Does Colorado employee pension program need reform?

“Lawmakers pass on PERA,” April 13 Vincent Carroll column.

I am a Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA) retiree, having worked as an investigator for the Colorado Attorney General’s office for 27 years. I elected to take the spousal survivor benefit option, so I receive a bit more than 60 percent ofmy three highest years’ average salary.

I concur completely with Vincent Carroll’s column regarding the need to address PERA’s unfunded liabilities. The three-year average salary used to determine benefits has been abused frequently and should be based on average salary over an employee’s career.

The Colorado legislature as well as ourWashington officials need to act now to reign in our unfunded liabilities. Of course, one could surmise that since our legislators are covered by PERA, they may have self-serving reasons for not addressing the issue.

Vincent Carroll blames the legislature for inaction and dismisses the significant reforms made by the legislature in 2010 to PERA, but is PERA really the most important issue the legislature is facing this session? We have very serious issues in Colorado (floods, fires, Interstate 70 congestion), all of which are worthy of legislative focus. As a retiree from the ColoradoMental Health Institute at Pueblo, I’m glad my elected officials are working to make Colorado a better place to live, rather than rehashing ideological arguments that call for stripping public employees of their hard-earned retirements.

Normally I find Vincent Carroll’s opinion pieces embody my conservative values. But I find it odd that he demonizes the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, a successful system that generates billions of dollars for Colorado every year— as opposed to Social Security, a failed wealth redistribution system that drains billions dollars from Colorado’s economy each year and sends them to retirees in other states. As a PERA retiree and a conservative, I’m incredibly grateful that my dollars were well-managed here in Colorado rather than squandered by reckless politicians inWashington.