Release
Archives
Kentucky General
Assembly called into special session - 12/17/18
County clerks’ group talks elections with
lawmakers
-
11/28/18
Pension
plans need ongoing attention, oversight board told - 11/26/18
Legislative panel
apprised of bridge tolling - 11/19/18
Kentucky’s early
childhood programs reviewed by lawmakers - 11/16/18
Bourbon boom continues,
lawmakers told - 11/09/18
Kentucky cities share their priorities with lawmakers -
10/25/18
Kentucky dairy and
grain issues reviewed by panel - 10/11/18
Juvenile justice gaps targeted by agencies,
lawmakers
Kentucky wine industry gets additional support -
10/04/18
Legislative panel briefed on
future of state parks - 09/27/18
KY 911 service
discussed by state committee - 09/26/18
Legislative panel considers
bank tax reform - 09/26/18
Lawmakers study plans to
protect the vulnerable - 09/20/18
Legislative panel discusses medical
marijuana - 09/14/18
Calendar set for
General Assembly’s 2019 session - 09/06/18
Kentucky dairy, other farms look to the
future - 09/05/18
Kentucky Medicaid
program eyes options in face of shortfall - 08/30/18
State lawmakers check in on
federal bank regs - 08/29/18
Medical marijuana supporters pitch lawmakers
- 08/24/18
Kentucky looks at new reforms to cut jail,
prison population - 08/23/18
Lawmakers
review VA suicide prevention initiatives - 08/14/18
Step
right up: LRC fair booth informs citizens - 08/14/18
Panel looks at improvement
plans for state's bridges - 08/07/18
Water needs discussed by state legislative
panel - 08/07/18
Experts view youth violence as public health
crisis - 07/19/18
New state laws go into effect July 14 -
07/06/18
PSC
reviews state of Kentucky’s electric power plants -
06/7/18
Two new bridges could
widen funding gap - 06/6/18
Pension update
shows some improvement - 06/05/18
Felony expungement
reviewed by state legislative panel - 06/01/18
Kentucky’s tobacco
settlement money is in – with more coming - 05/02/18
Kentucky General
Assembly’s 2018 session ends
- 04/13/18
This Week at the State
Capitol - 04/13/18
General Assembly overrides budget
veto
-
04/13/18
Gang violence
legislation goes to governor - 04/13/18
This Week at the
State Capitol - 04/05/18
Foster care and
adoption reform bill goes to governor - 04/03/18
Road
Plan receives final passage, goes to governor
- 04/02/18
Abstinence education bill goes to governor
- 04/02/18
Pharmacy benefit manager bill goes to governor
- 04/02/18
$22
billion state spending plan receives final passage
- 04/02/18
State revenue bill heads to governor
- 04/02/18
Bourbon by mail: Bill
would make it possible - 04/02/18
This Week at the State
Capitol - 03/30/18
Public pension bill heading to governor
- 03/29/18
Police death benefits bill passes
Senate- 03/29/18
Workers’ comp bill going
to governor - 03/28/18
State lawmakers
adjust 2018 session calendar - 03/27/18
11-week abortion
measure goes to governor
- 03/27/18
This Week at
the State Capitol - 03/23/18
Senate approves worker’s comp bill
- 03/22/18
Senate green lights road plan
- 03/22/18
Senate approves 11-week abortion measure
- 03/22/18
Dyslexia intervention bill goes to governor
- 03/22/18
‘Revenge porn’ bill goes to governor
- 03/22/18
Judicial redistricting bill goes to governor
- 03/22/18
Police protection
bill advanced by Senate panel
- 03/22/18
Joyce Honaker
announced as 2018 Vic Hellard Jr. Award winner - 03/22/18
Senate plan tackles shortage of judges
- 03/21/18
Financial literacy bill on way to governor
- 03/21/18
Standards-for-treatment disorders bill goes to governor
- 03/21/18
Senate bill to curb gun violence OK’d by House panel
- 03/21/18
Law enforcement mental
health bill passes - 03/21/18
Senate passes state spending plan
- 03/20/18
Opioid overdose bill goes to Senate
- 03/20/18
Bill targeting pharmacy benefit managers amended by
House - 03/20/18
Eye bill receives final passage -
03/20/18
Line-of-duty death benefits bill goes to
Senate - 03/19/18
Senate approves personal finance education bill
-
03/19/18
This
Week at the State Capitol
- 03/16/18
Mental health bill aimed at curbing school violence clears House
- 03/16/18
Regulatory fee measure
goes to Senate
- 03/16/18
Gang violence legislation moves to
Senate
- 03/15/18
Bill would create annual “Day of
Prayer” for Kentucky students
- 03/15/18
Revenge porn bill passes in Senate
committee
- 03/15/18
Bill makes changes to rape and sodomy
laws
- 03/15/18
Net metering bill passes House, moves
to Senate
- 03/15/18
Online eye-exam bill passes Senate
- 03/15/18
Bill addresses the
prosecution of child molesters - 03/15/18
Bill seeks
to address felons carrying guns
- 03/14/18
Senate bill
promotes safe disposal of narcotics
- 03/14/18
Child
marriage bill proceeds to full House
- 03/14/18
Bill
addresses the prosecution of child molesters
-
03/14/18
Body camera bill passes House, moves
to Senate
- 03/13/18
Attorney concealed-carry
bill passes the House - 03/13/18
Home baking bill passes
Senate committee - 03/13/18
Bicycle-safety bill coasts
through Senate - 03/12/18
11-week abortion
measure goes to Senate
- 03/12/18
Insurance fraud bill moves to Senate -
03/12/18
This Week at the State
Capitol
- 03/08/18
Anti-child pornography
measure goes to governor’s desk - 03/08/18
Bill to amp up pharmacists’ role in
opioid fight goes to Senate
-
03/08/18
Holocaust education bill
passes House, goes to Senate
- 03/07/18
Road
plan, related bills pass House, sent to Senate
- 03/07/18
11-week abortion measure
passes House panel
- 03/07/18
Attorney concealed-carry bill given committee OK
- 03/07/18
Senate Panel
approves bicycle-safety bill - 03/07/18
Finalists for Vic
Hellard Jr. Award announced - 03/07/18
Disabled parking placard bill goes to Senate
- 03/06/18
House receives bill encouraging palliative care
- 03/06/18
Fertility treatment coverage bill goes to House
- 03/06/18
Benefit fraud bill clears House 63-32
- 03/06/18
