly supports a fix, said the amendment blows up the notion of “shared responsibility.”

The Senate Finance Committee heard almost four and half hours of testimony on the bill Tuesday.

Taxpayers aren’t out of the deal yet. The bill is likely to be amended several more times and become the focus of a House-and-Senate compromise before it can make it to the governor’s desk. Democrats control the House.

“The hole we’re in is a hole we’re all responsible for climbing out of,” Court said.

Senate Bill 200 also offers future employees to opt out of the state pension plan and put their retirement money in a 401(k) style investment plan. PERA supporters oppose that, saying it will only make the plan more unsustainable in the future.

Court offered an amendment to do away with that, saying it had nothing to do with the hole the bill is trying to fix.

Tate argued, successfully, that it did – fewer retirees on the pension is less of a liability the fund faces in the future.

Sen. Kevin Priola, R-Fort Morgan, said the provision fits the way workers think of saving for retirement today.

“For good or for bad, we aren’t living in our grandparents’ work environment anymore, where you work somewhere 50 years and get a gold watch to retire,” he said.

Sen. Cheri Jahn, a former Democrat who switched to unaffiliated, said she shared concerns about some provisions of the bill, but wanted to keep it alive for future amendments.

“I certainly don’t think it’s a perfect bill, but it’s important that we move it forward,” she said.