A First Step at Fixing KRS

I have been posting for a while now about the lack of legislative oversight regarding the Kentucky Retirement Systems.

Jim Wayne, in my opinion one of the bright lights of the legislature, has taken the first step in fixing the problem. His proposed legislation would provide a means of ending the on going self appointing nature of the board.

HB 535 (BR 1769) - J. Wayne
AN ACT relating to retirement. Amend KRS 61.645 to require the Kentucky Retirement Systems Board of Trustees to nominate all constitutionally eligible members of KERS, CERS, or SPRS who request to be nominated for placement on the trustee election ballot of their respective retirement system.

It looks like Wayne took part of one of Jonathan Miller’s ideas on how to clean up the KRS. Now if someone will just amend the bill to include the others, we will have a good start on cleaning up the system.

Reforms for the public pension systems will include:

• Posting the names of the chairs of all systems committees on the Web
• Posting times of all full board meetings on the Web at least one month prior to the meetings
• Posting times of all committee meetings on the Web sites at least one month prior to the meetings
• Posting on the Web all minutes of the full boards, as well as committees, within one week of the meetings
• Including State Treasurer and Secretary of State on both the KRS and KTRS boards
• Including the Secretary of Finance on the boards as a voting member and as a member of investment and audit committees
• Making the Personnel Secretary a voting member of the boards and chair of the personnel committees
• Opening voting rules for employee representatives (emphasis added) and including term limits
• Banning exclusions of board members from any committees
• Full disclosure of investment commissions paid by name of firm and firm's location
• Full disclosure of all legal fees including proceeds from class action suits and attorney of record on class action suits