Road
plan, related bills OK’d by House budget committee
- 03/06/18
Senate moves auto insurance
legislation - 03/06/18
Senate moves bill aimed at pregnant inmates
-
03/05/18
Judicial review bill clears House committee
-
03/05/18
This
Week at the State Capitol
- 03/02/18
Pawnbroker bill given final passage in House, goes to governor
- 03/02/18
Military recruitment bill passes House, goes to Senate
- 03/02/18
Infrastructure security measure clears state House, 80-1
- 03/02/18
Senate moves to keep liquor license quotas
- 03/02/18
Senate bill targets pharmacy benefit managers
- 03/02/18
Medical tort-reform
bill moves to House
- 03/02/18
$22.5 billion state spending plan passes House, moves to Senate
- 03/01/18
Legislature eases sales cap at microbreweries
- 03/01/18
The verdict: Senate
committee OKs volunteer jurors - 03/01/18
Adoption and foster care
reform bill passed by House - 02/28/18
Pharmacy clawback bills goes to full House
-
02/28/18
Truck platooning: It could be coming to KY roads
-
02/27/18
Senate grants final passage to peer review bill
-
02/27/18
Bill to crack down on accessible parking abuses
goes to House
-
02/27/18
Bill targets craft brewery
package beer sales - 02/27/18
The
Senate passes telehealth care bill
- 02/26/18
Service animal standards
bill goes to Senate - 02/26/18
This Week at the State Capitol
- 02/23/18
Home baker bill
approved by House today - 02/23/18
KY Senate votes
to strengthen laws against sexual molestation - 02/23/18
Nominations being accepted for 2018 Vic Hellard Jr. Award
- 02/22/18
Adoption and foster care reform bill goes to
full House
- 02/22/18
Committee considers restricting sex offender
use of social media
- 02/22/18
Sex trafficking prevention measure passes the
Senate - 02/22/18
Workers’ comp reform bill moves to Senate - 02/21/18
Senators look to curb sales of pilfered items - 02/21/18
Terrorism bill approved by
House panel
- 02/21/18
Dyslexia intervention
bills move to House floor - 02/20/18
This Week at the
State Capitol - 02/16/18
Bill to expand
uses of jail canteen funds goes to governor
- 02/15/18
Senate gives final
passage to organ donor bill
- 02/15/18
Workers’ comp
reform bill heads to House floor
-
02/15/18
Senate
committee examines child marriage
- 02/15/18
Law enforcement
protection measure goes to full House
- 02/14/18
House OK’s hemp
resolution
- 02/14/18
Barber and hairdresser fee bill OK’d
by House committee
-
02/14/18
Senate passes bill directing money to jail security
-
02/13/18
Eye bill clears House, rolls over to Senate
-
02/13/18
Senate committee moves
alcohol-licensing bill - 02/13/18
Resolution asks Congress to
remove hemp from definition of marijuana - 02/13/18
This Week at the State Capitol
- 02/09/18
Homeschool sports bill wins House approval, goes to Senate
- 02/09/18
School district relief bill advances to Senate
- 02/09/18
Blow-drying bill passes Senate
- 02/08/18
Senate bill addresses pregnant workers’ rights
- 02/08/18
Net metering bill gets
go-ahead by House panel - 02/08/18
Senate weighs in on feed truck regs
- 02/07/18
Gang
violence legislation moves to House floor
- 02/07/18
Senate moves accountability measure for cities
- 02/07/18
Relief bill for ailing school districts clears House panel
- 02/06/18
Bill
to require teaching of Holocaust passes committee
- 02/06/18
Essential skills bill
approved by committee
- 02/06/18
This Week at the State Capitol
- 02/02/18
Bicycle helmet bill rolls
on to Senate - 02/02/18
What’s in a name: It matters with state
property
- 02/01/18
Senate moves terrorism-related bill
- 02/01/18
Eye bill focused on
online technology clears House committee - 02/01/18
Financial literacy bill passes House, goes to Senate
-
01/31/18
Bill seeks to relieve
battered spouses of abuser’s legal fees - 01/31/18
General Assembly’s 2018
Session Calendar updated - 01/30/18
Bicycle helmet
requirement approved by House committee - 01/30/18
Life
behind the wheel: Bill would let some inmates drive
-
01/30/18
Organ and tissue donation
bill moves to Senate - 01/29/18
Electrician licensing bill flows through Senate
- 01/25/18
Bill
to address state regulatory process clears House
-
01/25/18
Bill says abused spouse
shouldn’t have to cover imprisoned abuser’s divorce costs -
01/25/18
Marsy’s Law approved by lawmakers; Ky. voters will decide on
measure
- 01/24/18
Senate passes bill requiring abstinence education
- 01/24/18
Medical marijuana resolution clears House hurdle
- 01/24/18
Bill
regulating naming of state property advances
- 01/24/18
Consumer credit protection
bill passes House committee - 01/24/18
Bill to give local
governments more revenue options OK’d by House - 01/23/18
Bill addressing electrician licenses goes to
Senate - 01/23/18
Marsy’s Law proposal passes House committee -
01/22/18
House approves bills targeting child
pornography, sex offenders
- 01/19/18
Bill
addressing opioid crisis goes to House
-
01/18/18
Panel advances bill to give local
governments more revenue options
-
01/18/18
Bill would secure child pornography held in
court proceedings
- 01/18/18
This Week in Frankfort
- 01/12/18
LRC to host
legislative agent workshop
- 01/12/18
State Senate and House will
not convene Jan. 12
- 01/11/18
Bill
places focus on rare diseases
- 01/11/18
Bill
to change how State Treasury is funded goes to House
- 01/11/18
Senate advances bill to change election dates
- 01/11/18
Senate panel addresses dogs
and cats left in cars - 01/11/18
Senate moves to enshrine
victims’ rights in KY - 01/10/18
Bill places focus on rare
diseases - 01/10/18
Organ and tissue
donation bill advances - 01/10/18
House panel advances
two constitutional amendments - 01/08/18
This Week at the State Capitol
-
01/05/18
December
17, 2018
Kentucky General Assembly called
into special session
FRANKFORT – The General Assembly has
been called upon by Gov. Matt Bevin to convene an
Extraordinary Session today.
