Dozens of Kentucky state and Lexington city employees can look forward to six-figure government pensions every year once they retire, in some cases before their 50th birthdays, according to estimates released Monday by an anti-tax group.

However, taxpayers don't know for certain who gets what because Kentucky law requires that public pension records be kept confidential. The Chicago-based Taxpayers United of America delivered a letter to Gov. Steve Beshear's office on Monday, calling for a repeal of that law, to make public pensions as open to outside scrutiny as public salaries.

"People hear about these huge unfunded pension liabilities, and it's so big, it doesn't really mean anything to them. But if you can go to them and say, 'Here's the size pension that your child's fourth-grade teacher will be getting; here's what the elementary school principal will be getting,' it's something they can relate to," said Rae Ann McNeilly, the group's director of outreach.

The group is lobbying nationally for an end to guaranteed lifetime pensions for government employees. Instead, the group said public workers should be enrolled in private savings plans, like a 401(k), they should pay a greater share of their retirement costs, and they should work until later in life, as private-sector employees do.

To get the estimates it released Monday, the group used publicly available government salaries and applied the formulas of several public pension funds. It ended up with educated guesses.

Gov. Steve Beshear, for example, will get an estimated $96,191 a year in retirement, less than some of his top aides and political appointees, the group said. Beshear's office did not dispute the group's estimate of his pension.