Last week lawmakers delivered more than 100 bills to Governor Matt Bevin's desk for his perusal – but missing from the stack was arguably the governor's most sought-after legislative white whale: pension reform. Tuesday, the governor fired back.
Bevin told WKCT in Bowling Green it’s time for “adults” to step up and pass reforms to the state’s troubled retirement system, or risk driving the state into bankrupcy.
"We've had ridiculous amounts of effort put into this," he said. "We just need men and women to step up, have the intestinal fortitude, and make hard decisions."
Numbers vary, but the state’s Republican auditor recently reported that Kentucky is more than $54 billion in debt, with the pension system accounting for more than 80 percent of the shortfall.
The legislature and governor signed off on a system overhaul in 2018, but it was struck down on procedural grounds. Although no major bills in the mold of last year's reforms have gained traction this session, House Speaker David Osborne told reporters Thursday that lawmakers' pension working group has edged closer to agreement.
"There was considerable movement toward the middle on those issues. Now it did not result in an end work product, but I think if we were to draw a chart of where we started on the polar ends of that issue going into that work group, we made significant progress," the Republican leader said.
That lack of a tangible legislative action, however, left Bevin less than impressed.
"They were going to bring new people and new ideas in, and they did and they met on a weekly basis. And they still did nothing," the governor reacted on the radio show. "They still can do something though and I'm confident that they will because they have to."
Lawmakers have just one more working day to pass legislation or override vetoes in this year’s regular session. For now, neither Bevin nor lawmakers sound eager for a replay of last December's surprise special session specifically called to handle the pension issue. That gathering adjourned without a deal less than 24 hours after it began.
"There's no chance... the taxpayers are going to pay them extra money to come in and do a job that they still have time to do," the governor added.
Osborne also appeared cool on the idea unless there's a meeting of the minds among lawmakers.
"I can't possibly imagine that there would be another special session without an agreement," he said.
Only one more official working day remains on the 2019 regular session calendar, and leaders in both chambers have worked to assure teachers and others who've protested at the Capitol that no last minute pension changes are in the works. Those statements did little to ward off demonstrations on the final day of the session before the governor's veto break.
The 2019 General Assembly gavels back in on March 28.
Copyright 2019 WUKY
