Kentucky Pension Transparency Bill Shot Down

A bill in Kentucky that aimed to increase transparency surrounding the state pension system did not make it to the floor of the state House of Representatives. The bill had passed in committee and the Senate, but failed to make it past the House. Many Kentucky voters are upset about the lack of transparency.

Heartland has more on the issue:

A bill to reform Kentucky’s pensions by providing greater transparency for taxpayers was halted after it failed to make it to the floor of the state’s House of Representatives.

After being approved by the state’s Senate and a state House of Representatives committee, Senate Bill 2 did not receive consideration by the full assembly before the legislative session ended in April.

SB 2, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Bowen (R-Owensboro), would have required the state government’s public pension program to disclose fees and contracts for goods and services purchased by the pension boards. The bill would have also made appointment of trustees and executive directors subject to confirmation by lawmakers.

[…]

Bowen says the proposed reforms would have helped relieve taxpayers’ concerns about state pensions and make pension program managers more accountable to the people funding those plans.

“Unfortunately, the transparency bill did not make it through the process,” Bowen said. “People want transparency. You know, when you’ve got a $30­ billion to $40 billion pension liability, and you don’t have transparency, people are concerned. They want to know what is going on. They want to know what these investments are, what the contracts look like, what the fees are.”

Many local watchdog associations believe that Kentucky is concealing much deeper debt than what the state lists in reports. For more information, read the full article here.