All Entries in the "Greg Stumbo" Category

Lawmakers wrangle over debt in state budget

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Senate President David Williams and House Democratic leaders wrangled over how much debt there should be in the state budget Wednesday in a third day of negotiations over the two-year, $19 billion spending plan.

Leading lawmakers are trying to produce a budget by 3 a.m. Thursday, which would allow the chambers to vote Friday on a budget bill. If they don’t meet that deadline, lawmakers still could rearrange the legislative calendar so that Saturday or Monday becomes the 59th day of the 60-workday legislative session. Wednesday was the 57th day of the session, which must end by April 15.

Lawmakers hope to preserve the final day of the session to override any vetoes Gov. Steve Beshear might issue during a 10-day window in early April.

In little more than an hour of negotiations Wednesday morning, lawmakers argued over whether to include in the budget a $100 million bond for school construction and a $20 million bond for high-tech economic development construction projects.

Kentucky Senate approves two-year budget; next, negotiations with House

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

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Senate approved an $18.5 billion, two-year budget Thursday night that includes little money for capital projects, eliminating $3.5 million each for the Kentucky Horse Park and a downtown Lexington redesign project that includes Rupp Arena.

The Senate voted 32-4 to approve House Bill 465. The Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee passed the measure an hour before it was sent to the full Senate.

Now the House, controlled by Democrats, and the Republican-controlled Senate will appoint a committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget.

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said he was told late Thursday that the House would begin negotiations Monday. Williams said he would not speculate why the House wanted to wait until after the weekend. The University of Kentucky plays in the NCAA tournament on Friday in Atlanta.

Brian Wilkerson, a spokesman for House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat, said the House was going to work Friday but did not want to go into budget negotiations without knowing what the Senate had changed. The Senate passed the budget after the House had adjourned for the day.

“We want an opportunity to look at it first,” Wilkerson said.

Redistricting amendment gives direction on splitting counties

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A constitutional amendment that would detail how lawmakers can divide counties when redrawing the boundaries of legislative districts has support from leaders in the House and Senate.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Friday that he supports Senate Bill 18, an amendment that would give the legislature permission to split medium-sized counties to balance the population of legislative districts.

The Kentucky Constitution now says counties that can be contained in one legislative district should remain in one district. But legislative leaders say some counties must be split into multiple districts in order to create districts that have equitable population, a requirement of federal law.

A Franklin Circuit Court judge threw out newly-drawn district boundaries earlier this year because the bill allowed some districts to vary by more than 5 percent from the ideal population size and divided more counties than necessary.

House raises more than $20,000 for storm victims

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky House has raised more than $20,000 to aid families affected by last weekend’s tornadoes and storms.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo announced Friday that the 100-member House had doubled its goal of raising $10,000. Members of the House and staff have contributed to the drive.

House panel approves bills to deal with ‘pill mills’, synthetic drugs

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Two bills aimed at cracking down on Kentucky’s drug problems won approval Wednesday from the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, their first stop in a lengthy legislative process.

The House Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly approved House Bill 481 to combat a new crop of synthetic drugs sold in convenience stores and elsewhere as bath salts or incense. The measure is sponsored by committee chairman John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville.

It also approved a proposal to bring new controls on pain clinics and beef up the attorney general’s power to police over-prescribing of narcotics by health care providers. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, is the sponsor of House Bill 4. One lawmaker did not vote on the bill.

Both measures now go to the full House.

Stumbo says gambling ‘probably dead for this session’

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — House Speaker Greg Stumbo said Friday that he does not expect his chamber to consider a constitutional amendment to allow casino-style gambling in Kentucky during this legislative session.

“I think it’s probably dead for this session,” said Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg.

Stumbo’s comments came the day after the state Senate rejected a constitutional amendment that would have let voters decide if they wanted seven casinos in the state. The Republican-controlled Senate voted 21-16 against the measure.

The issue of allowing expanded gambling at racetracks has been debated for more than a decade in Kentucky. The Democratic-controlled House has passed legislation in previous years that would allow the state’s racetracks to have casino-style gambling, but it was never heard in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Stumbo seeks spending records for Morehead State officials

By Linda B. Blackford
lblackford@herald-leader.com

The sponsor of a bill to make the University of Pikeville a public school has requested spending records for the president and Board of Regents of Morehead State University, which is vigorously opposing the measure.

A Feb. 15 request under the Open Records Act from House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, asks for all records from the past five years showing expenses incurred by Morehead President Wayne Andrews, his staff and all 11 regents.

The request asks for expenses related to travel, vacations, conventions, recreation, motor vehicles, country clubs or other memberships and any other items of value.

In addition, the request asks for documents related to the “improvement of the educational opportunities” in the 12-county region of southeastern Kentucky that UPike would serve instead of Morehead.

Neither Stumbo nor Andrews was immediately available for comment.

Campaign to turn University of Pikeville public moves to legislature

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT —Saying 12 southeastern Kentucky counties are underserved by the state’s higher education system, former Gov. Paul Patton and two lawmakers made their first pitch Tuesday to legislators about turning private University of Pikeville into a publicly funded school.

Patton, Pikeville’s president, told lawmakers Tuesday that access to the state university system is inadequate in the 12 major coal-producing counties of southeastern Kentucky — Bell, Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Leslie,Letcher, Magoffin, Martin, Perry and Pike.

“Our students attend the state universities at one-third the rate of the rest of the state,” Patton said. “The students and the parents of southeastern Kentucky are inadequately and unfairly served by the present system of state universities.

“This is not the fault of the current eight universities. The problem is that there is no existing state university which can adequately serve this region because there is no current state university in this region.”

Bill would reward whistleblowers who root out fraud

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A bill that would encourage whistleblowers to help the state potentially recover millions of dollars in fraudulent claims was filed on Tuesday.

House Bill 401 would encourage people to root out fraud in all government contracts, including the more than $6 billion Medicaid program. The measure would allow people to turn over evidence to prosecutors and receive a portion of the money recovered. It would also allow the state to recover triple damages from a company that defrauds the state.

The federal False Claims Act allows the federal government to go after businesses that knowingly defraud the federal government. Nearly two dozen states also have state false claims acts, but not Kentucky.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, is the main sponsor of the bill and a former attorney general. Stumbo sponsored similar legislation last year that passed the House but died in the Senate. The Senate approved a separate false claims act bill that applied only to Medicaid providers.

Under Stumbo’s proposal, whistleblowers could get between 15 and 30 percent of the total amount collected.

“There is only so much our law enforcement and auditing officials can do and a limit to how far they can reach; this will put every citizen on the look-out for fraud,” Stumbo said.

The bill will be referred to a committee and is expected to pass the House again.

No compromise on congressional redistricting; issue probably headed to court

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — State lawmakers failed to redraw the boundaries of Kentucky’s six congressional districts before Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline, which means the issue probably will end up in court.

House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, told House members about 20 minutes after the 4 p.m. filing deadline that a compromise agreement between the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate could not be reached.

The House and Senate had delayed the original deadline from Jan. 31 to Feb. 7 to give the two sides more time to reach an agreement.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, had worked with members of congress on a possible compromise that late last week looked promising, House leaders said. But Senate Majority Leader Robert Stivers said Tuesday afternoon that the two sides appeared to “agree to disagree.”

Stumbo said congressional candidates will run in the state’s existing districts. That means someone — either a candidate or a national political party — will probably challenge the constitutionality of Kentucky’s districts.