Post by Logan on Feb 19, 2016 8:03:16 GMT -6
Frankfort -- Three large “quasi-public” agencies have asked to exit the Kentucky Retirement Systems, which is struggling with $16.6 billion in unfunded pension liabilities because of a long history of inadequate state funding.
The KRS Board of Trustees on Thursday approved withdrawal applications from Commonwealth Credit Union, based in Frankfort, and Kentucky Employers’ Mutual Insurance and the Council of State Governments, both headquartered in Lexington. The applications are the first under a new state law that allows for an orderly departure from KRS, but they might not be the last.
“This is hardly surprising. The handwriting is on the wall that this pension plan is bleeding red ink, and it is unsustainable,” said Jim Carroll, a member of an advocacy group called Kentucky Government Retirees.
Before they may leave, the agencies will have to pay KRS the expected cost of future pension and retiree insurance payments for their roughly 1,600 past and present employees. KRS officials put a “very rough estimate” of that sum at $75 million to $79 million combined for all three employers, but they said a final tab won’t be ready until fall.
Read more here: www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article61131612.html
The KRS Board of Trustees on Thursday approved withdrawal applications from Commonwealth Credit Union, based in Frankfort, and Kentucky Employers’ Mutual Insurance and the Council of State Governments, both headquartered in Lexington. The applications are the first under a new state law that allows for an orderly departure from KRS, but they might not be the last.
“This is hardly surprising. The handwriting is on the wall that this pension plan is bleeding red ink, and it is unsustainable,” said Jim Carroll, a member of an advocacy group called Kentucky Government Retirees.
Before they may leave, the agencies will have to pay KRS the expected cost of future pension and retiree insurance payments for their roughly 1,600 past and present employees. KRS officials put a “very rough estimate” of that sum at $75 million to $79 million combined for all three employers, but they said a final tab won’t be ready until fall.
Read more here: www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article61131612.html