Kentucky

Mortality trends for public employee retirees in the years 2015 to 2024.

Here in Kentucky we see evidence of a continued impact from the pandemic event. Members removed from the rolls show elevated numbers in the most recent years compared to the pre-pandemic average. The report for FY2024 is split into two versions. One for the overall Kentucky retirement system (KRS) and one for just the county workers (CERS). This is the only year that is split this way, previous years have both included in a single report.

The tables in the report refer to “nonhazardous” and “hazardous” groups. I took that to mean that the fire and police were the “hazardous” subset, but the official explanation includes a few other job descriptions:

“The membership of the KERS Hazardous plan includes employees whose position is considered hazardous with principal job duties including, but are not limited to, active law enforcement, probation and parole officer, detective, pilots, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians, with duties that require frequent exposure to a high degree of danger and also require a high degree of physical condition.”

Kentucky has a table that I don’t recall seeing in other reports. It is a table for “Active Refunds”, which includes data for active death refunds. This, as I understand it, is a refund given to survivors if an employee dies while still working. Which would mean the younger members. This data only starts to appear in the FY2020 report. I have contacted the Kentucky retirement system to see if they can provide the earlier years data. But with the five years of tables that we do have, we can see a steady increase in this number through FY2023, then it thankfully starts to go lower in FY2024.

Signs seem to point to the governor of Kentucky supporting vaccine mandates during the pandemic. But like we saw in Louisiana, the attorney general of Kentucky did not have the same zeal for mandates.

Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) of the Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS) a component unit of theCommonwealth of Kentucky, for the Fiscal Year Ended (FYE) June 30, 2024

*my members removed graphs are for the “nonhazardous” numbers only

page 126

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Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) of the County Employees Retirement System (CERS), a component unit of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, for the Fiscal Year Ended (FYE) June 30, 2024

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page 106

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page 125 (FY2024 CERS)

page 148 (FY2024 KRS)

*total for the “active death refunds” in the above two combined tables: 401

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FY2023

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FY2022

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FY2021

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FY2020

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from Ballotpedia

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CORRECTION: Gov. Beshear Announces New Testing and Vaccine Program in State-Run Health Care Facilities.

Aug. 2, 2021

“We want to get back to normal. Those who are not vaccinated are preventing us from getting back to normal,” said Gov. Beshear. “If you’re unvaccinated, your chances of being in the hospital are significantly higher than those who are vaccinated.”

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Beshear calls on employers to enforce vaccine mandates as COVID-19 cases surge in KY

“As an incentive to get the shot, Beshear said any staff member who works in the executive branch of state government will be awarded an additional vacation day if they show proof of vaccination. “This is an incentive so you can spend more time with your family doing what you want to do for doing the right thing,” he said, calling on other constitutional offices to do the same.”

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Kentucky governor suffers legal defeat in combating Covid surge.

“Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who defended the new laws, urged Beshear to consult with lawmakers to “find consensus on what is needed to protect Kentuckians.”

GOP lawmakers passed the new laws limiting the governor’s emergency powers in response to Beshear’s aggressive handling of the coronavirus crisis. The governor promptly sued to challenge the measures after his vetoes of the bills were overridden.”

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