A digest of timely information and insight about finance, investing, and retirement.

Colorado PERA Board of Trustees Names Interim Executive Director | Colorado PERAThe Board of Trustees of Colorado PERA named Ron Baker as Interim Executive Director effective December 15, 2017. Mr. Baker joined PERA in 1994 and was appointed to his current position as Chief Administrative Officer in 2013. “I want to thank the Board for their confidence in me–it’s truly humbling to assume this role at this difficult time,” Mr. Baker said. “We will continue to work guided by the example set by Greg in serving the 560,000 current and former Colorado public employees who rely on PERA,” he concluded.

Lack of Financial Literacy Remains Historic American Challenge |PLANSPONSORA new analysis published by Martha Brown Menard, who conducts financial-services user experience research for Questis, dissects both successful and unsuccessful financial education programs, with an aim at discovering what approaches work best in what circumstances. Setting the stage for her recommendations, Menard suggests financial stress among U.S. employees is reaching “epidemic proportions.” She cites survey data to the effect that 75 percent or more live paycheck to paycheck, personal savings rates are at their lowest since 2007, and non-mortgage debt levels are higher now than during the Great Recession.

5 ways the tax bill will affect your retirement |MarketWatchThe $1.2 trillion tax overhaul that passed on Wednesday will affect your retirement in a number of ways. The tax plan no longer includes lowering contribution limits on retirement accounts or nixing traditional individual retirement accounts in lieu of Roth individual retirement accounts (which would have shifted when retirement savers pay taxes on their savings), but it does address individual retirement accounts and increases the standard deduction (by almost double), which could affect the way people itemize their charitable donations. These changes would be for next year’s taxes, to be filed in 2019 — 2017 tax returns are due on April 17.

Asked About Retiring, They Have a Simple Answer: Why? |The New York Times
On most mornings, Jack B. Weinstein rises at 5:30 to exercise. At 7:00, a car takes him from his home in Great Neck to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, where he is a senior Federal District Court judge for the Eastern District of New York. Once at the courthouse, Judge Weinstein has coffee and gossips with colleagues. By 9:00, he’s at work hearing motions, reviewing filings and  sentencing defendants. In the afternoon, he tries cases. None of that is so unusual. But Judge Weinstein is 96 — decades past the age when most Americans choose to stop working. “Retire? I’ve never thought of retiring,” he declares. Judge Weinstein was first appointed to the bench more than 50 years ago and is still in the thick of hot-button issues in the courts. “I’m a better judge, in some respects, than when I was younger. I don’t remember names. But I listen more. And I’m more compassionate. I see things from more angles. If you are doing interesting work, you want to continue.”

Four ways to change 401(k) plans for the better |MarketWatchOver the past few months, 401(k) plans have been in the news a lot. At one point, Republicans floated the idea of drastically lowering the maximum that employees could contribute. And this week, President Trump asked once again how everyone’s 401(k) plans are doing as a result of the rising stock market. But what these plans need even more than a bull market is a way to get more people to participate in them, some experts suggest. Yes — 401(k) account balances and stock market performance are tied to one another, but not everyone has access to these defined contribution plans, and few who do invest in them.

Lawsuit claims Houston misled voters on $1B pension bonds | Houston Chronicle
Mayor Sylvester Turner misled voters into approving a $1 billion pension bond referendum last month, a new lawsuit alleges, claiming that city officials plan to use the bonds’ passage to sidestep a voter-approved limit on the property tax revenue Houston can collect. Turner’s office flatly denied that reading of the Proposition A ballot language, calling the wording “boilerplate” and saying the city has not and will not sidestep the revenue cap as a result of the vote on the mayor’s landmark pension reform package or any of the prior bond issuances that included the same phrasing. A local businessman and former Houston housing department director, James Noteware, sued the city Friday in state district court, contesting the Nov. 7 election on the grounds that the ballot language was “materially misleading.”