The governor’s proclamation states that
the special session’s sole purpose is to consider
legislation regarding the state’s public employee pension
plans.
The
proclamation calls for the
legislative session to begin today at 8 p.m.
--END--
November 28, 2018
County clerks’ group talks
elections with lawmakers
FRANKFORT--How to give more leeway
to Kentucky voters who want to cast ballots before Election
Day was considered by some state lawmakers today during
committee testimony from the Kentucky County Clerks
Association.
Although Kentucky voters can cast
absentee ballots in-person or by mail during set periods
before an election with a valid excuse, Rep. Jerry Miller,
R-Louisville, told the Interim Joint Committee on Local
Government that many hospital and air transport workers in
his area have difficulty voting because of their changeable
work schedules.
“Inside the two-week period for
requesting an absentee (ballot) they learn they’re going to
be in Shanghai or Anchorage, Alaska on Election Day, and at
that point it’s just too late for them to vote,” Miller
said. He asked Kentucky County Clerks Association (KCCA)
President and Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe if
consideration has been given to expanding absentee voting so
those workers have more options.
As a county clerk in Northern
Kentucky -- which is home to the Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky International Airport—Summe said she understands
the challenge of meeting the voting needs of airport
workers. But she cautioned that providing options may come
with added costs for counties, asking lawmakers to consider
how sustainable some changes may be.
Early voting, specifically, raises
certain questions, Summe told the committee.
“My county is huge, so even if I
had three voting centers in the center of my state, how
would I fund that? Where would I have them? How would I pay
(election workers)?” she asked.
No broad support for early voting
was voiced by the committee although Rep. Steve Riggs,
D-Louisville, mentioned early voting as a possibility. Riggs
said the state’s two-step mail-in absentee ballot
process—which requires a voter to turn in an absentee ballot
application before receiving a mail-in ballot—is
“cumbersome.”
“The way we do it now is more than
100 years old with very few changes,” Riggs said. “It keeps
people from voting because it’s not as convenient as it
needs to be. I’m not sure we need that in a democracy.”
Summe said some changes may be
necessary, but asked that lawmakers consider that early
voting in addition to voting on Election Day would be
“expensive.” And those costs, she said, will draw money away
from counties.
“So you have to really, I think,
have a conversation, which I would love to have,” said
Summe.
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Dan
Seum, R-Fairdale, told Summe he is concerned about a lack of
poll workers in the state. He asked about worker pay, which
Summe said is set by each county. In her county, she said
poll workers are paid $20 per two-hour training class and
$150 for a 12-hour Election Day shift.
Seum said the dearth of workers
poses some real problems for election operations.
“The danger now I think … if we’re
getting a shortage of poll workers, now we’re going to think
about combining precincts, which then, now you’ve got travel
time, the poll is now farther away from someone. So that’s a
danger,” he said.
But Summe said that “danger” can
also be an opportunity. Having more flexibility, she said,
can benefit voters.
On the issue of precincts, Interim
Joint Committee on Local Government Co-Chair Rep. Rob
Rothenburger asked if modern voting machines could eliminate
the need for more precincts by accommodating more voters per
precinct without lengthening voting lines. Summe said that
is a possibility.
“The precincts themselves – the new
equipment does alleviate a lot of those particular timing
issues and should allow for a precinct to be bigger, but the
statutes could be a little clearer on how that would work,”
she said.
KCCA was one of many local
government associations sharing its legislative priorities
for the 2019 Regular Session, which starts in January. Some
other associations that came before the panel to share their
session goals included the Kentucky Association of Counties,
the Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association and the Kentucky County
Judge-Executive Association.
--END--
November 27, 2018
Pension plans need ongoing
attention, oversight board told
FRANKFORT— Funding for Kentucky’s
public pension systems continues to be challenge, a state
retirement official told a state pension oversight board
yesterday.
With the KERS (Kentucky Employees
Retirement System) nonhazardous plan now less than 13
percent funded with around $13.5 billion in unfunded
liabilities – making it the worst-funded of all the state’s
pension plans – Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS) Executive
Director David Eager told the Public Pension Oversight Board
that legislative attention is needed.
“We’re pretty close to pay as you go on
KERS nonhazardous,” Eager said, explaining to the board that
pension funds have decreased as retirements rise and payroll
contributions fall.
“If we receive no contribution and no
investment income, it’d be insolvent in two years,” Eager
said of the KERS nonhazardous plan. “That’s not going to
happen. We’re going to get contributions and hopefully we’re
going to get investment income. (But) we’re in a very
fragile state.”
Some good news shared by Eager and KRS
Deputy Executive Director Karen Roggenkamp indicates that
the unfunded liability for KRS overall decreased by $450
million between 2017 and 2018, thanks mostly to a decrease
in the unfunded liability of retiree health insurance plans.
“So we gained $450 million on that
unfunded,” Eager said.
The KRS actuarial review excludes
legislative changes made under 2018 Senate Bill 151 – the
2018 General Assembly’s pension reform bill – which is
pending a ruling from the Kentucky Supreme Court.
KRS’ County Employees Retirement System
(CERS) nonhazardous pension plan’s funding level dipped only
slightly from 52.8 percent to 52.7 percent in 2018,
accompanied by a slight uptick in the pension plan’s
unfunded liability, according to a state legislative
actuarial and financial update provided to the board.
Showing improvement is the Teachers’
Retirement System, the state’s retirement system for
Kentucky’s active and retired educators.
The funding level for the TRS pension plan increased
from 56.4 percent to 57.7 percent in 2018, according to the
legislative update, while the pension system’s unfunded
liability was unchanged.
The unfunded liability for the state’s
pension plans overall (including KRS, TRS, and the Judicial
Retirement Plan and Legislators Retirement Plan) totals
$37.97 billion for 2018 – an increase of $430 million over
previous levels, according to preliminary numbers included
in the legislative update.
--END--
November
19, 2018
Legislative panel apprised of bridge tolling
FRANKFORT – Motorists have paid more
than $168 million in tolls to cross three major interstate
bridges connecting Louisville and Southern Indiana since the
implementation of electronic tolling in December 2016.
