PERA Bonus Payouts Draw New Scrutiny From Colorado Lawmakers

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun

Democratic lawmaker says he plans to introduce legislation next year to limit the bonuses that the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association pays to its investment staff.

The proposal comes in response to The Colorado Sun’s investigation last week that found PERA has paid its investment staff millions of dollars in performance bonuses in recent years — including $10.2 million in payouts following the stock market’s disastrous 2022. That year, the pension lost $9.8 billion on its portfolio, but PERA still beat many of the benchmarks used to measure its investment team’s performance.

When bonuses went out the following year, nine investment officials received more than $400,000 each in annual incentive payments that are supposed to reward good performance, The Sun found.

PERA officials have defended their compensation practices, saying they need to offer the incentives to compete with private sector firms for talent.

In interviews last week, state lawmakers who oversee PERA told The Sun they aren’t opposed to incentive pay. But the timing and the size of the payouts showed they were right to be concerned when they passed Senate Bill 147 in 2025 requiring more transparency about PERA’s finances and employee compensation.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE COLORADO SUN