Kentucky Bill

Sometimes it’s a good thing that three of Kentucky’s constitutional offices (Secretary of State, Treasurer, Commissioner of Agriculture) don’t have a lot of power and don’t really do anything. This lets the office holder plan to run for a real office, or write a book, or eat a lot of rubber chicken at political events.

Hopefully they spend the time learning about the issues and how things work and some of them need a lot of work.

Here is an example pointed out by Jake at PageOneKentucky.

(Secretary of State Candidate Bill) Johnson doesn’t realize that allowing Kentucky to make all of its educational decisions is a nightmare. Because he’s likely never met Sheldon Berman, the disgraced superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools. Or Robert Felner, the disgraced former dean of the University of Louisville’s College of Education and Human Development, who is serving 63 months in prison.

Another thing that Bill doesn’t seem to know is that Kentucky has 120 counties with 170 school districts many of which are run like feudal freeholds by powerful families. The last thing I want to see is less accountability in these little fiefdoms, in a state holding the dubious distinction of having the one of the largest percentages of residents who have failed to complete the ninth grade and ranking somewhere around thirty-fifth overall in education among the states.

Kentucky Bill should to do a little more homework on education.

Running for office should be more than wrapping yourself in the flag and spouting the party line.

Transparency at the Kentucky Retirement Systems

Speaking of Kentucky Retirement Systems, below are the contents of an email I received concerning the transparency of the agency.

I hope that the board and staff will continue to work toward its avowed goal of transparency. There are valid reasons to believe that KRS is falling short of this goal. Board minutes are posted to the Web site only after board approval. Since the Nov 18 minutes were not completed in time for today’s board meeting, in the absence of a special meeting, the earliest these minutes will be posted will be May. Six months to post minutes? Inexcusable.

Another transparency issue is the deficiencies in the Web site. In my experience in state agency Web sites, meeting notices are posted in the News section or on the agency home page. (Typically, the meeting notices, sent to the news media, are posted in the News section. That is not the case with KRS). With KRS, the notices are found only with difficulty. It is certainly not intuitive to click on Trustees at the top of the home page to find the schedule. I notice, also, that none of the board members’ e-mails, phone numbers, or biographies are listed.

I also noticed that board activities are poorly reported in the News section. The board held a special meeting to discuss and to decide against supporting SB 2. Was this not worthy of a news release to be posted on the Web site? Members have a right to know the important decisions of the board.

Tosh Version 2.0

I’ve been thinking about the Kentucky Retirement Systems discussion of relocation assistance. State agencies don’t usually pay to have someone moved. But KRS doesn’t operate under the same rules as the rest of Kentucky State Government.

The discussion would suggest that KRS has already paid to have someone relocated and that person wants more than has been given. Looking at KRS expenditures at Kentucky’s Transparency Portal there is no clearly defined payment for relocation assistance. This is not surprising for an agency that hides how much it pays its’ staff.

So let’s do a little deductive reasoning here. Who has been the biggest recent hire at KRS?

That would be Timothy "T.J." Carlson, who was hired to replaced Adam Tosh as the Chief Investment Officer.

KRS appears to be consistent in their hiring practices. This from the Herald Leader:

Last year, Carlson was named a principal at investment consultant Ennis, Knupp & Associates in Chicago. Before that, he was chief investment officer and treasury director for Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wis. He also worked for the West Virginia Investment Management Board and the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System.

In May, acting on behalf of Ennis, Knupp & Associates, Carlson defended higher management fees that were paid by the North Carolina Teachers and State Employees Retirement System to a firm, Relational Investors, that hired the state treasurer. Previously, the state treasurer had invested state funds with Relational Investors, according to Carolina Journal.

Ennis, Knupp & Associates advised the state of North Carolina this year on its investments.
After Carolina Journal questioned the fees, and critics complained about a conflict of interest given the former state treasurer's new job, Carlson wrote a memo defending Relational Investors' fee schedule as "meaningfully and justifiably above those charged by the plan's other traditional equity managers."

So let’s assume that Carlson has been given money to move from Chicago, probably thousands of dollars, for some reason I don't see a U-Haul toolin' through Indiana. Let’s also assume that Carlson is getting a nice six figure salary that would be consistent with the other management at KRS.

So what we appear to have here is someone running the KRS investments whose priority seems to be to line his own pockets first.

Good hire guys.