Date: 10-07-2015
While there’s plenty of theater surrounding the state’s gubernatorial race — both fact and fiction — the Kentucky Retirement System’s unfunded liabilities aren’t a fictitious problem and the Kentucky Government Retirees advocacy group has asked the current governor to shine a spotlight on the system’s processes and include them in the search for a new director.
In a letter addressed to Gov. Steve Beshear and a call to action to the KRS chairman Thomas Elliott, the Kentucky Government Retirees have asked they have not only have a place at the table during the search for a new director, but also at the KRS board meetings.
The next governor will have to find a fiscal solution to funding one of the worst-funded pension systems in the nation with a $9 billion shortfall and assets that could only cover 21 percent of its liabilities in the KRS non-hazardous pension fund in the years ahead.
According to a recent audit the fund could reach insolvency in the next 20 years. In the last fiscal year, the fund paid out $930 million in benefits to its members.
On Saturday, co-founder Jim Carroll sent the letter on the group’s behalf requesting Beshear review the “repressive stakeholder engagement policies” of KRS saying stakeholders have not been involved in the search for a new director, those meetings have taken place at a law firm in Louisville.
Frankfort meeting
The group’s call to action, sent to Elliott last Wednesday, includes a request that consultant EFL Associates and the search committee have a public meeting in Frankfort where retirees can voice their concerns.
According to Carroll, members contacted Elliott and haven’t received a response. Similarly, a member of the group requested to speak at the board’s meeting in April but was denied as part of its “sit down and shut up” policy.
“I don’t know of any (state) agency that doesn’t allow the public the opportunity to speak at its meetings,” Carroll said. “It’s absurd. It’s typical that other state pension plans have a public comment period including the largest plan in the nation — California.
“You wouldn’t expect otherwise. Why would KRS be the exception? What justification do they have making themselves an exception on this issue?”
Retirees participated in an online survey in regards to the search for a new executive director, but it lacked one key point, Carroll said.
“The one issue we felt was important was not dealt with on survey,” Carroll said. “No where on the survey did it say that the next executive director should be an advocate for the fund. We felt that was a core characteristic that we would like to see.”
Current KRS Executive Director Bill Thielen said the board is aware of the requests (allow public comment at meetings and request for a public meeting) in the letter and will determine in due course how to deal with it.
By Brad Bowman
The State Journal
