The Agenda Doesn't Merit the Cost - Even for Two

After a morning of web research and some mild social engineering, the Hyatt staff is much more helpful than the Kentucky Retirement Systems staff, it looks like only Trustees Randy Overstreet and W. Lewis Reynolds are soaking up the sun in Florida.

If I could have just got a straight answer from the Retirement Systems, it would have saved a great deal of time and a number of phone calls to Florida, but it was still quicker than filing an open records request.

So I guess I owe an apology to those members of the KRS board members and staff who were unable to make the trip this year. I’m sure they will have other opportunities for travel in the future.

I’ll be spending the next few days drafting an open records request for some information like who has attended these things for the last 10 years. There is an art to doing such a request, you need to be careful to just ask for what you want, you have to be careful or you get flooded with a mountain of worthless redacted paper.

Anyway, I hope Overstreet and Reynolds are having fun. Who couldn’t use a little spa time.




Oh, and by the way, one board member wrote me to say they were working and not in Florida, I won't comment on the difference in working and being in Florida, but in their words they: “.....never felt the agenda merited the expense of me traveling to Florida.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Stonewalling at KRS, what are they hiding?

I just got a call from Jennifer Jones, a member the Kentucky Retirement Systems Legal Staff, regarding my request for a list of who was attending the conference in Florida.

Ms. Jones did the standard Open Records request shuffle, “Send it to us in writing” and we’ll get back to you.

Here is their policy on confidentiality from their web site:

Section 3: Standards of Conduct Regarding Confidentiality

1. Individuals associated with KRS may be granted access to confidential information in the course of an employment, Board or contractual relationship with KRS.

2. This information may include, but is not limited to, individual member information, including but not limited to, Social Security numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, beneficiaries, health insurance information, Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), as well as documents, records, programs, files, scientific or technical information, or other information made available to individuals for purposes of completing their obligations to KRS.

I told Ms. Jones that I was somewhat mystified why the list of names of Trustees attending a conference needed an open records request. The answer was basically we have to have a written open records request of everything.

I told Ms. Jones I was blogging about KRS and the conference, she said, “I’ll tell Mike.” I assume that is Executive Director Mike Burnside. But she didn’t say whether she would have to walk down the hall to tell him or call him in Florida.

Oh, and in reading the policy I guess this does fall under the “but not limited to” category:

KRS Trustees in Florida

Here is an update on the Kentucky Retirement Systems Trustees that are partying in Florida.

This morning I called the KRS, I identified myself as Ralph Long a retired state employee, and asked a simple question:

“Can you tell me which Trustees and Staff members are attending the Klausner and Kaufman conference in Florida today?”

A very nice lady named Tracey Mulder, a member of the Executive Support Staff, took my question, told me that she thought just the Trustees went to the conference. I pressed her for the names of who was at the conference; she put me on hold and came back a couple of minutes later. Tracey said I would need to file an open records request for that information.

I asked if I could speak to the person that told her that I would have to file an open records request. Tracey replied that they were in a meeting and she would take my number and call me back.

Through the conversation Tracey seemed a bit uncomfortable with being asked where the Trustee’s were at and what they were doing.

This is an example of transparency in State Government, when a taxpayer, retired state employee, member of the Kentucky Retirement Systems can’t get a straight answer about what the people that control the investments of the system are doing.

Of course maybe places like the Taverna Opa need to be kept confidential: