(Louisville Business First) - Kentucky's much-debated pension-reform law is heading to appeal — maybe to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
The law was ruled unconstitutional in June by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd. Today, the administration of Gov. Matt Bevin filed an appeal of that ruling, along with a motion to bypass the intermediate Court of Appeals and go straight to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Pension reform has been a key priority for Bevin and many legislators in recent years. Bevin's office estimates that the state has an unfunded pension liability of about $60 billion. But attempts to address the liability — with changes to cost-of-living adjustments, caps on sick leave to calculate retirement benefits, and proposed hybrid cash-balance retirement plans — have been met with protests by teachers and other state workers.
What matters in this case is how the law passed and where it stands now.
This pension reform was not passed in a traditional piece of legislation. Instead, the changes came in the form of an eleventh-hour amendment to what initially was sewer services bill, called SB 151. The 11 pages about wastewater that initially were in that bill were replaced with 291 pages of legislation that made dozens of changes to statutes related to retirement plans.
