A recent editorial by the Lexington Herald-Leader hits on something that the Bluegrass Institute has been championing for years now: public pension transparency.

Most of the piece focuses on funding the pension system's substantial shortfall but at the end this point is made:

Both systems lack transparency. Even though every taxpayer in Kentucky will contribute to paying those benefits, and public employee salaries are public information, we can only guess at retirement benefits based on what we know about years of service and other factors.

It's past time for real, lasting reform that addresses future benefits, is up-front about where the money to meet current obligations will come from, reins in the legislative system, and opens all public pensions to public scrutiny.

I commend the paper for its efforts in bringing this lack of transparency to Kentuckians' attention.

Read more about Kentucky's public pension crisis here.