We are asked to find that application of the 1996 amendment to superintendents appointed before the effective date of the act would constitute a retroactive construction of the statute. We do not agree that the question before us involves a retroactive application of the statute. The words retrospective and retroactive, themselves basically imprecise, do not describe every law that affects actions taken in the past. Rather, they describe acts which operate on transactions which have occurred or rights and obligations which have existed before passage of the act. Although court opinions often designate statutes as being either prospective or retrospective, the statutes in fact are often not susceptible to such clear, definite, and all-embracing characterizations as that.
Many statutes are in various respects both prospective and retrospective.
Characterization thus may do nothing more than reflect a judgment concerning validity or interpretation, arrived at on other grounds. In contrast, the statute imposes a present duty on superintendents to establish residency in Kentucky. Construing the statute to exempt superintendents appointed before 1996 would require reading words into the statute that are not there. The statute contains no grandfather clause, and we will not create one.