All Entries in the "Steve Beshear" Category

State government’s revenue up 8.6 percent in January

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — State revenues continued to climb in January.

General Fund receipts for January rose 8.6 percent compared to January 2011, an increase of $63.8 million.

Total revenues were $808.2 million, compared to $744.4 million in January 2011, according to the Office of State Budget Director.

State Budget Director Mary Lassiter said the financial results are in line with the official revenue estimate if 2.8 percent growth for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. Revenues need to grow about 1.4 percent for the last five months of year to meet that estimate.

Receipts for the Road Fund, which is used for transportation projects, rose 10 percent in January compared to the previous year. Overall, the Road Fund has grown 7.8 percent from the previous year.

Japan gives Kentucky 20 cherry blossom trees

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Ambassador of Japan Ichiro Fujisaki announced Friday the donation of 20 cherry blossom trees to Kentucky.

Fujisaki, in a Capitol news conference on Friday, said the trees were meant as an expression of friendship and gratitude to the people of Kentucky, who were generous to Japan after the tsunami and earthquake last year.

The gift also commemorates the 100th anniversary of the gift of 3,000 cherry blossom trees from Japan to the United States in 1912. The trees dot Washington D.C.’s River Basin and are frequently photographed in the Spring.

Meanwhile, the Japan/American Society of Kentucky announced it will have its first Cherry Blossom Festival in downtown Lexington in May 2012, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

Beshear names 22 to tax reform commission

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear named 22 people, including former University of Kentucky President Lee Todd and Fayette County School superintendent Stu Silberman, to a commission that will draft a proposal to overhaul Kentucky’s tax code.

The commission must have its recommendations finished by Nov. 15, giving lawmakers time to review them before the 2013 General Assembly begins in January.

Beshear, speaking at a press Capitol conference on Thursday, said commission members come from diverse geographic areas and backgrounds. Lt. Gov Jerry Abramson will chair the commission.

The state has slashed more than $1 billion in planned spending over the past four years and Beshear’s proposed budget for the next two fiscal years would cut an additional $286 million. Some of those cuts have impacted core services, such as education.

Beshear: ‘Plenty of time’ left to consider expanded gambling

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear said Wednesday he will wait “a few more days” to unveil his long-anticipated constitutional amendment to expand gambling because of the uncertainty of legislative redistricting.

“I think we still have plenty of time to address that issue after redistricting is settled,” Beshear said to reporters after a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda to honor Black History Month.

Beshear said last December that he will present in the 2012 General Assembly a constitutional amendment to expand gambling. Wednesday is the 24th day of the 60-day session that must end by April 15.

Redistricting, or the redrawing of boundaries for legislative and congressional districts, has largely paralyzed the law-making session. Lawmakers generally don’t like to act on controversial issues until they know who their opponents will be.

Republican wins special House election in south-central Kentucky

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Republican Bart Rowland of Monroe County won a special election Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of former state Rep. James Comer, who was elected state agriculture commissioner last November.

Kentucky Republican Party Chairman Steve Robertson said Rowland unofficially captured more than 62 percent of the vote in the 53rd House District. It includes Cumberland, Green, Metcalfe and Monroe counties.

The Democratic candidate in the race was Barry Dean Steele of Metcalfe County.

Rowland will serve the remainder of Comer’s term, which runs to the end of this year.

Judge tosses new boundaries for state legislative districts

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

PDF: Read the injunction

FRANKFORT — A judge has declared Kentucky’s newly-drawn legislative districts unconstitutional and has ordered election officials to use previous district lines in this year’s state legislative elections.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd on Tuesday tossed out boundaries that lawmakers approved and Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law last month. The ruling was a victory for House Republicans and Democratic state Sen. Kathy Stein of Lexington, who challenged the constitutionality of House Bill 1.

Shepherd also extended the filing deadline for legislative candidates to 4 p.m. Friday, which gives legislative leaders time to decide whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Miller resigns as state health and family services secretary

FRANKFORT — The chief of Kentucky’s embattled Cabinet for Health and Family Services will step down on Feb. 29 to seek other opportunities, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday.

The resignation of Janie Miller comes at a difficult time for the agency that oversees Medicaid, child-protection, public health, programs for the elderly and other social services.

The cabinet has been under fire from health care providers, many of whom say they have not been paid or are receiving minimun payments since the state transitioned 560,000 Medicaid recipients to managed care on Nov. 1.

Under Miller’s leadership, the cabinet also has lost legal battles with Kentucky’s two largest newspapers over disclosure of state records regarding child abuse deaths.

One key lawmaker called on Miller to resign in December, saying the cabinet operates in a “shroud of secrecy,” but other leading lawmakers have praised Miller and called her resignation on Tuesday a “travesty.”

Medicaid asks for additional funding for substance abuse treatment

By Beth Musgrave

bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — If approved by the legislature, almost 6,000 additional people could be treated for substance abuse under the state-federal program for the poor and disabled.

Kentucky is one of seven states that does not offer substance abuse treatment in its Medicaid program.

With the number of Kentuckians with substance abuse on the rise, treating more people with addiction will not only improve health outcomes but will improve the state’s bottom line, said Stephen Hall, the commissioner of the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities.

The average cost of intensive outpatient drug addiction services is about $2,500. Adults who are not treated costs the taxpayers more than $23,000, some of those costs would include the cost of incarceration as well as other public benefits such as food stamps.

Moreover, studies of Kentucky drug treatment programs show dramatic increases in the level of employment of people who successfully complete drug treatment, Hall said.

Hall testified Monday before a House budget subcommittee on health and human services. The expansion of the state’s drug addiction services in the Medicaid program is one of several new spending items Gov. Steve Beshear has proposed in his two-year budget. Beshear has said that expanding drug treatment is key to tackling the state’s drug epidemic.

Budget cuts will delay implementation of new core education standards

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — The state’s top education leaders told a legislative panel Wednesday that proposed budget cuts to the Department of Education will delay implementation of new standards called for in a 2009 overhaul of Kentucky’s education system.

Terry Holliday, commissioner of the Department of Education, told a House budget subcommittee that cuts proposed under Gov. Steve Besehar’s two-year budget will also mean less money for teacher professional development and less money for technology assistance for local school districts. There also will be no new state money to help some schools that have been deemed low-performing schools.

Beshear’s proposed budget does not include cuts to the main funding formula for Kentucky schools, commonly called SEEK, or Support Educational Excellence in Kentucky. However, other parts of the education budget would be cut, including an 8.4 percent cut to administration and technology and a 4.5 percent cut to instruction, assessment and curriculum programs and to the Kentucky School for the Blind and the Kentucky School for the Deaf.

Beshear accuses Williams of trying to intimidate pro-casino senators

By John Cheves
jcheves@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear on Tuesday accused Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, of trying to intimidate Republican senators who support his casino gambling proposal.

“He is using intimidations and threats against fellow senators, including some in his own party,” Beshear said.

Williams later denied Beshear’s claim. He told reporters that he opposes the expansion of gambling in Kentucky, but he is not punishing senators who support it. Nobody is losing their committee chairmanships or other choice assignments because they disagree with him, Williams said.

“The governor has been untruthful about this issue for four years, and he continues to be untruthful,” Williams said.

Specifically, Beshear tied Williams to a story Tuesday in the Lexington Herald-Leader that raised questions about $208,835 in horse industry consulting fees collected by Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, during 2010 and part of 2011.