Gov. Matt Bevin and legislative leaders will unveil their plan to overhaul Kentucky’s public pension system on Wednesday morning.
The governor, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and House Speaker Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, are holding a press conference in the State Capitol, at 9 a.m., ET.
He spoke to reporters following a ceremonial bill signing on charter schools Tuesday.
“While the bill is 400-something pages, the operative language is very simple and very straightforward. It’s going to be easy to understand,” he said.
Bevin said the operative language is only a handful of pages. “There’s a lot of connecting this document and this legislation to that one, and this statute to that one.”
His plans are to make it public well before he calls a special session of the General Assembly and give lawmakers plenty of time to look it over before they are called to Frankfort.
“It’s going to have ample opportunity for people to read it, people to understand it and people to ask questions.”
When asked by reporters if he was going to travel the state to promote the plan before the session begins, Bevin said, “I’ve been doing that the last two and a half years. The case has been made, that the system is failing. If we don’t fix it, it’s going to go bankrupt. We’re going to fix it.”
While the governor wouldn’t go into details, he called it a good plan.
“It’s one that allows people to get what it is that they were promised. Those that are retired, those that are working toward retirement, but also preserves the system for them and those not in it.”
Legalizing marijuana, as advocated by Sen. Dan Seum, R-Louisville, will not be part of financing the plan.
“The odds of that happening? Not high, pun intended,” said the governor. “The proposal that this would generate $100 million a year? We have a $60 billion problem at least, probably bigger. That’s 600 years of smoking pot to fix the pension crisis. I don’t think that’s the solution for Kentucky. We’re going to fix it with constructive changes, and not with delusional ideas like that.”
Bevin would also not disclose a date when the plan will be unveiled and the special session called, other than to say, “I think there will be an announcement very soon.”
By Kentucky Today
