A letter by Ray Davis in today's Lexington Herald-Leader effectively sums up the need for more transparency in Kentucky's public pension system.

Davis rightly refers to the lack of transparency in the Kentucky Retirement System as "the big, dark secret emanating from Frankfort."

"In Oregon, taxpayers forced their state to reveal pensions and found that two former public school administrators were receiving pension checks in excess of $20,000 a month. That may explain why Kentucky politicians don't want you to know how fat their pensions are," Davis writes. That may also partially explain why public pension plans are threatening to overwhelm state and local budgets."

Read more in my recent Bluegrass Beacon column about what taxpayers in Oregon and Pennsylvania found out when the blinds on their pension systems were opened.