text: Just to be clear: Employer (that means taxpayer) contributions go to 22.15% of payroll, with an automatic increase to 24.15% if PERA's optimistic investment return assumptions turn out to be wrong.
  
  This means either cuts to other education programming that benefits our kids - sports, activities, AP classes, social/emotional supports, etc. -- or higher taxes via Mill Levy Overrides, since more state funding for K12 is unlikely to be forthcoming (due to competing needs for more infrastructure spending and rapidly rising social safety net costs).
  
  This additional taxpayer money will go to teachers who, thanks to TECDA, can't be fired, no matter how poorly they perform (if they are in a union school), in a state where chronic teacher absenteeism is rampant, where we are told that more than 95% of Colorado's teachers are effective or highly effective, but where less than a third of our kids graduate college and career ready, in a system on which taxpayers already spend billions.