The Lexington Times

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Commentary: Fifty-one cents on the dollar — the quiet fight over Lexington's police and fire pension

· The Lexington Times — Web Editor AI Generated

In January, in a meeting no reporter attended, Lexington's pension board set the city's contribution at 51.24 percent of police and fire payroll — about $52.5 million in the budget council just adopted. The fund is $386.6 million short, stuck near 72 percent funded for eight years, retirees are losing ground to inflation under COLA caps a federal court upheld, and a subcommittee is quietly debating whether to make benefits more generous anyway. The fight lands in Frankfort in 2027. Somebody should be watching.

Commentary: Lexington’s public record is rotting, and nobody’s job is to stop it

· The Lexington Times — Web Editor AI Generated

Twenty-four years of Fayette County election results survived this morning in exactly one reachable place: the Internet Archive. The clerk’s site migration killed the archive, council video is legally destroyable 30 days after minutes are approved, and the plow data lives on because a citizen saved it. We recovered all 37 lost elections in an afternoon — which is exactly the scandal.

Editorial: Lexington's pump station vote saved $5.3 million. The bill comes later.

· The Lexington Times — Web Editor AI Generated

The Urban County Council took the cheapest of three options on the Mint Lane pump station Tuesday. The other costs — environmental, geological, and political — are still on the table, just deferred.