PERA is broken and there seems no will to fix it. Examples of more complete reporting on environmental issues. The yearly return of calls for creating Colorado's own full time political class!
If you're not in PERA** I get it: it's easy to move on and not pay attention.
I would urge you to resist that temptation for a couple reasons: the drag that a failing state employee retirement would place on our state's economy is substantial and, if PERA gets in trouble, guess who gets to bail it out?
For example, let me share the following from a Republican State Senator:
Taxpayers worried about their own retirement are already chipping in $225 million annually. Something never done before in CO history before SB-200, which was an effort to save PERA from bankruptcy due to over-promises and 50 year old retirement ages.PERA (see the op ed linked first below) is shaky at best right now and this story is not being covered. Let me share a quote to help illustrate.
"Colorado’s Public Employees Retirement Association, or PERA, doesn’t have enough money to keep its promises. Lower investment returns and longer lifespans have shocked a system already made fragile by decades of poor decision-making fed by wishful thinking. Currently, PERA is 58 percent funded — down from over 100 percent funding in 2000. PERA’s own actuarial projections have it declining to less than 20 percent funding before recovering. Under current plans, it would take nearly 60 years for the fund that supports state employees to reach full funding, nearly 80 years for the one that supports school teachers and employees."
As I said, imagine the drag this kind of lack of funding will place on our economy.
Imagine the difficulty this will put retired public employees in.
Now, do you think that the employees and/or their representatives will sit quietly by and not try to fix the problem ... at your expense?
Mr. Sharf goes on in the op ed to recommend that PERA allow current retirees to switch to a model of retirement that more closely resembles that of a 401(k) and to make participation in PERA look that way for everyone who joins now going forward.
Sound idea. I agree (see again the footnote below with the **).
In the meantime, I'd like to point out what is NOT being done about the problem. Take a look at the second piece by Mr. Sharf (this one is from Complete Colorado and linked second below).
At the Monday July 17th meeting of the the legislative oversight subcommittee for PERA, there didn't seem to be much will to look into financial details about how solid the retirement funding is (keep in mind that we're only getting Mr. Sharf's take on it here, so take what you read with a grain of salt) or who is captaining the ship.
If this is a concern for you, I think the best step is to contact your state rep or senator and ask them to push for some sort of PERA reform in the coming term.
I think the problem is solvable, but waiting will not make it any easier.
**Full disclosure here: I am, since taking my current position, a member of PERA. I therefore am not completely disinterested in posting on this. I would like to point out, however, that I elected to do PERA's DC (defined contribution) plan and thus my PERA functions more like an IRA. I thus am a little removed from, and not as beholden to, the choices made to keep the DB (defined benefit) plan afloat.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/13/no-more-band-aids-peras-problems-demand-substantive-reform/?fbclid=IwAR1O0lGYKT9Qdr-5QTFO9NWJtNwUvGwBwlxxudX164HAAP4BDAUPCeJZ908
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/08/28/sharf-checking-in-on-colorados-pera-oversight-subcommittee/
Related
I was talking with my state senator (Sen Pelton) after writing this and he was kind enough to share the below.
Not sure what to make of this.
It's most assuredly NOT a fix to PERA. It is, however, taking your money and giving it to retirees.
I'm not against helping retirees who must be suffering with the high inflation we have, but surely we could do this a different way?
Also, could we for God's sake address the structural problems within PERA itself? This is a gimme that takes money from others and does nothing to shore up or prevent future problems.
Towards more honest reporting on environmental issues--examples of when things go right.
I have written extensively about the importance of truth in reporting about environmental issues and I wanted to touch on that again, this time approaching it from a positive angle.
That is, to show you some examples I've been gathering about what fair reporting would look like. I have a couple examples below to share, one is a "direct" example showing reporting I think noteworthy and the other is "indirect" showing an example of journalists who care enough to look into things deeply.
The Sun article below details how a brewery in Colorado is switching over to an industrial heat pump to help power its operations. I'll leave it to you to read up on the details if you like, but I excerpted the relevant bit as a screenshot and attached. Give it a read.
If you've read enough of what I write and/or enough of the "gee golly ain't technology great and won't it save us from all kinds of problems" articles you'll note that missing from these articles is a discussion of the limitations and tradeoffs associated with a switch.
While the Sun article that the quote comes from is not perfect and pretty far from balanced, I want to point you to the fact that the author at least makes some effort in this direction, noting both that the electric heat source requires rewiring, places more strain on the grid, and, when it is cold, will lose its efficiency.
This is a step in the right direction and I hope to see it continue. I hope too, that news consumers continue to insist on these things being included in their media (and insist on hearing it from their politicians); I know I will at least.
The second link below was shared by a reader and it is, as I say above, an "indirect" example of good reporting. The main substance of the article is about a line in a recent government report about how fuel standards pushed by law and bureaucrats both have over the years resulted in an overall negative benefit to American consumers.
Besides noting that such a thing is possible (important in its own right), the point for me was this: the bit that the article references is buried deep within a giant government report. I want to commend the reporters for taking the time to look and for taking the time to thoroughly vet what our government tells them.
I think that's something that we as media consumers do not get enough of. For a variety of reasons (and not all of them biased in the political sense) we that consume media often get the cheap, the easy, the readily-available.
The low hanging fruit that reporters can pluck and share before moving to the next thing.
Finding the things that show what goes beyond or outside the typical narrative takes time and it takes effort. We should recognize and encourage when we get reporting that shows that effort. This is, again, something we want more of.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/09/11/new-belgium-greenhouse-gases-atmoszero-heat-pump/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/transportation-department-fuel-standards-car-ev-electric-vehicle-auto-industry-climate-change-388d6dd0?st=lwns89te86rup9h&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Returning yearly, but unlike plants, not in Spring.
It's time for our yearly effort to make Colorado's legislature full time with full-time paid, professional legislators (and probably staff too--maybe we could unionize them!)
The CoPo article below from lefty reporters Hannah Metzger and Marianne Goodland is emblematic of what I'm seeing and hearing on social media from more legislators and advocates than I can count (see attached screencap for some examples).
Yep, it's that time of year again: the perennial sermon that precedes the push to try and get Colorado's Assembly to be year-round, with full-time professional legislators.
Bad idea in my view. I would hope to convince you of the same, regardless of your politics.
Pick any legislator from any party that inhabits D.C. Watch what happens to them when they first arrive vs. when they leave.
That, and all the swampiness that comes with people whose full time job is policy, would be the result of a professional legislative class.
That, and all the lack of visceral understanding of what day to day life is like for ordinary folks, would be the result of a full time Assembly with legislators who are able to earn their daily bread by being politicians.**
This is the case for Republicans. This is the case for Democrats. This is the case for Independents.
It is a consequence of someone's job being politician more than it is a case of party.
I will keep my eyes open for bills and update if I hear of any. If you know of something or hear of something, please share.
**Just a quick reminder: when they cost more to maintain, guess who ponies up the dough for that? You and I.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/legislature/splitting-myself-in-half-colorados-citizen-legislature-clashes-with-financial-realities-cover-story/article_dd16e3c8-40ed-11ee-a398-4b7c07001d31.html?sitename=copo