Author Archive for Jack Brammer

‘Comment’ will discuss Farmer audit, judicial budget cuts

The audit of former Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer’s administration and cuts in the state judicial budget will be topics on this weekend’s “Comment on Kentucky.”

The public affairs show on the Kentucky Educational Television network will air live Friday at 8 p.m. ET.

Beshear waiting on court ruling before ordering state health insurance exchange

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Gov. Steve Beshear will wait until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act before issuing an executive order to set up a Kentucky health benefit exchange.

The exchange is envisioned as an online marketplace where consumers can shop for competing health insurance plans. It is intended to reduce coverage costs for individuals, small businesses and local governments, and would operate like Travelocity or Orbitz.

Each state must have an exchange by 2014 under the federal health reform act enacted by Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide in late June on the constitutionality of the federal act.

If it is upheld, the state will have until the end of this year to demonstrate its readiness to run a health insurance exchange or the federal government will take responsibility for it.

Kentucky courthouses will close for three days in 2012 to cut costs

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Kentucky court workers will be furloughed three days this year, closing courthouses statewide on Aug. 6, Sept. 4 and Oct. 15, Chief Justice John D. Minton said Wednesday.

The cost-cutting move is the result of cuts the Kentucky General Assembly made to the court system’s budget, Minton said.

This is the first time since Kentucky’s modern court system was formed in 1976 that the judicial branch must close courthouse doors to balance its budget, he added.

Court spokeswoman Leigh Anne Hiatt said the furloughs will affect all judicial branch employees except elected officials. The state court system has about 3,300 employees and 404 elected justices, judges and circuit court clerks, she said.

Furloughs are one of several measures included in the judicial branch’s budget reduction plan for fiscal year 2013, which begins July 1.

Common Cause questions tax status of conservative group

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – An ethics watchdog group is asking Attorney General Jack Conway to investigate the tax status of a conservative group made up of state lawmakers and business interests involved in legislation.

Richard Beliles, state chair of Common Cause of Kentucky, said in a letter Tuesday to Conway that the American Legislative Exchange Council enjoys tax-exempt status because it is registered as a charity in Conway’s office and at the federal level.

But ALEC is primarily a lobbying organization and may be in violation of its tax-exempt status, Beliles said.

“ALEC is a corporate lobby front group masquerading as a public charity on the taxpayers’ dime,” Beliles said. “Kentuckians shouldn’t have to subsidize ALEC’s agenda to limit voting rights, undermine our public schools, spread Stand Your Ground gun laws and weaken laws protecting our environment.”

Beshear will talk with Conway before deciding whether to move KASPER

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear said Monday he will meet with Attorney General Jack Conway before deciding whether to move by executive order the state’s electronic monitoring system for prescription to his office.

The system, known as KASPER, is now in the Cabinet for Families and Health Services. Some legislators this year wanted to move it to Conway’s office to make it a law-enforcement tool but that provision was not included in a final bill to curb prescription drug abuse.

“The thing that the attorney general stresses, which I agree with him on, is his need for access so his investigators can proceed when they need to pursue these doctors who are pushing drugs,” Beshear said.

Beshear noted that the new law does not take effect until mid-July. He said he will be discussing it with Conway before then.

–Jack Brammer

‘Comment’ will discuss special legislative session

Friday’s end of the five-day special legislative session will be a key topic of discussion on this weekend’s “Comment on Kentucky,” a public affairs show of the Kentucky Educational Television network.

Joining host Ferrell Wellman on the show will be three reporters — Linda Blackford of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Jim Williams of Louisville’s WHAS Radio and Mike Wynn of the Courier-Journal Frankfort bureau.

The show will air live at 8 p.m. EDT Friday on KET.

–Jack Brammer

Special session ends after pain pill bill, transportation budget win approval

UPDATED AT 7:20 P.M.

By Jack Brammer and Beth Musgrave
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A five-day special legislative session that cost taxpayers more than $300,000 ended late Friday afternoon after Kentucky lawmakers approved a transportation budget and a bill aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse.

The contentious session wrapped up quickly after leaders in the Republican-led Senate and Democratic-led House begrudgingly accepted compromises on both bills, which they had failed to approve in the final hours of the regular legislative session on April 12.

The Senate backed off a proposal to restore about $50 million worth of road projects in and near Senate President David Williams’ Southern Kentucky district that Gov. Steve Beshear had vetoed earlier this week.

Meanwhile, the House accepted an anti-drug abuse bill that keeps the state’s electronic prescription monitoring system in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services — and out of the hands of law enforcement agencies eager to investigate doctors who over-prescribe addictive medications.

Secretary of State Grimes sets up mobile field office in tornado-hit counties

FRANKFORT – Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and some of her staff members will perform their job duties in a mobile field office next week in tornado-devastated Morgan and Magoffin counties.

The mobile field office in a donated recreational vehicle will provide on-site business services and election information, Grimes said during a news conference Thursday in back of the state Capitol.

Grimes’ director of communications, Lynn Sowards Zellen, said the field office will not be any additional cost to taxpayers. She said several businesses across the state have provided supplies to operate it.

Law enforcement officials rally for prescription drug bill

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – State law enforcement officials and a mother whose 25-year-old son died last December of a drug overdose called Wednesday for the state legislature to approve a bill to curb prescription drug abuse.

As the state House approved House Bill 1, aimed at tackling prescription drug abuse, on a 70-28 vote, Patricia Jones of Laurel County pleaded with legislators in a Capitol Rotunda rally “to do something” to stop the prescription drug abuse that took the life of her son, Westley Brewer.

“There’s a void in our life that will never be filled,” she said.

She later said in an interview that her son got the drugs “from friends who went doctor-shopping to get them.”

HB 1, which now goes to the Senate for its consideration, would move control of the state’s prescription monitoring system to Attorney General Jack Conway’s office and require physicians to use the system. Currently, only 25 percent of Kentucky physicians do so.

First lady Beshear makes changes to Celebration of Hope

FRANKFORT — First lady Jane Beshear is making some changes to the 15th annual Celebration of Hope, a gathering of breast cancer survivors.

For the first time, the event will be held during the week leading up to Derby, on Wednesday, May 2, instead of the Monday following the race.

Also, the celebration is moving out of Frankfort to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

“Holding the event pre-Derby will only add another layer of excitement and anticipation for our ladies,” Beshear said. “And the Kentucky Horse Park is a fitting and exceptional site to help honor our survivors, remember those we’ve lost and be inspired by those who continue to fight – which is what the focus of this occasion is truly about.”

Former first lady Judi Patton started the Celebration of Hope to celebrate breast cancer survivors and to help educate Kentuckians about the risks of the disease.