And that number exceeded projections by
$75.6 million for last fiscal year alone, said Megan McLain
of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet while testifying
before today’s meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on
Transportation.
“We are meeting all of our projections
by a fairly large margin,” said McLain, the innovative
finance manager for the cabinet. She added that there is an
average of 33 million annual traffic trips across the
bridges, or eight million more than projected.
Starting earlier this year,
registrations on vehicles couldn’t be renewed if their
owners had an overdue toll. Since that time, McLain said
43,000 outstanding tolls have been paid totaling about $3
million. She added that there are currently 97,000 “holds”
on vehicle registration renewals because of unpaid tolls.
“Registration holds are our primary
form of enforcement so we are very happy with how that has
been going,” McLain said.
She also touted new features on the
tolling system’s website. That included the ability to pay a
toll online before an invoice is created. A motorist can now
provide their license-plate number instead of an invoice
number to pay a toll.
“Our citizenry seems to be very earnest
and honest and they wanted to pay before that,” McLain said
of the feature. “They didn’t want that hanging over their
head. They didn’t want to wait for an invoice.”
Referring to complaints about poor
customer service, McLain said that the bi-state tolling
system, named RiverLink, now has 85 employees performing
customer-service duties. She said call wait times average
under one minute, time to respond to emails average one day
and time to respond to letters average three days.
Rep. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, asked
whether lessons learned from the tolling of the
Louisville-area bridges could benefit any projections on how
tolling would go if implemented on a long-sought-after
Interstate 69 Ohio River crossing – dubbed I-69 ORX – in the
Henderson area.
“I would be very disappointed in us if
we didn’t take the lessons learned in Louisville and apply
them to our next tolling project,” McLain said. “I do think
we will have a system that starts even better than the
Louisville one did from the very beginning.”
Rep. Al Gentry, D-Louisville, asked how
effective the license plate cameras are in picturing the
plates of vehicles who cross the bridges without a
transponder – an electronic device placed on the inside of
the windshield that is used to detect crossings on a tolled
facility. He added that he has driven across the
Louisville-area toll bridges about a half-dozen times
without a transponder and never received a bill.
McLain said that while the cameras
don’t capture every license plate number, the all-electronic
tolling system is so much less expensive to operate that it
makes up for lost revenue.
“While we might not collect as much
gross revenue, in the end, or net revenue is higher because
our expenses are lower,” she said.
Rep. Sal Santoro, R-Florence, said he
is receiving complaints about the cost of the tolls from
trucker associations. He asked if the transportation cabinet
has any proposals to provide relief to trucking companies
that use the bridges multiple times a day.
McLain said the toll policy is set by a
board with members appointed from both Kentucky and Indiana.
“Any changes we would make to toll policy would have to go
through that board,” she said.
McLain added that while some trucking
companies have expressed concerns about the cost of the
tolls, others have said the extra costs were made up by
quicker travel times the two new Louisville bridges
provided.
-- END --
November
16, 2018
Kentucky’s early childhood
programs reviewed by lawmakers
FRANKFORT— Voices of state officials
reading story books to children in the State Capitol rotunda
echoed through the building’s halls today as the state’s
legislative Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight
Committee met in the Annex next door.
Governor’s Office of Early Childhood
(GOEC) Executive Director Linda Hampton told the panel that
turning the rotunda into a classroom for a day to support
the state’s “Believe in Me KY” literacy and adoption/foster
care initiative showcases some of the good things that
Kentucky’s tobacco settlement dollars make possible.
“All of this could not have happened
(except) through the importance of the tobacco money because
again, the fact truly is literacy is the foundation for
learning,” said Hampton.
Kentucky lawmakers budgeted over
$24.5 million in its tobacco settlement funds for its Early
Childhood programs in fiscal year 2018, Hampton reported.
Most of those funds are allocated to two programs, child
care assistance and the HANDS (or Health Access Nurturing
Development Services) Program. HANDS received slightly more
than the child care program – or $9 million—in fiscal year
2018, according to GOEC.
HANDS is overseen by the Department
for Public Health, which also administers the state’s Early
Childhood Mental Health (ECMH) program that serves mostly
children from birth through age 5 and their families. The
department’s Early Childhood Development Branch manager
Paula Goff told the panel that adverse experiences in
children too young to read can lead to trouble later on.
“Children who don’t have good social
and emotional development – they don’t form good attachments
with caring adults – as they get older, we read about them
in the newspaper. We see what happens to them splattered
across our TVs, and right now many of those children if you
look back … they’re in prison,” said Goff. Breaking that
cycle means offering supports for them and their families,
she said.
Her branch helps toward that end by
using state tobacco dollars to provide support to families
by funding services from mental health specialists in their
“off hours,” Goff said. In fiscal year 2018, the ECMH served
over 4,700 children and families and helped train over 1,000
staff in Head Start, childcare and state-funded preschool.
The HANDS program provides hands-on
training to parents of young children through a voluntary
home visiting program handled by local health departments.
Over 5,500 first-time parents were served by that program
with the support of state tobacco funds in fiscal year 2018,
said Goff.
What Goff called the “proven
effectiveness” of the HANDS program – which has been in
place statewide since the year 2000 – has led the state to
expand the program’s reach to families with more than one
child. That part of the program is funded through a 2011
federal grant and non-tobacco dollars, she said.
Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund
Oversight Committee Co-Chair Myron Dossett, R-Pembroke,
asked Goff how parents can receive support from HANDS. She
said parents are referred for support from a number of
sources including physicians and hospitals.
“It’s an open referral,” she said.
“Once the health department gets the referral, they’ll call
that family.”
A baby must be no older than three
months to be eligible for services through the HANDS program
under current state regulation, Goff said. But some mothers
of older infants (up to six months of age) have a brand-new
program to help them out. That program, called HEART
(Healing Empowering Actively Recovering Together), is geared
toward mothers in recovery from substance abuse, she said.
“Because not everybody gets captured
in that first three months of life who would like to
participate,” said Goff. The HEART program is now operating
in Floyd County, but Goff there are plans to expand it to
other areas.
Sen. Minority Whip Dennis Parrett,
D-Elizabethtown, said an abandoned baby shared the same
hospital nursery as his daughter some 30 years ago. He asked
GOEC and Goff what services are available for abandoned
infants. Most of those children, Goff said, end up in foster
care.
