It's funny to see the media cover today's ruling by the KY supreme court that struck down a law that reduced future pension benefits for teachers in that state. The court had no problem with the content of the law, but it threw it out because it was added to another bill as an amendment rather than being separately proposed and read three times in the legislature as called for by the prescribed process in KY. One has to wonder if that means that every measure added by amendment to any bill is now unconstitutional.
In any event, the ruling by the court is a silly one that elevates form over substance. The passage of the bill was not close, and it would have passed whether or not it had been read an additional three times before the legislature. Throwing it out was just a way to hand a victory to the teachers' unions who bitterly opposed the measure. Most likely, the legislature will not reintroduce the law and read it the requisite number of times and then pass it again.
The law did not affect the pensions that the teachers already have. A teacher who has worked in the system for 30 years has his or her pension for that time and nothing changes that. What the law changes is that it changes the nature of future pension benefits for teachers so that they would be less costly for the state's taxpayers. The costs of the old KY system were so high that it was starting to affect the state's credit ratings. The court's nonsensical decision just brings back the problem on a technicality. Sadly, it is a technicality that will cost the people of KY a minimum of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In any event, the ruling by the court is a silly one that elevates form over substance. The passage of the bill was not close, and it would have passed whether or not it had been read an additional three times before the legislature. Throwing it out was just a way to hand a victory to the teachers' unions who bitterly opposed the measure. Most likely, the legislature will not reintroduce the law and read it the requisite number of times and then pass it again.
The law did not affect the pensions that the teachers already have. A teacher who has worked in the system for 30 years has his or her pension for that time and nothing changes that. What the law changes is that it changes the nature of future pension benefits for teachers so that they would be less costly for the state's taxpayers. The costs of the old KY system were so high that it was starting to affect the state's credit ratings. The court's nonsensical decision just brings back the problem on a technicality. Sadly, it is a technicality that will cost the people of KY a minimum of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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