Weak attempt at reform
Seesaw
While state lawmakers and defenders of the status-quo pat themselves on the back for a last-minute, “successful” legislative session, the standard of living for all Kentuckians continues to be in danger.
Once again, state lawmakers failed during a legislative session to enact meaningful public pension system reform.
Rather than take effective action against a $34 billion unfunded liability, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a Band-Aid-like reform bill that only addresses a few symptoms of the problem rather than getting to the root cause.
For years, state leaders have claimed that as long as the state made its full actuarial payments to the pension fund, the system would correct itself.
In a dream world, that’s a nice thought. In reality, the system has gotten worse.
Our legislators are elected to represent the citizens of Kentucky, and part of that responsibility is being a good steward of taxpayer funds. They have created a pension system that overpromises and has been drastically underfunded. In the end, it’s the taxpayer that’s on the hook.
State lawmakers created this problem. Is it too much to ask of them to fix it? No.
As immediately as they can, they should make the public pension system transparent, move to a defined contribution system for all state workers, reduce overall retirement benefits for all current part-time legislators – not just future ones – and remove all private, non-governmental entities from the state-run pension plan.
The time for substantive action is now.
Read about real solutions to Kentucky's pension crisis
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