Chief Steve Conrad shakes up Louisville police leadership, dismisses council's criticism

The state doesn't contribute state tax money to CERS Hazardous pensions for Louisville Metro.

The retirement system never collected, and employers and employees never paid, the full cost of what's needed to pay promised benefits to retirees. They underestimated the cost of paying pensions and COLAs, and overestimated how much they'd generate from investments.

Why did the retirement system not raise required contribution rates to what was necessary to fully fund the system? Because politicians were more interested in paying for their other bills with that money rather than a problem happening in the future. The Board of Trustees is made up of people put there by member employers, the Kentucky Association of Counties, Kentucky League of Cities, and the Governor. They behaved in much the same way as the people buying multiple McMansion houses they couldn't afford for resale 10 years ago.