There are more than 10,000 children
in Kentucky’s foster care system right now, said Hampton.
“There are so many children who are
abandoned, and they don’t have anything,” she said. “What
they do have is folks like you who saw that. They have folks
like all of us who are morally obligated to be there for our
children.”
Kentucky’s tobacco settlement
dollars are drawn from the state’s share of a 1998
multi-billion-dollar settlement between major tobacco
companies and 46 states.
--END--
November 9, 2018
Bourbon boom continues, lawmakers told
FRANKFORT – Kentucky Distillers’
Association officials appeared before a legislative panel
today to unveil their priorities for the General Assembly’s
upcoming session, set to begin on Jan. 8.
“One of our top priorities is to pursue
legislation to bolster the ignition interlock devise statute
that we currently have in the state,” said Bryan Alvey, the
association’s senior director of governmental and external
affairs, while testifying before the Interim Joint Committee
on Licensing, Occupations and Administrative Regulations.
“Our industry takes social responsibility very seriously.”
The state’s current ignition interlock
device statute was last amended in 2015 with the passage of
Senate Bill 133. It requires some people convicted of
driving under the influence to blow into a breathalyzer-type
device to start their vehicle. The association would like to
expand the program.
Alvey said the group also supports
stiffer penalties for minors who possess fake IDs in
addition to expanding Louisville’s driving under the
influence (DUI) court to other parts of the state.
“We think these efforts will also help
public safety as a whole,” Alvey said.
Another legislative priority is to make
a change to a tax provision included in 2018’s House Bill
366. Alvey said the state revenue cabinet has interpreted
the law in an unfavorable way to distillers. He said that
has resulted in distillery tour tickets purchased through
tour companies being taxed twice – or at a 12 percent rate.
“We are the heaviest taxed industry in
the state,” Alvey said. “Anything we can do to minimize our
tax burden would be greatly appreciated.”
Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon
Thayer, R-Georgetown, said tour tickets being taxed twice
was the result of what he believes is a misinterpretation by
the state revenue cabinet.
“I do think it is our responsibility to
clean that up,” he said. “That is not what we meant to
happen.”
The association is also looking to
extend a provision in 2015’s Senate Bill 11 that allows a
voting precinct in a “dry” county to go “wet.” Alvey said
the provision has allowed distilleries in dry counties to
serve bourbon samples to visitors in addition to selling
distilled spirits.
Kevin Smith, chair the association’s
public affairs committee, testified at the hearing on the
health of Kentucky’s bourbon industry. He said this year’s
tax assessed value of aging barrels is $3 billion, up $456
million from 2017. He added that premium small batch and
single barrel brands are now driving the “bourbon
revolution.”
Smith said there are 8.1 million
barrels of bourbon in Kentucky. That’s almost two barrels
for every person living in the state, he said.
Distillers have made $485 million in
capital investments since 2011, Smith said, and plan to
spend another $620 million on capital improvements in the
next five years.
Rep. Jerry T. Miller, R-Louisville,
asked how many people are employed by Kentucky’s distillers.
Smith said the distillers belonging to the organization had
17,500 employees last year and an annual payroll of $800
million. That figure doesn’t include nonmember distillers
such as Buffalo Trace in Frankfort.
“We (Kentucky) dominate the bourbon
production landscape, but we are always mindful to know that
this is something that is potentially in jeopardy,” Smith
said, who is also a vice president for the multinational
spirits company Beam Suntory. He said recent tariffs on
distilled spirits have the potential of being disruptive to
the industry.
“I mention this to you because I know a
lot of leadership mentions that this isn’t hurting the
industry, but I’ll tell you ... our company is already
seeing millions of dollars lost in revenue as a result of
these tariffs,” he said.
Smith said that his employer has
declined – so far – to pass along the increased costs to
consumers.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy
Higdon, R-Lebanon, pointed out to association officials that
half the world’s bourbon is stored in his district.
“I’m very proud of that fact, and I’m
very proud to be in bourbon country,” he said.
Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, who
co-chairs the committee, ended the meeting by announcing the
panel’s last meeting of interim will be on Dec. 10 in
Frankfort.
--END--
October
25, 2018
Kentucky cities share their
priorities with lawmakers
FRANKFORT—Kentucky cities continue
to call for separation of their retirement system from the
Kentucky Retirement Systems as state lawmakers gear up for
the General Assembly’s 2019 regular session.
Separating the County Employees
Retirement System (CERS) from KRS is the top priority of
Kentucky cities, according to Kentucky League of Cities
(KLC) President and Mayfield Mayor Teresa Rochetti-Cantrell.
She told the Interim Joint Committee on Local Government
yesterday that while CERS is the KRS’s largest system with
nearly $9 billion – or 75 percent – of KRS assets, CERS only
holds 35 percent of the seats on the KRS Board of Trustees.
Talk of a possible CERS separation
from KRS has been ongoing since at least 2016, based on news
reports.
“Cities want to ensure that the
promised made to (our) workers are kept,” Rochetti-Cantrell
told the committee yesterday.
Legislation filed in 2017 by Interim
Joint Committee on Local Government Co-Chair Sen. Joe Bowen,
R-Owensboro, would have allowed the separation from KRS over
a four-year period. Separate laws governing administration,
benefits and investments of the CERS would have been
established under Bowen’s Senate Bill 226, which stalled
late in the session.
When asked today by Rep. DJ Johnson,
R-Owensboro, about how KLC envisions the separation, KLC
Deputy Executive Director J.D. Chaney said it would take
time to separate CERS assets from KRS, which is why SB 226
would have provided for a four-year transition. Both systems
could have retained their own management staff during that
time, he said, allowing for resolution of any fiscal issues.
Johnson said he sees that as “a
doubling of effort, possibly a doubling of cost. And I don’t
see where the solution to take care of that is at this
point.” But Chaney said most of the administrative costs,
around 63 percent, are already paid by CERS.
Chaney said “traditional allocation
of cost” would likely continue under separation, adding that
KLC is flexible on that issue “if there was a compelling
policy argument.”
