B OONE COUNTY RECORDER
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2013
Jaguar junior guard scores 24 points in key basketball game.
BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS
Retirement reform a top priority Pensions cost Boone $5 million a year By Stephanie Salmons ssalmons@nky.com
Local leaders are taking a stand against rising pension costs, passing resolutions supporting reforms to the County Employees Retirement System. The Boone County Fiscal Court and the city of Florence recently passed resolutions, almost verbatim the resolution passed in Union earlier in February, “supporting reforms to the County Employees Retirement System (CERS) to make the plan sustainable, sound and
secure for current and future employees.” The resolutions, all of which “strongly encourages” the Kentucky General Assembly to make these reforms during the current legislative session, support recommendations made by the Task Force on Kentucky Public Pensions. Each resolution “strongly supports” the adoption of a hybrid cash balance plan, resetting the amortization period for CERS for payment of the unfunded liability to a new 30-year period, eliminating the automatic cost of living adjustment for current and future retirees and increasing representation on the Kentucky Retirement
Systems Board of Trustees “representing local government associations including the Kentucky Association of Counties” or from a list sub- Earlywine mitted by the Kentucky League of Cities (in the case of cities). The resolution approved by the Boone County Fiscal Court goes one step further and recommends considering an increase in the employee contribution for current employees “if such increase would not be deemed in conflict with the inviolable contract provisions of
By Stephanie Salmons ssalmons@nky.com
Eastwood shares travel experiences at international tea By Stephanie Salmons ssalmons@nky.com
See TRAVEL, Page A2
TASTING TEA Girl Scout event has an international flavor. B1
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rest of the required cost, which is about 19.5 percent in the current year, he explained. Hazardous employees, like those working for a police or fire department or the jail staff, contribute 8 percent of their salaries and employers put in the remainder of the required 37 percent. Those numbers have “increased rapidly” over the last10 or 15 years, he said. “Even contributing that amount, the pension system is still noticeably underfunded.” Even at those rates, there still won’t be enough funding to “fully meet the future obligations of the retirement system,” See REFORM, Page A2
Boone Co. OKs rural road work
Homemakers hear about Indonesia BURLINGTON — The Boone County Extension Homemakers sampled the tastes of Indonesia without leaving Boone County. The group hosted its annual international tea Feb. 26 at the Boone County Extension Office in Burlington. Christy Eastwood, county extension agent for 4-H youth development, traveled to Indonesia last June. The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture received a grant on globalizing agriculture education. Eastwood was one of 10 who traveled to the country on an agricultural tour, visiting a sustainable pineapple plantation, a coffee tree farm, meeting with farmers and touring different locations. The purpose, she said, was to come back and write curriculum or lesson plans that would relate to their own settings. Because of her travels, the Homemakers asked her to do a presentation. Those in attendance sampled tempeh, which is fermented soy beans, and durian fruit, which Eastwood said she would “compare to nothing.” “You either love it or hate it.” There will also be samples of the world’s most expensive coffee, kopi luwak. Civets eat coffee berries, digest then excrete the coffee beans and “farmers collect feces with coffee beans in it,” she said.
the state constitution.” In a phone conversation, Boone County Administrator Jeff Earlywine said required pension contributions are Thayer a “very costly component” to the county budget. The county, he said, spends “over $5 million a year on required pension contributions to the state system.” Earlywine said the current system isn’t sustainable for the long term. Non-hazardous employees contribute 5 percent of their salary and the county picks up the
Boone County extension agent Christy Eastwood holds bamboo during a June trip to Indonesia. Eastwood was part of the Boone County Extension Homemakers’ international tea on Feb. 26 highlighting Indonesia. THANKS TO CHRISTY EASTWOOD
LIFE AFTER ‘IDOL’ Walton’s Courtney Flege sings at an Indiana Pacers game. B5
BURLINGTON — Boone County leaders have approved a number of state-funded road projects for 2013-2014. The road work comes as part of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Rural Secondary program. The funds are used for the construction, reconstruction and maintenance of secondary and rural roads in each county. This year’s $923,000 allotment is roughly $200,000 smaller than what the county received last year, engineering supervisor Nick Hendricks told the fiscal court. According to Hendricks, there was an adjustment in the per-mile cost, now more than $1,000 less per mile than the $5,400 per mile received last year. The program “doesn’t look a whole lot like years past in that it’s not as flashy,” he said. “We don’t have as many miles of resurfacing, if you will.” In previous years, there have been more than10 miles of resurfacing “and reason being we’re pretty well paved out.” “We’re pretty lucky here in Boone County,” Hendricks said. “We’re able to shift some of that money to more of a safety focus.” Approved work includes 4.2 miles of resurfacing on Petersburg Road (Ky. 20) from Mar-
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ket Street to Ky. 3608 as well as widening and addition of a retaining wall on a 200-foot portion of that segment of Petersburg Road near Taylor Creek bridge. “Anybody that drives that road is probably familiar with it,” he said. A narrow spot just before entering Petersburg, it’s been something the KYTC has needed to address, “just as resources go, we haven’t had a chance to. We got a real opportunity to do it this year and we intend to prior to our resurfacing.” Other projects OK’d include base-repair/in-place patching along Riddles Run Road, shouldering work along various routes and a culvert extension on Hathaway Road. There’s an additional $138,000 in “flex funds” that can be used at the discretion of the county for additional state-recommended projects or for county road projects. This amount is down from some $228,000 last year because of a change in the way the flex funding is calculated, Hendricks said. The KYTC recommended flex fund project is a slide repair along Walton Beaver Road. Fiscal court members voted 3-0, with Commissioner Charlie Walton absent, to approve the initial recommendations except for the flex fund portion, the use of which will be determined at a future date.
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