Lexington mayor talks "unsustainable" pensions

"Thorny" and "out of control" are the words that Lexington Mayor Jim Gray used to describe the city's pension situation. Uh oh.

In a recent interview with WUKY, Gray explains how the city's annual required contribution to the pension system has increased by 400% over the past decade and describes this is as "unsustainable". He goes on to say that if this continues it will threaten the city's competitiveness. Unfortunately, he is correct. In fact, Lexington's pension woes mirror those of the state.

Gray also correctly points out that the taxpayers are footing the bill and deserve a chance to resolve this problem.

I appreciate the mayor recognizing the severity of the problem as it most certainly will not solve itself, as some seem to think it will.

I do hope that something is done quickly. It seems that Kentucky is digging deeper and deeper into debt and the longer we wait to fix the problem, the worse it will get. You can read more about Kentucky's pension crisis here.