Sept. 27, 2017
Hello, Mark,
Thank you for your letter about the pension crisis and for sharing your concerns.
I am grateful that you took time to let me know what you think and really appreciate your input. During these past few weeks, I’ve fielded a lot of questions and passed many ideas and concerns like yours on to House Leadership and the team of analysts who are working on strategies to halt and correct the problems we now face.
The factors that got us to this point are many. They extend backwards in time and span administrations governed by both parties.
To your point about underperforming investments — yes, that is a factor as well. However, the investments and oversight of such happened through control of those in employ of the retirement plan itself: it’s own advisors, trustees and investment analysts.
In the past three years, the legislature has aggressively addressed the lack of transparency into the systems to allow additional oversight as to their stability and performance and moved to an ARC+ practice of funding more than the Actuarially Required Contribution (ARC) to the plans.
That is movement in the right direction — but those changes alone will not be enough to insure the survival of the state’s retirement systems. The components of the legislation that would change future pension plans is being formulated now and thanks to letters like yours, I can make sure your concerns are part of the equations.
You should know that I believe we have a duty to honor the promises made to all who are currently in the pension system – those who have retired and those working at present.
My thought is that it is not fair to change the rules of the game for everyone already on the playing field. Therefore, I will diligently pursue pension strategies that do not bring hardship to those persons in the systems now.
As legislators, it is our job to see beyond the numbers within a pension report to the lives and families those numbers represent. I will honor that commitment as we formulate the necessary future strategies that will enable us to keep our promises today.
I am grateful to you for the service you have given our citizens by sharing your talents, skills and leadership in service to our Commonwealth.
Thank you again for your comments.
Best wishes,
Jill
Rep. Jill York
Kentucky General Assembly
96th House District
