Kentucky's public pension system not only faces an $18.1 billion unfunded liability, but might be in worse shape than previously thought.
Taxpayers could pay more money to honor pension commitments to about 365,000 public employees.
Kentucky Retirement Systems board chairman John Farris said Thursday that KRS made math errors in recent years and relied on overly optimistic assumptions about its investment returns, growth of state and local government payrolls and the inflation rate.
KRS trustees say they thought the assumed numbers were correct because the agency's actuarial adviser did not balk when it received them. In coming weeks, KRS will select a company to perform another assessment of its financial health.
