From The Lexington Herald-Leader: They’re back. Teachers descend on Capitol to protest bill that reworks pension board.
STATEMENT FROM KENNY COLSTON OF THE KENTUCKY DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN A FUND-RAISING EMAIL: "Kentucky's teachers are sick and tired of being disrespected by Republican leaders in Frankfort. We rallied all day to let lawmakers know they had a solution in search of a problem. A non-existent problem. It was the same committee room where they have repeatedly attacked teachers and public workers.
"....This is just payback because the KY GOP can't stand it when teachers show up, use their voice and participate in the system. They prefer to operate in the darkness and with only the input of their big donors and Matt Bevin."
UPDATE FROM THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER: Teacher protests not enough to stop bill limiting KEA’s power over retirement system
BY DANIEL DESROCHERS and JACK BRAMMER
A raucous crowd of Kentucky teachers who skipped school to show their disdain for a bill that would alter how members of the Teachers’ Retirement System Board of Trustees are selected was not enough to deter a panel of House lawmakers from approving the bill Thursday on a party-line vote.
House Bill 525 would change the nominating process for board member, moving the nominations away from the Kentucky Education Association and spreading them among eight eduction-related professional groups.
“I know of no other board, created by statute, that has its membership controlled almost entirely by one private organization,” Rep. Ken Upchurch, R-Monticello, told the House State Government Committee. “Instead, we are gradually expanding the membership of this critically important board.”
BY JACK BRAMMER and DANIEL DESROCHERS
FRANKFORT -- A line of several hundred people snaked outside the Capitol Annex Thursday as educators descended upon Frankfort to protest a bill that would restructure the board that oversees the Teachers’ Retirement System of Kentucky.
The crowd was the result of a “sick-out” that canceled schools in the state’s two largest school districts, Fayette and Jefferson, and at least six other counties: Boyd, Letcher, Carter, Bath, Madison and Marion counties.
The scene was reminiscent of large rallies of teachers who swarmed the Capitol in last year’s legislative session to protest a public pension bill backed by the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Matt Bevin that the Kentucky Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional.
The bill teachers are protesting this year, House Bill 525, would strip retirement system members of the ability to elect seven members of the system’s board of trustees.