FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) – Gov. Matt Bevin’s legal team filed their official response to Attorney General Andy Beshear’s political lawsuit against Senate Bill 151, Kentucky’s recently enacted pension reform law.
In a statement, Governor Bevin called SB 151 "the Commonwealth’s most meaningful attempt to protect the pensions of Kentucky’s public workers and teachers." They called Attorney General Beshear "opportunistic" for filing the suit in the days after it was passed.
“The ultimate question for this Court is whether it wants to move the Commonwealth backward in the direction of fiscal irresponsibility and insolvent pension systems,” noted the Bevin Administration brief, “or whether it wants to join the recent [national] trend of marching toward prosperity and solvent pension systems….”
Gov. Bevin’s legal team implored the Court not to “turn its back” on Kentucky public employees and retirees, saying that a ruling against SB 151 “will only hasten the decline of the pension systems.”
SB 151 was originally a sewer bill, and Beshear has filed suit to stop the bill on the grounds that actuarial analysis was not provided before the bill was quickly passed.
Oral argument in this case before the Franklin County Circuit Court is set for June 7.
