Kenny Colston

State employees with higher pensions should pay more to help the underfunded systems recover, Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo said in a recent interview. One thing Stumbo doesn't want to see is lawmakers floating bonds to help pay for the state’s underfunded pensions.

Kentucky’s lone independent state senator says his record as budget chairman is the reason he should be the next state Senate president. Originally a Democrat, Leeper made the switch to the GOP in 2000, before becoming an Independent later that decade. He may be the one state senator who can say he has literally worked with each side of the aisle in Frankfort.

Kentucky's state pension plans have problems, and a bipartisan legislative task force has approved sweeping recommendations to overhaul them -- including putting new employees in a hybrid plans akin to 401Ks.

The task force -- with an 11-1 vote -- is recommending that the General Assembly start fully funding their pension contributions starting with the next budget in 2014. Lawmakers’ inability to do that is part of the pension plans problems.

To date, the chatter over who'll challenge U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014 has centered around actress/activist Ashley Judd.  And, if not Judd, then Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state.  A top Kentucky Democrat is saying that McConnell's Democratic challenger will be neither of the women.

The Kentucky House speaker said the commission charged with proposing changes to Kentucky's tax code is "backing away" from controversial issues. House Speaker Greg Stumbo said in a recent interview that the Blue Ribbon Commission on Tax Reform needs to be bolder. He said the appointed commissioners are approaching the tax code issues as if they have political capital to lose, refusing to offer new ideas.