Kentucky Retirement Systems board considers resolution calling on lawmakers to protect benefits
Retirees counting on the Kentucky Retirement Systems Board of Trustees to take a stand on whether promised pension benefits should be honored as “inviolable contracts” will have to keep waiting.
At its regular meeting Thursday, the board chose to defer to legal counsel a resolution proposed by Jerry Powell, the trustee representing the County Employees Retirement System, that would have seen the board formally “urge Governor Matt Bevin and the Kentucky General Assembly to, first and foremost, honor and fulfill the retirement benefits promised as part of the inviolable contracts to all public employees in all retirement systems in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.” The proposed resolution also urged them to fund pensions for retired state employees and state police at levels determined to be required by actuaries.
Attorney Mark Blackwell called the resolution “well-intended” but beyond the scope of the trustees’ responsibility as written. KRS lawyers plan to redraft the proposed resolution for the board’s next meeting in November.
“We either have contract rights or we don’t, and this board either has a duty to enforce those rights or it doesn’t,” Kentucky Government Retirees President Jim Carroll told reporters after the board went into closed session to discuss pending litigation. During a public comment period at the start of the meeting, Carroll had called on the board to adopt a resolution to protect promised benefits.
Read more: http://www.state-journal.com/2017/09/14/kentucky-retirement-systems-board-considers-resolution-calling-on-lawmakers-to-protect-benefits/