Senate committee clears series of COLAs for retired teachers, public employees, police and judges
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Summary
The Senate appropriations committee advanced multiple cost-of-living adjustments affecting retired teachers, public employees, police, judges and firefighters, adopting tiered COLAs and minor funded-ratio impacts after questioning about actuarial assumptions and costs.
Pro Tem Paxton explained a package of cost-of-living adjustments for multiple retirement systems that the committee cleared, saying it was designed to target long-serving retirees and address gaps from past pay raises. "For teachers to be 0 to 8 years is 0 percent. 8 years to 20 years is 3%. And 20 years plus is 6%," Pro Tem Paxton said in his explanation of Senate Bill 11-44.
The committee recorded votes on several bills across the hearing. Members pressed the sponsor on the actuarial bases, effective dates and the long-term impact on funded ratios. Paxton said actuarial estimates — not single-year market swings — drive the threshold for ending some state-dedicated apportionments and described the apportionment change as administrative reform, not an immediate funding cut.
Several senators asked for supporting actuarial documents to be made available. Minority Leader Kurt raised procedural concerns about when actuarial or OPLAA mandates are applied: "we use our actuarial or OPLAA mandate when we choose to and then we don't when we don't want to," he said, urging consistent review processes going forward.
On fiscal effects, the sponsor identified the largest single cost in the teacher package as an estimated $353 million one‑time increase to the corpus and a roughly 1% decrease in the funded ratio; the police, judges and other systems had smaller dollar impacts reported in committee. Despite those costs, the committee cleared the bills by roll call (for example, SB 11-44 cleared 23–1; other COLA bills cleared by similar tallies reported in committee minutes).
What happens next: The cleared measures will move from the appropriations committee to the full Senate for floor action and any required final adjustments. Members asked staff to post actuarial backups online and requested additional follow-up materials on implementation details such as effective dates and whether the legislature could continue funding apportionments beyond the statutory end points.
