Kentucky's finance and administration cabinet, Frankfort, hired PFM Group to provide a performance and best practices analysis of the state's retirement plans.
PFM will analyze the plans’ overall solvency and liquidity, outstanding obligations, reasons for the plans’ current financial status, and best practices and future actions to shore up the plans, said a news release from the governor’s office on Monday.
The firm’s final report is due Dec. 31, said a spokeswoman in the finance and administration cabinet in an e-mail.
An RFP was issued in May.
PFM Group will provide the state with financial and other information relating to the current and projected financial situation on its retirement plans and advising the state on various paths forward. “Reforming the state’s ailing pension systems is one of this administration’s top priorities,” said Gov. Matt Bevin in the release. “The findings that will come from this pension fund audit will accurately identify our actual pension liabilities. It is our intention to shine the antiseptic light of transparency on the country’s worst funded pension system and financially secure the pension system for generations to come. Kentucky taxpayers, retirees and current employees deserve nothing less.”
The $18 billion Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System, $15 billion Kentucky Retirement Systems and $94 million Kentucky Judicial Form Retirement System, all based in Frankfort, face roughly $35 billion in unfunded liabilities combined.