Also commenting on the cost of
separation was Rep. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington. Simpson
said recent figures shared by KRS before the state Public
Pension Oversight Board indicate that separation may be
cost-prohibitive. Chaney countered that KRS’s figures
actually support CERS’s argument that separation is better
for local government employees.
“If it’s going to cost the state
system more for us to separate on an ongoing basis, it shows
they have been relying on CERS assets to make those
purchases…” said Chaney, adding that CERS alone should be
able to recover “in short order.”
KLC’s second highest priority for
the 2019 session is road funding – namely, getting more of
the state’s gas tax revenue. Rochetti-Cantrell said KLC
proposes that the 2019 General Assembly adopt a compromise
between KLC and the Kentucky Association of Counties that
would give cities and counties an equal 13 percent share of
gas tax revenues above $825 million, which KLC reports was
the total available for revenue sharing in fiscal year 2014.
“This helps ensure cities that are
often the center of commerce and activity within a county
have the funds necessary to ensure the upkeep and safety of
high-traffic areas, while also holding counties harmless,”
Rochetti-Cantrell told the committee.
Other KLC priorities for 2019
include state legislation that gives cities greater revenue
flexibility and protection, support for cities’ continued
fight against opioid abuse, and updating state laws that
adhere to an outdated population-based city classification
system updated in 2014.
Bowen advised KLC to carefully
consider its top priority as session nears, cautioning the
group on “the contentious nature of pensions.”
“My only counsel to you would be—and
I know how much you’re advocating for that—but I sure
wouldn’t sacrifice some of these other priorities in an
over-energized effort maybe on that. That’s just some
parting counsel to you as I walk out the door,” said Bowen,
who is not running for reelection this year.
--END--
October 11, 2018
Kentucky dairy and grain issues
reviewed by panel
FRANKFORT—A pending revised U.S.
free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada could mean big
gains in trade for Kentucky agriculture, state lawmakers
heard yesterday.
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner
Ryan Quarles told the Interim Joint Committee on Agriculture
that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) which
he referred to as “NAFTA 2.0” would almost eliminate tariffs
on all U.S. commodities and have a positive impact on
Kentucky agriculture. The agreement has yet to be ratified
by the U.S. Congress or the other two countries.
One Kentucky agricultural industry
eager for the agreement is the dairy industry, hard-hit by
dwindling milk consumption and falling market prices. Rep.
Rob Rothenburger, R-Shelbyville, asked Quarles if the USMCA
would impact dairy trade with Canada, and the response was
yes.
Quarles said the “major sense of
contention” between the U.S. and Canada has concerned a
class of processed milk products that includes skim milk and
whole milk powder – classified by Canada as “Class 7 dairy
products” – which Quarles said the U.S. believes has not
been treated fairly.
The issue is one that “fortunately,
the USMCA does address,” he told Rothenburger. “It is a
bright spot for American agriculture.”
Here in Kentucky, Quarles said the
dairy market has begun to stabilize thanks to efforts by the
state to find markets for Kentucky milk. Last week’s
groundbreaking in Somerset for $5 million plant expansion of
Prairie Farms milk plant is also some bright news for
Kentucky, he said. The national dairy outlook, however, is
less reassuring.
“Nationwide there’s a contraction. I
can’t tell you what’s going to happen next, but we’re trying
with some of the federal rules; the milk ordering system is
something I think can be tweaked that can help Kentucky,”
said Quarles.
Kentuckians can help their dairy
industry, he said, by drinking more milk. Per capita
consumption of milk nationally is down three gallons per
person since 2011 and down nine gallons per person since
1980, he added.
“The best thing we can do here in
Kentucky to help show support for our dairy farmers is,
number one, remind folks that milk is the (state’s) official
drink,” said Quarles.
Also discussed was the impact of
September’s heavy rains on the state’s grain crop this year.
Committee Chairman Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, said
farmers are seeing steep discounts in prices paid for
soybeans and other grain because of damaged grain quality.
He said that has been troublesome for farmers in a year
where world grain prices are “terribly depressed” despite
high yields.
“We’ve got to do a better job of
being consistent in these grading methods” when grading
grain quality, said Hornback. “This is a very serious issue,
and it doesn’t just deal with soybeans.”
Speaking on the issue before the
committee for the industry was Hopkinsville Elevator Company
general manager Eston Glover III.
He said this is the
first time in 17 or 18 years that his company has seen
damage issues with soybeans. Elevator companies both store
and buy grain, like corn and soybeans, for market.
“This is a unique situation,” said
Glover. He said the people who work for him are very
experienced with grading in normal situations but that
unique situations like Kentucky has experienced this year
require “some extensive training. We have to retrain
ourselves on the situation too, and make sure that we’re
consistent.”
Hornback pre-filed legislation
yesterday that he said will give the Kentucky Department of
Agriculture more authority to investigate grain discounts
and ensure consistency.
“I mainly want the (elevator
companies) to know throughout the state that the
Commissioner, myself and everybody else that we are
watching, that you can’t take advantage of our farmers. That
we have to do a better job at being consistent in these
grading methods,” he said.
--END--
October
5, 2018
Juvenile
justice gaps targeted by agencies, lawmakers
FRANKFORT— Nearly two years after his bill to reduce the
number of minority youth in Kentucky’s juvenile justice
system stalled in committee, the state Senate Judiciary
Committee chairman says he will champion similar legislation
in 2019.
Senate
Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Whitney Westerfield,
R-Hopkinsville, announced at today’s Interim Joint Committee
on Judiciary his intention to file legislation addressing
“disproportionate minority contact” in the state’s justice
system during the upcoming 2019 session. Westerfield was
also the sponsor of 2017 Senate Bill 20, aimed at reducing
the disproportionate number of mainly African-American youth
in Kentucky’s justice system.
The West
Kentucky lawmaker said the racial imbalance among minors in
the state’s juvenile justice system became clear after
Kentucky passed juvenile justice reforms in 2014.
“It has
brought into sharp relief the numbers that we see in
Kentucky that are pretty stark, depending on which
county you’re looking at,” said Westerfield. “We see a very
disproportionate number of youth of color in the system (in
some parts of the state). It is out of proportion to their
share of the population. It shouldn’t be that way.”
