If the Kentucky state government wants to operate a secret, non-transparent public pension system, then by all means, it should. The catch is that the state absolutely should not use taxpayer dollars to do it. Currently, the state’s pension system is as transparent as a brick wall. In fact, state law goes as far as…
Is the federal agency ignoring ground water contamination from fracking in Texas? New articles are widely circulating about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) strange handling of natural gas contamination of drinking water supplies in a suburb West of Fort Worth, Texas. According to Texan Steve Lipsky, his well water started bubbling like champagne after a…
An interesting article about the increasing racial diversity of the US population ran in today’s USA Weekend. The article includes some color-coded maps that show the racial mix in most states and counties has become quite diverse over the past three decades. Most notably, if you look at the large 2010 map, you will see…
It’s happening right now in some Kentucky schools and elsewhere around the country, too. In a few cases, kids throughout an entire school district are getting free or reduced cost lunches even though they wouldn’t qualify under the standard rules. I found out about this because new data the Prichard Committee Blog says they got…
By Jim Waters American revolutionary James Otis gets credit for saying: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Whoever said it, those words ring just as true here today in Kentucky as they did in 18th century colonial Massachusetts. Thankfully, State Auditor Adam Edelen also is demonstrating his belief in this founding principle with his initiative to…
If you are looking for a quick introduction to Kentucky’s public pension mess, look no further than this video created by cn|2’s Pure Politics. In just a few short minutes, Ryan Alessi lays out an accurate picture of what exactly is going on. I specifically appreciate his mentioning of the fact that the real victims of…
Feel free to download and use this picture for your social media accounts. This is a small way you can help bring awareness to the complete lack of transparency in Kentucky’s public pension system.
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader last week. More Kentuckians would be outraged if they knew that the state’s public pension system was legislated into secrecy in the early 1970s. Included in KRS 61.661 is language that ensures public pension disbursements are not subject to open records laws. The law…
I wrote yesterday about the ironic situation of Kentucky getting rated at #10 among the states for its education program by Education Week while in the very same week Kentucky got rated #35 by Michelle Rhee’s Students First group. I’ve now had time to look a little deeper into the EdWeek rankings. Something doesn’t work…