May 04, 2018 11:25 AM UTC

Where's Walker? Stapleton Absent from Big PERA Meeting

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• by: Colorado Pols

Reforming PERA (the Public Employees’ Retirement Association) has always been a top issue for State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, who is also the current frontrunner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Stapleton is a member of the PERA Board of Trustees, and despite his professed interest in PERA reform, his overall involvement in reform — as well as his attendance at board meetings — has been consistently spotty over the last eight years.

On Thursday, the PERA Board held a special meeting to discuss a critical piece of legislation that is being worked out in a legislative conference committee. Guess who didn’t show up?

At the PERA meeting in which the board is reviewing landmark legislation that could cut benefits to thousands of teachers, firefighters, cops and other Colorado workers. Treasurer Walker Stapleton, who is running for governor, is nowhere to be found. pic.twitter.com/LBpTGjlPw9

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) May 3, 2018

Stapleton has never been particularly good about showing up for work since he was elected Treasurer in 2010. His attendance record at PERA Board meetings is particularly abysmal, and despite his regular rants on PERA reform, Stapleton doesn’t really dispute his lack of involvement in the actual details on the issue. On Thursday, Stapleton didn’t even bother sending a representative from his office to the PERA meeting (although this might actually make some sense, given that he had to fire Deputy Treasurer Jon Forbes last summer after Forbes loudly told the rest of the PERA Board to “go f*** themselves”).

Stapleton’s opponents in the Republican Primary for Governor have taken notice of his vapid rantings. Check out what Doug Robinson (Mitt Romney’s Nephew) said on “The Get More Smarter Show” two weeks ago:

I’m tired of the talk. I’m tired of people saying they’ve been a voice on this issue or that issue. Yet, you’ve been on the board for seven years and it’s not done. The problem is bigger today that it was before…

I’m upset about this. In remember in 2010, PERA was in a big crisis and they said they made changes and they fixed it. And now it’s almost double the liability that it was at that time, and the stock market has more than doubled during that time.

So where was Stapleton last night instead of attending a special PERA meeting? We’ll update this story as we learn more about Stapleton’s absence. Hopefully it wasn’t just because of a rainy night in Denver.