States are
required to try and reduce disproportionate minority
contact, or DMC—which the U.S. Department of Justice
characterizes on its website as “overrepresentation of
minority youth in the nation’s juvenile justice system”—per
federal law passed by Congress in 2002.
Westerfield
said his 2019 proposal will incorporate input based on DMC
data from various state agencies including the
Administrative Office of the Courts. Data shared today by
the AOC’s Department of Family and Juvenile Services
Executive Officer Rachel Bingham showed that African
American youth are the most overrepresented in the state’s
justice system.
Eleven
percent of the state’s youth population is African American
while 81 percent of the same population is white, said
Bingham. Yet for the first six months of 2017, 25 percent of
the more than 12,000 complaints made to the state’s Court
Designated Worker (CDW) program (which processes criminal
and noncriminal complaints against juveniles) were levied
against African American youth. That percentage dropped
slightly to 22 percent for the same period this year, she
said.
“Again, if
you look at the 25 (percent) and 22 (percent)—over double of
what our youth population is for African American youth at
11 percent. We consider that to be disproportionate,” said
Bingham.
Data
regarding “public offenses” – or offenses committed by
juveniles which are treated the same as adult crimes – for
the first six months of this year also showed disparities
between African American and white youth, she told
lawmakers. African Americans youth comprise 16 percent
of charges for public offenses at school, and 29 percent of
charges for public offenses out in the community.
The state
looked at national research into why the percentages are so
different, said Bingham, and found that the answer may rest
in how we see African American youth out in the community.
“We do know
that research says there is a way that we see kids of color
and we actually age kids of color—in all actuality up to
three years, she said. “Are we more harshly charging our
youth out in the community just because of our own … biases
that we related to our own history? What’s the difference
between those non-school related (charges)?”
AOC Director
Laurie Dudgeon said some suggestions of the state Juvenile
Justice Oversight Council (JJOC) that lawmakers may want to
consider are: eliminating charges for children under age 12,
instead referring them to FAIR (Family, Accountability,
Intervention and Response) teams created under the 2014
juvenile reforms; mandatory diversion of certain cases, and;
close examination of the state’s youthful offender law.
“We see the
disparity numbers much less coming out of our schools than
when we don’t know people at all,” Dudgeon said. “And
I think that’s based on the really objective set of criteria
we have for our status offenses. I think if we could take
another look at the youthful offender statute that would be
a great place to start.”
Juvenile
Justice Advisory Board member Pastor Edward Palmer, Sr.
suggested that lawmakers also consider mandatory diversion
for eligible children in the juvenile justice system.
“What we
know from research is that the deeper they go in, the more
likely they are … to end up part of the adult criminal
system,” Palmer said.
Sen. John
Schickel, R-Union, said lawmakers should also consider where
crime occurs when looking at why numbers are what they are.
“There’s
nowhere in this presentation that addresses the fact that
the vast majority of violent crime is coming from these
areas,” he said. “So it would only stand to reason that
there would be more contact. And to try and make the contact
some correlation between the population is, to me, unfair
and is not in the interest of justice.”
Rep. Joni
Jenkins, D-Shively, said children entering the justice
system at a young age is one of her concerns.
“I think the
younger you bring a child into the system, the worse your
outcomes are. So I think that’s one area that we should look
at – are we criminalizing children of color at a higher rate
than we are white children?” she said.
--END--
October 4, 2018
Kentucky wine industry gets
additional support
FRANKFORT— Grapes are used to
make Kentucky wine, but not all of those grapes come from
Kentucky.
It’s a conundrum that Kentucky grape
growers and wineries face as growers struggle to find grape
varieties suitable to Kentucky’s soil and climate.
“We can grow grapes – finding the
right varieties (is the challenge),” Kentucky Governor’s
Office of Agricultural Policy Executive Director Warren
Beeler told the Tobacco Settlement Agreement Oversight
Committee yesterday.
Beeler said Kentucky wineries often
find it easier to buy juice from the grapes used in their
wine than to grow the grapes themselves. That has caused
grape production in the state to level off, he said, but
that could change. Researchers at the University of Kentucky
are currently trying to identify grape varieties that are
best suited for growth here in the Commonwealth.
“The viticulture (grape production)
folks at UK have got to find out what we can grow, and then
maybe we can get back to expanding,” Beeler told the
committee.
To help UK achieve its goal, the
Kentucky Agricultural Development Board (KADB) in August
approved up to $390,189 in state tobacco settlement funds
for the UK Research Foundation to support research into wine
grape varieties that can be grown in Kentucky. That
research, overseen by the state’s Viticulture and Enology
Extension Program, will receive the funds over two years.
Last month, the KADB approved
$280,000 in state funds to support the Kentucky Grape & Wine
Council (KGWC). Those funds will support marketing and
wholesale reimbursement incentives for the wine industry,
according to a KADB news release.
The reimbursement incentives –
offered as grants through the KGWC in cooperation with the
state Department of Agriculture—are designed to help
licensed small farm wineries and Kentucky wholesalers
distribute wine products. The KGWC also offers a cost-share
grant program in cooperation with the department that
reimburses 50 percent of the total cost of approved
marketing projects.
In the works, said Beeler, is a loan
program to assist Kentucky’s wine industry. That program has
not yet been finalized.
Speaking in support of Kentucky’s
wine industry was Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield. He
told the committee that Kentucky wineries shouldn’t get lost
amid strong growth and sales in the bourbon industry.
“I would hope that we could continue
to grow that segment of agriculture,” Meredith said of the
wine industry. “I think there’s more stability in the wine
market than in bourbon, and we certainly need to be prepared
to take advantage of that.”
Kentucky currently has around 70
wineries in operation, Beeler said.
Kentucky’s tobacco settlement funds
come from the state’s share of a multi-billion-dollar master
tobacco settlement agreement reached 20 years ago between
major tobacco companies and 46 states, including Kentucky.
Settlement funds directed toward diversification of Kentucky
agriculture have totaled over $580 million in agricultural
investments since 2001, according to the KADB.
--END--
September
27, 2018
Legislative panel briefed on future of state
parks
FRANKFORT – It’s no walk in the park
figuring out how to pay to maintain Kentucky’s 49 state
parks.
“We have had a long history of our
parks being how folks identify with the state of Kentucky,”
Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro, said while chairing yesterday’s
meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on State Government.
