BIPPS' pension testimony: It's the benefit structure that's the problem

BIPRT TESTIFIES @ MARCH PPOB MEETING

The Bluegrass Institute Pension Reform Team offered its presentation "Sound Solutions for Kentucky's Pension Crisis" at a recent meeting of the state's Public Pension Oversight Board.

Dr.  William Smith told board members that addressing Kentucky's public-retirement crisis is key to understanding and confronting the structural imbalance of the benefits system.

[audio mp3="http://www.bipps.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/BillSmithConfrontBenefits.mp3"]

[/audio] Bluegrass Institute Board member Aaron Ammerman, an investment adviser in Lexington, testified that while addressing pension benefits is a difficult topic fraught with emotion, it must be done in order to pursue true reform “with real teeth to it.”

He also told board members that while the Bluegrass Institute is not opposed to keeping a defined benefit system for state retirees, the rules for maintaining a properly funded pension system have not been followed in Kentucky like they have in other states.

Ammerman focused on a couple of the most-important rules.

[audio mp3="http://www.bipps.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AmmermanRulesBroken.mp3"]

[/audio] The Bluegrass Pension Reform Team made a presentation on Kentucky's troubled pension system at a recent meeting of Take Back Kentucky in Elizabethtown. Click here to download PowerPoint slides from that presentation.