Legislators, candidates invited to sign pension-transparency pledge

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For Immediate Release: Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016  

Contact: Jim Waters @ 270.320.4376  

(LEXINGTON, Ky.)  — The Bluegrass Institute recently mailed a copy of its newly created Legislative Pension Transparency Pledge to all incumbent lawmakers as well as to legislators and candidates campaigning for seats in the Kentucky General Assembly during this year’s election.

The 67-word pledge vows support for “making the commonwealth’s legislative pension system fully transparent, including requiring the disclosure of the name, status and projected actual retirement benefits and benefit payments from the Legislators’ Retirement Plan, Judicial Retirement Plan, Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System and Kentucky Retirement Systems of all current and former members of the General Assembly.” A copy of the pledge for signing may be printed out here.

The pledge should be signed and sent to the Bluegrass Institute at P.O. Box 11706, Lexington, KY 40577-1706. The Institute’s address is clearly indicated in the middle of the pledge.

“Lawmakers and candidates who sign this pledge will be committing themselves to support the Bluegrass Institute’s policy of transparency for the legislative pension system, which will reveal not only how much but how many taxpayer-funded retirement checks legislators are – or will be – receiving,” Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters said. “Pledge signers will be stating an unwavering commitment to making legislators’ retirement benefits transparent whenever a vote is taken or support of the policy is needed in any other way.”

Copies of the pledge were sent to addresses listed by candidates with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office when filing for this year’s election and to those included on the bio pages of lawmakers not appearing on the Nov. 8 ballot. Retiring lawmakers or those who lost their primary bids also are being asked to sign the pledge since most of them will soon be benefiting from taxpayer-funded retirement benefits.

The Institute will reveal on October 19 who did and did not sign the pledge. This will ensure that voters know who does and does not support open government.

For more information, contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com, 859.444.5630 ext. 102 (office) or270.320.4376 (cell).