Archive for February, 2010

Stumbo: House plan expected to help higher ed

FRANKFORT – House Speaker Greg Stumbo expressed optimism Sunday that the state two-year spending plan put together by the House will block some, if not all, of funding cuts to higher education.

Stumbo, during a break from working with other House leaders on putting the final touches on the House budget proposal, told reporters that “there’s a growing chance that we might be able to – in some way – help offset some of the cuts” for public universities and colleges.

House leaders worked through the weekend to come up with a plan to address a $1.2 billion state budget shortfall over the next two years.

Conway starts petition and Mongiardo plans protest in response to Bunning stance on benefits

FRANKFORT – Two Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate are taking steps to criticize Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning for blocking a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance payments for more than 1 million Americans over concerns about the federal deficit.

Attorney General Jack Conway has started a petition on his campaign Web site to tell Bunning “to stop putting politics before Kentuckians.”

Allison Haley, a spokeswoman for Conway’s campaign, said Sunday that nearly 400 people have signed the petition.

The link to it can be reached at http://www.democratsenators.org/o/57/t/943/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=249.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo said if the extension is not resolved on Monday, he will lead a protest rally at Bunning’s Lexington and Louisville offices on Tuesday.

Paul and Grayson back Bunning’s block of jobless benefit extension

By David Lightman, Halimah Abdullah and Linda B. Blackford – McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky may be a lame duck Republican, but he still knows how to create a flap.

Late Thursday night and again Friday morning, Bunning single-handedly blocked a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance payments for more than 1 million jobless Americans over concerns about the federal deficit.

Along the way, he complained of having to miss the University of Kentucky’s basketball game against South Carolina and reportedly responded to a Democrat’s complaints with “tough s–t.”

The result: Some unemployment benefits could dry up Monday. Newly laid-off workers might not get federal help with health insurance premiums. Road and transit bills could go unpaid. Medicare payments to doctors would stay high. Rural satellite reception might even be affected.

By Friday afternoon, Bunning’s regional offices in Hazard and Louisville received bomb threats, according to the Kentucky State Police in Hazard. Police said they evacuated the premises, and searched the area with sniffer dogs. As of Friday evening, nothing had been found and the investigation was turned over to the FBI.

Bunning spokesman Mike Reynard said phones in all of Bunning’s offices have been “ringing off the hook all day. I think a lot of people are upset but there have been some positive calls.”

Lawmakers propose increasing their own budget by 3 percent

FRANKFORT — As the General Assembly prepares to cut spending at most other state agencies, the legislature wants to bump up its own budget by three percent.

The two-year, $106 million budget for the legislative branch includes no pay raises for legislators or staff. The budget also reduces 15 full-time staff positions, which would return staffing to 2007 levels, said Rep. Rick Rand, D-Bedford, and chairman of the House Budget Committee.

House leaders have said they want to cut all political appointees to 2007 levels across state government as a way to balance the budget.

The House’s version of the executive and judicial branch budgets have not been filed. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, filed the legislative budget on Thursday.

Legislative Research Commission Director Bobby Sherman defended the legislature’s budget, saying it actually reduces the legislative branch’s appropriation by two percent over the previous biennium.

But the legislature, like most state agencies, cut its $108 million appropriation by more than $5 million over those two years, which means the proposed legislative budget for the next two years increases spending by three percent.

Environmentalists say they’re tired of being ignored by legislature

By Andy Mead – amead@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – In one hearing room, legislators listened to report by a director of the Harvard Medical School warning that coal, from mining to moving to burning, is killing Kentuckians.

One legislator responded by noting that obesity also kills people, and wondered if food should be banned.

Then, a little while later in an adjacent room, a group of environmentalists led by author Wendell Berry said they were fed up with the General Assembly.

“We have petitioned, marched, sung, written, lobbied, testified and pleaded — all to no avail,” Berry said. “But today we declare that business as usual in Frankfort — long intolerable — has now become unacceptable.”

