Colorado Secure Savings Plan

The bill establishes the Colorado secure savings plan (plan) board of trustees (board) to study the feasibility of creating the Colorado secure savings plan and other appropriate approaches to increase the amount of retirement savings by Colorado's private sector workers.

The board consists of the director of the governor's office of state planning and budgeting and 8 additional trustees with certain experience who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate.

The board is required to conduct the following four analyses or assessments (analyses) within 2 years of the appointment of the board's membership, with an update to certain legislative committees after one year:

• A detailed market and financial analysis to determine the financial feasibility and effectiveness of creating a retirement savings plan in the form of an automatic enrollment payroll deduction IRA, to be known as the Colorado secure savings plan. The plan would be designed to promote greater retirement savings for private sector employees in a convenient, low-cost, and portable manner.
• A detailed market and financial analysis to determine the financial feasibility and effectiveness of a small business marketplace plan to increase the number of Colorado businesses that offer retirement savings plans for their employees. The marketplace plan would be voluntary for both employers and employees, open to all employees and employers with fewer than one hundred employees, and administered by the state department of labor and employment. The bill specifies certain duties of the state department of labor in connection with the marketplace plan if it is implemented.
• An analysis of the effects that greater financial education among Colorado residents would have on increasing their retirement savings; and
• An analysis of the effects that not increasing Coloradans' retirement savings would have on current and future state and local government expenditures.

The board may accept any gifts, grants, and donations, or any money from public or private entities to pay for the costs of the analyses. The board may delay implementation of one or more of the analyses if it does not obtain adequate money to conduct the analyses.

If after conducting the analyses the board finds that there are approaches to increasing retirement savings for private-sector employees in a convenient, low-cost, and portable manner that are financially feasible and self-sustaining, the board is required to recommend a plan to implement its findings to the governor and the general assembly.

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)