I'll let you read details of the plan elsewhere. What I'm focusing on is tamping down the "savings" numbers that the Beshear administration has been throwing around. During his "call to action" news conference, the governor repeatedly said that immediate action on the pension issue would immediately save cities, counties and school districts about $50 million dollars. That may be true if lawmakers go through with their plan to give those entities a one year break on contributions to their retirement systems. But Beshear and Finance Secretary Jonathan Miller also claimed $500 million in "savings to taxpayers" would be realized soon. First of all, calling it "savings" is a misnomer. The compromise pension plan will only slow the growth in the future unfunded liability, not "save" anything. Second, a sizable chunk of the $500 million comes from the assumption that the Kentucky Retirement System will improve the average rate of return on its investments from 7.5% to 8.5%. Right now, that ROR is near 0% this year, just like everyone else's stock portfolio. The 500M also "front loads" a huge savings from benefits paid to future state employees. House and Senate leaders both agreed today that the big numbers cited by the Beshear folks are off-target. Sen. David Williams lauded the governor's decision to call a special session to tackle the pension issue but told me his "cynical side" wonders whether Beshear might continue to cite big "savings to taxpayers" from the June pension reforms to make the case that more, broader, tougher pension reforms will not need to be passed by lawmakers in 2009.