House Budget: Money for social worker safety, cuts to adult education

State Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown

FRANKFORT — Social workers would receive additional money for training and safety and more seniors could get hot meals under the House’s $17.5 billion budget proposal.

But adult education programs would likely see a three percent cut, or about $1.3 million, over the biennium. And the state’s public universities would have to find money in their budgets to pay operation and maintenance expenses for new buildings that are scheduled to open over the next two years. State universities will also be cut more under the House plan than under Gov. Steve Beshear’s original proposal.

More details of the House budget proposal were outlined for the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee on Tuesday morning. The House committee will hear still more details Tuesday afternoon and could take a vote on the budget bill late on Tuesday, House leaders have said.

Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown, told the committee on Tuesday that the House’s budget proposal includes restoring some money to some social service programs that have been cut over the past two years.

The House wants to redirect $37 million of unallocated money within the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to beef up a variety of programs. Specifically, the proposal would put $10 million back into Community Based Services, which includes adult and child protection programs.

Lee said that much of the $10 million will go toward improving security for social workers through updating office security, ensuring that all social workers have working cell phones and improving training for social workers.

Hank Cecil, a legislative agent and spokesman for the National Association of Social Workers, said that social workers were ecstatic that money that was originally promised to social workers two years ago to beef up safety and security was finally restored.

“We’re delighted,” Cecil said. “We are hoping that the Senate will keep that money in the budget.”

About $2 million will go to restoring funding in aging services. The bulk of the $2 million will go to Meals on Wheels. There is currently a waiting list for Meals on Wheels services, which provide hot meals to seniors in their homes. The $2 million will not erase the entire waiting list, Lee said, but it will reduce it. The current waiting list for Meals on Wheels and other meal services is more than 5,200.

Lee said the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, one of the state’s largest agencies that oversees a host of social service programs, has suffered more than $74 million in cuts since December 2007.

“We’re not near getting that money back,” Lee said. “It’s just a beginning.”

The House also includes $1 million in new funding to tear down a former tuberculosis hospital on Legion Drive in Bourbon County. The hospital has not been used since the 1970s and is an eye sore and health concern, Bourbon County officials say.

One program that has remained in the House proposal is $129 million for the replacement of Lexington’s Eastern State Hospital, the second-oldest psychiatric hospital in the country. The city of Lexington would be responsible for borrowing the money for the project but the state would repay the city through lease payments, Lee said.

But the House plan is also banking on about $257 million in yet-to-be-approved federal stimulus money for the Medicaid program. Lee said that he is confident that money will eventually materialize as other states are also depending on at least six additional months of federal stimulus dollars in Medicaid funding.

Democratic Rep. Arnold Simpson, chair of a budget subcommittee overseeing higher education, said the House proposal includes a 1.5 percent cut to higher education in the first year of the budget and a 1 percent cut in the second year.

However, universities will still have to come up with money to maintain and operate new buildings coming online over the next two years. It is estimated that universities would have to come up with about $63 million to pay those costs over the two years.

Simpson, of Covington, said that because adult education has not been slashed in previous budget cuts, the House proposal includes about a three percent cut in both years of the budget. Beshear’s budget proposal had not cut adult education classes because of concerns that many people were turning to adult education for job training. The current budget for adult education is $22.5 million.

Adult education has suffered a 10 percent drop in its budget since 2007. The state’s public universities has been cut by about 7.2 percent since 2007-2008, according to information obtained from the Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees adult education programs in Kentucky.

– Beth Musgrave