10/25/17 — Took Back Cheapside & Pension Framework

Robert Kahne

Published in

My Old Kentucky Podcast

5 min readJan 4, 2018

Took Back Cheapside

Back in August, the city council unanimously voted to move two Confederate statues (John Breckenridge and John Hunt Morgan) that were located in the Cheapside pavilion area of downtown Lexington. A group called Take Back Cheapside had been advocating for the removal of these statues for the last two years. The Cheapside area was known for being a slave auction block in Lexington, and thousands of slaves were sold there.
A month later, in September, the Lexington Cemetery Board voted to accept the statues.
But like we talked about on an episode back in August, there’s a state law that requires for removal petitions to go to a state military monuments commission
Last week, to much surprise, police blocked off the area where the Breckenridge statue stood and city workers lifted John Breckenridge from his spot in Cheapside and wrapped him up in tarp. Early the next morning, the John Hunt Morgan statue was removed as well.
So this came out of nowhere to all of us, but it seems like the city of Lexington had a plan.
They sought an AG opinion, wanting to determine whether the military monuments commission had jurisdiction or if this was a decision up to local authorities.
Beshear’s opinion stated that the monuments commission did not have jurisdiction because the mayor who authorized for KMHC to have jurisdiction did not have approval from the Urban Council, so that action was void. This was an application signed by Mayor Teresa Isaacs back in 2003.
When they received the opinion, they began removal almost immediately.
Right now, I don’t believe we know whether the commission will challenge the opinion. The city did mail a copy to them, and I don’t believe the commission has made any kind of statement at this point.
The statues are currently being stored at a private facility until details regarding their placement at Lexington Cemetery, where both Breckenridge and Morgan are buried, are finalized.
The city said that removal and relocation of the statues is being paid for from private funds and donations, so that’s good. It doesn’t sound like this is costing the city.
Mayor Gray believes that a lot of voices of both sides were heard, and that the right move was made, and that this was the right way to handle the issue.
“At the end of the day, we did what’s right for the real history of Cheapside.”
“We’ve shown the way, really for the country, in how to do this. We engaged to communicate a conversation. We engaged in a conversation with the community that went on for a meaningful almost two years,”
We’re really happy for all the advocates that have worked hard to make this happen, and especially DeBraun Thomas and Russell Allen, who founded Take Back Cheapside and got this movement started.

Resources

The Pension Bill Is Still Not Out But There Is A Framework

On October 18 (the day after we recorded our last podcast!) the governor and Speaker Jeff Hoover and Senate President Robert Stivers released their pension plan “Keeping the Promise”
This is NOT A BILL, it’s just a framework that lays out what they want to do in broad stretches.
There are 10 bulletpoints, some of which are clearer than others:
“Keeping the Promise” will save Kentucky’s pension systems and meet the legal and moral obligations owed to current and retired teachers and public servants
Requires full payment of ARC and creates new funding formula that mandates hundreds of millions more into every retirement plan, making them healthier and solvent sooner
For those still working: no increase to the full retirement age, and current defined benefits remain in place until the employee reaches the promised level of unreduced pension benefit
For those retired: no clawbacks or reductions to pension checks, and healthcare benefits are protected
For future non-hazardous employees and teachers: enrollment in a defined contribution retirement plan that will provide comparable retirement benefits
For current and future hazardous employees: will continue in the same system they are in now
Closes loophole to ensure payment of death benefits for the families of hazardous employees
Stops defined benefits plan for all legislators, moving them into the same defined contribution plan as other state employees under the jurisdiction of the KRS Board
No emergency clause: law will not go into effect until July 1, 2018
Structural changes should improve the Commonwealth’s rating with credit agencies, which have downgraded Kentucky’s rating, citing unfunded pension burdens
Again, there is no actual legislation, so we can’t know for sure what will actually happen, just a bunch of promises from one party.
The most eye-popping piece of the legislation is that new teachers and employees will receive 401(k) style plans, WITHOUT receiving Social Security. That means they go from having a retirement backed by the “inviable contract” of the state of Kentucky, to no federally backed pension, and some mutual funds.
Naturally, KEA, the major teachers union in Kentucky, has come out strong against this proposal. The bill changes current benefits by swapping 401(k) style Defined Contribution accounts for pensions after 27 years of service for current teachers, which JCTA (the Louisville chapter of the KEA) said would violate the “inviolable contract”. The KEA president, Stephanie Winkler, said that the plan “changes the rules in the middle of the game” and will force teachers to retire early. If this passes, it will end up in court.
Matt Bevin has been on a bit of speaking tour about the plan since its announcement. The biggest stop he’s made so far is to Greater Louisville Incorporated, where he called critics of the bill “Chicken Littles” for their pronouncements of doom if the bill is passed. He didn’t really address their concerns, but said that the state would be financially insolvent if Kentucky didn’t fix the problem.
The main political thrust of the GOP, who fully own this plan, is that they say that previous leaders (read: the Democratic House and Democratic Governor Steve Beshear) shirked their duties to the pension system by not funding the full ARC, and that the new group (read: the GOP House, GOP Senate, and GOP Governor Bevin) have to do the really hard and not fun job of fixing it. Interestingly, Senate President Stivers tried to shift the blame from the legislature to the boards of the pension systems. He said that those boards not asking for statutory changes were the real issue.
The skeleton plan doesn’t seem to actually save the state any money in the short term — it cuts benefits for new hires in the future. Gov. Beshear’s pension reforms did much the same, but didn’t cut nearly as much. And, this bill doesn’t do anything to address the funding issues facing us — while it does require us to pay the full “ARC”, this will just force us to cut deeper into other service. Tax reform is not addressed at all.

Resources

QUICK HITS

Matt Bevin’s appeal to keep Kentucky taxpayers from having to pay the attorneys of the folks who sued Kim Davis was rejected in a very harsh way.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article180758986.html
The plaque on the Jefferson Davis statue in the rotunda of the capitol is being removed. It called him a “Patriot — Hero — Stateman”. The reason it was removed was because of subjective language.
http://wfpl.org/plaque-declaring-jefferson-davis-hero-removed/

10/25/17 — Took Back Cheapside & Pension Framework

Written by Robert Kahne