Denver retirees and public workers are seething after fresh reporting showed Colorado’s largest public pension paying out big bonuses to its investment staff even as the fund absorbed historic losses and long-term setbacks.
Colorado’s Public Employees’ Retirement Association, better known as PERA, saw major investment losses in 2022 that weakened its funding position. Yet some in-house investment managers later collected six-figure incentive payouts. Retirees and union leaders say that disconnect is driving new demands for transparency and changes to how the money managers are paid.
An investigation by The Colorado Sun found that PERA’s investment team averaged incentive payouts of about $299,000, roughly a 124% boost to base pay. Nearly half of the 38 people who have managed investments since 2020 more than doubled their total take-home pay with incentives. The Sun’s analysis also shows nine investment officials receiving more than $400,000 in annual incentive payments, two staffers roughly tripling their pay through incentives, and longtime equities director Jim Liptak collecting around $653,000 in incentive pay in a single year. Union leaders told the paper the payouts felt “insane” while retirees continue to wrestle with benefit cuts and tight cost-of-living adjustments.
Incentive Budget Climbed Alongside Paychecks
PERA’s own budget records show a steady increase in the money earmarked for investment incentives. The line item that once totaled only a few million dollars in 2018 has grown to more than $11 million in recent spending plans, and the 2026 compensation materials list about $12.85 million for incentive pay. According to PERA, the proposed 2026 operating budget groups wages, incentives and performance pay into a single personnel category of roughly $146 million. Those combined figures help explain how very large individual payouts can fit into PERA’s overall budget.
Benchmarks, Not Raw Gains, Drive the Bonus Checks
PERA leaders counter that incentive pay is tied to beating benchmark targets and to long-term performance horizons, not to any single year of dollar returns. In interviews and public meeting remarks reported by The Colorado Sun, Chief Investment Officer Amy McGarrity said, “There’s no subjectivity. We are not compensated in the incentive arena if we don’t outperform.” Even so, the Sun’s records-based review found that managers often received large incentives in years when PERA’s overall portfolio lost money or trailed peer funds…