Report Finds Colorado PERA Outperforms Peers on Service Delivery, Cost
2025-09-18T10:52:59DENVER—A newly released report finds Colorado PERA continues to provide its members and retirees with a high level of service at low cost relative to other public pension plans.
CEM Benchmarking, which produced the report, presented its results to the PERA Board of Trustees at the Board’s September planning session.
CEM compiles data from dozens of pension systems around the world and compares them on factors such as administrative costs, customer service interactions, phone call wait times, online service availability, and others.
Colorado PERA is benchmarked against a peer group of 11 similarly sized U.S. state pension plans and consistently ranks highly compared to its peers, earning high scores for service delivery and cost per member.
“We’re proud that PERA has not only earned consistently high service scores over the years, but our score has improved over time,” said CEO/Executive Director Andrew Roth. “We believe in continuous improvement, and we’ll continue to evolve and refine the services we provide to our members and retirees into the future.”
PERA earned a service score of 87 in 2024, compared to the peer median score of 81. CEM calculated PERA’s total administrative cost per member at $63, below the peer average of $71. Overall, the CEM report finds PERA provides a higher level of service at lower cost than the average pension plan.
CEM gave PERA particularly strong scores in areas such as the accessibility of online services, including secure messaging, uploading documents, and applying for retirement; speed of processing retirements; communications to members approaching retirement; and call wait times.
About Colorado PERA
Colorado PERA provides retirement and other benefits to over 700,000 current and former teachers, State Troopers, corrections officers, snowplow drivers, and other public employees who provide valuable service to all of Colorado. PERA is a vital and stable contributor to Colorado’s economy, distributing $4.6 billion in benefits in 2024 to more than 115,000 retirees who live in Colorado.
