Bevin vetoes pension measure, calls for special session

BWeeks after the General Assembly adjourned for the 2019 session, Gov. Matt Bevin vetoed a pension measure and announced his intention to call a special session.

            Bevin announced his veto of House Bill 358, a measure intended to alleviate governmental entitities from the impending increased pension burden beginning July 1.          

            The General Assembly passed a bill in 2017 requiring some publicly-funded organizations, such as universities and victim shelters, to contribute more to their own pension contributions, but that requirement to allow time for financial preparation.

            If the governor does choose to declare a special session, it will presumably occur before the July 1 deadline. However, Bevin has backtracked on claims to call a special session in prior years.

            In his veto message to the Commonwealth, Bevin explained a desire for further cuts to the programs desperate for relief from their new pension burdens.

            The bill passed the legislature just below the threshold for an override of Bevin’s veto, with a 58-39 vote in the House and a 26-11 vote in the Senate. If three representatives choose to flip their vote, the bill could be overridden.

            Members of the governor’s own party spoke out immediately, including House Speaker David Osborne who, in a statement released April 9, wrote that the legislature spent, “exhaustive amounts of time meeting with the stakeholders, the universities and the quasis, as well as the representative employees of both.”

            Oscar Heithaus, president of the College Democrats of Kentucky, said Bevin’s actions are another example of his inability to work with anyone in Kentucky, and another attack on the universities represented by the College Democrats organization.

            “My involvement with the College Democrats actually began with Bevin’s first cut to higher ed in 2015,” Heithaus said. “He has no desire to actually represent us students because he doesn’t believe in public education.”