The environmentalists, members of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC), took turns reading a Declaration of Independence-type statement.

It called on the state’s political leaders to break their close ties with coal, remove legislators with ties to coal companies from leadership positions, and call for an end to “extreme and sometimes violent speech” directed at people who speak out against coal in the coalfields.

Horse Health bill passes House

FRANKFORT — The House voted 98-0 Thursday to approve a measure that would create the Kentucky Equine Health and Welfare Board under the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet.

The board would gather more reliable statistics on Kentucky’s signature animal and recommend improvements. Among other things, the board would create a voluntary certification system that sets care standards for equine rescue operations.

House Bill 398, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Tom McKee of Cynthiana, now moves to the Senate.

- Beth Musgrave

House considering ‘jobs bill’ in budget proposal

By Beth Musgrave – bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — House leaders are considering adding to the state’s debt in an effort to put more Kentuckians to work replacing school buildings, roads and water lines.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Thursday that House leaders are considering adding additional capital projects to their two-year budget proposal and will borrow money to pay for them.

“We believe that the way we put Kentucky back to work is that we create jobs,” Stumbo said. “We believe that a jobs bill is important.”

But Stumbo cautioned Thursday that leaders have not yet made a final decision on whether to add more debt to the state’s credit card because they are still working on a way to balance the budget, which has a $1.2 billion shortfall.

Lawmaker wants competitive bidding on courthouse projects

By Linda B. Blackford and Beth Musgrave – lblackford@herald-leader.com

A state lawmaker thinks too much money is being spent on new courthouses and wants to bring more competition among builders to the nearly $1 billion construction program.

Rep. Jamie Comer, R-Tompkinsville, filed legislation this week that would require firms seeking to manage courthouse construction projects to bid competitively for the work.

House Bill 472 also would cap the amount of money construction managers can be paid at 5 percent of construction costs, and would prohibit construction managers from bidding on construction subcontracts unless there were no other bidders.

“If the construction managers are bid out, it will save taxpayers money,” Comer said.

The courthouse construction program, which so far has spent $880 million on 65 new courthouses around the state since 2000, has allowed a handful of firms to manage most of the projects.

Two accountability bills pass House committee

FRANKFORT — Two measures that would give the legislature greater oversight of state contracts with private companies passed a House panel Wednesday.

House Bill 445, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Brent Yonts of Greenville, would broaden the number of contracts that the legislature’s Government Contract Review Committee oversees.

The legislative oversight panel already reveiws many state contracts, but a 2008 legislative report showed that lawmakers were not asked to scrutinize 47,330 contracts worth as much as $3.1 billion that were signed from July 1, 2006, to May 31, 2008. In comparison, the committee inspected 12,182 contracts worth as much as $3.3 billion in the same period.

The legislation would expand the committee’s oversight to include almost all agreements with private companies that hire outside contractors to do state work. Currently, only professional service contracts to hire doctors, lawyers and engineers come before the committee.

If the bill is approved, the committee would also review inter-agency contracts that are required by federal and state law.

Meanwhile, House Bill 387 would require the state Personnel Cabinet and the Finance and Administration Cabinet to provide the legislature with the number of state employees on a quarterly basis, broken down by non-merit and merit employees. The quarterly report would also provide a breakdown of how many people are employed through private contracts.

Senate gives blessing to Bible literacy bill

FRANKFORT – The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday that would give public schools guidelines for teaching the Bible as an elective social studies course.

One senator, Democrat Kathy Stein of Lexington, voted against Senate Bill 142.

Stein said she knew proponents of the measure had the best intentions but questioned its constitutionality. She also said public schools already teach comparative religion courses.

The primary sponsor of the bill, Democratic Sen. David Boswell of Owensboro, said it would let the state Board of Education come up with regulations to guide public schools as they “teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture.”

Boswell said school-based decision-making councils would decide whether the course would be taught. He said it is needed to make children more aware of the role of the Bible in history, literature and culture.

Some critics of the bill have said it is “a back-door approach” to teach religion.

–Jack Brammer