Bluegrass Institute president and CEO Jim Waters addressed Kentucky's pension crisis during a recent State Financial Officers Foundation meeting at the Lexington Griffin Gate. Kentucky Treasurer Allison Ball is national chair of the foundation, which describes its mission: "to promote fiscally responsible public policy, partner with key stakeholders, and educate the public about the role of finance in a free market economy."Waters emphasized the contribution of arbitrary and retroactive benefit increases to Kentucky's public-pension crisis. He also shared the Bluegrass Institute's preferred paradigm of a public pension system that offers a defined-benefit plan for members, defined-contribution protection for taxpayers and a shifting of the risk for covering unfunded liabilities from taxpayers to beneficiaries. *Photos provided by State Financial Officers Foundation