“They represent our heritage in a lot of cases. And they are
certainly our billboard to the rest of the country.”
Committee members asked to be updated
on the future of state parks after Kentucky Finance and
Administration Cabinet Secretary William Landrum III
testified before them last month that Kentucky was leasing
some state park attractions it could no longer afford to
operate.
Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet
Secretary Don Parkinson testified that despite the fact that
the General Assembly appropriated $18 million last biennium
and $20 million this biennium, the park system has $240
million in deferred maintenance. That term is used to
describe the postponement of buildings and equipment upkeep
due to a lack of money.
Parkinson said he wanted to clarify
Kentucky’s lease agreements involving state parks. He said
the agreements were designed to keep the parks open.
Parkinson said he wants to avoid closing more than just the
four golf courses shuttered since 2006. Department of Parks
Commissioner Donnie Holland testified he was saddened when
one of the courses, located at Kenlake State Resort Park in
Hardin, closed because that is where he learned to play
golf.
Holland said collaborating with local
governments to keep attractions open was not a new approach.
Similar agreements have been reached in prior
administrations. For example, the state partnered with
Danville in 2012 to help maintain Constitution Square
Historic Site, the birthplace of Kentucky’s statehood. A
similar agreement was struck in 2010 when Owensboro took
over Ben Hawes Park.
An example of the current
administration’s collaboration efforts involve Calvert City
Airport, located within Kentucky Dam Village State Resort
Park. The city is building hangers to accommodate 10 private
aircrafts and adding aviation fuel service. Holland said the
goal is to re-establish the facility’s Federal Aviation
Administration “airport” designation. It had fallen in such
disrepair that the FAA had downgraded it to “airstrip”
status.
Other partnerships include one with
Nelson County to repair the amphitheater at My Old Kentucky
Home State Park in Bardstown, home of “The Stephen Foster
Story.” The longest-running outdoor drama was threatened
when the amphitheater was condemned, Holland said.
A similar agreement was struck with
Prestonsburg when the Jenny Wiley State Resort Park
amphitheater was also condemned. The city also leased the
shuttered swimming pool and plans to reopen it next summer.
Holland said other attractions saved by
local governments stepping forward include the boat dock at
Lake Malone State Park in Dunmor and the golf course at
Kincaid Lake State Park in Falmouth.
Rep. Mark Hart, R-Falmouth, said
Pendleton County sublet the golf course to a private
operator who broke even by July. “That has been a bigger
success story than we had anticipated,” he said. “The golf
course is back up to par.”
Holland said he is now working with
London to use its restaurant tax revenue to take over the
operations of Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park.
Sen. Albert Robinson, R-London, whose
district includes the Levi Jackson park, asked whether the
operating agreements restrict logging or mining on the
leased parks. Tourism Cabinet Deputy Counsel Jean Bird, who
also testified, said the agreements contain conservation
easements restricting the use of the property to a park.
“If the land ceases to be used as a
park, it will revert automatically to the commonwealth,” she
said. “We will do all that we can do to preserve the land,
buildings, trees, everything we can.”
Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, said he
would like Parkinson to develop a long-term strategy, based
on a set of core values, for the state park system.
“Don, I know you are a man of vision,”
Wayne said in reference to Parkinson’s prior experience as
senior vice president of KFC and YUM! in Louisville. “I
would encourage you’ll to think about that.
“It is a great opportunity you have
here to do more than patch up these crises. Give us a vision
of where we can go and try to sell it to us. It will take
some sales expertise to sell a vision of how great our parks
are and how they have to be restored.”
Parkinson said that was “a fair
challenge,” adding that he has increased room nights,
defined as the total number of hotel rooms guests take up,
multiplied by the number of nights in those rooms, by 18,000
per year.
Committee Co-chair Rep. Jerry T.
Miller, R-Louisville, who once served as state parks
commissioner, asked that Parkinson return to the committee
to testify whether Kentucky’s public-private partnership
(P3s) law has benefited the state park system. The General
Assembly passed Senate Bill 132 in 2016 to allow government
and private entities to enter into P3s as an alternative
financing method for major public projects, such as state
park repairs.
-- END --
September
26, 2018
KY 911 service discussed by
state committee
FRANKFORT—State legislators today
received the 411 on the state’s plans to improve 911 service
in Kentucky using real-time mapping of caller data and
locations.
“Geo-information systems – GIS – is
a critical element of innovative, 21st century
emergency communications. In 911, as in so many other facets
of life these days, timely and accurate mapping data is of
paramount importance,” Kentucky Office of Homeland Security
(KOHS) Executive Director John Holiday told the Interim
Joint Committee on Local Government. “GIS as a whole must be
elevated in stature if Kentucky hopes to compete on a
national scale.”
Laying out KOHS’s plan to improve
its statewide 911 capabilities was KOHS Deputy Executive
Director and Kentucky 911 Services Board Administrator Mike
Sunseri. Sunseri said moving from voice-only 911 to
next-generation 911, or NG911, would improve both locator
and messaging capabilities – including sending 911 messages
by text rather than by voice only and allowing photos to be
sent as part of a 911 call.
To help the state’s 115 911-call
centers move toward NG911, Sunseri said his agency has
applied for a $1.7 million four-year federal NG911 grant.
With a required local match, the grant would provide nearly
$2.9 million for NG911 improvements now under discussion.
“The (KENTUCKY 911 Services) Board
has received great feedback from the 911 community thus far.
The one common element shared by those in trenches … (is)
GIS,” which Sunseri said Kentucky’s 911 stakeholders want
factored into the state’s 911 plan. That plan, he said, has
not been updated since it was created in 2009.
“We’ve enlisted a technical
consultant to help us in that matter and (the plan will be
updated) by the end of the calendar year,” said Sunseri.
NG911 updates would come later for most 911 call centers
around the state.
Rep. Ken Fleming, R-Louisville,
asked Sunseri what the cost to create a fully GIS-based
statewide 911 system would be. Sunseri said he only has
enough information to respond anecdotally to that question,
specifically mentioning Owensboro – which Sunseri said
spends $8,000 a month to maintain their GIS data. Fleming
said the statewide figure would run into millions of
dollars.
“I can tell you one thing, it’s well
north of probably about $10 million to do that,” said
Fleming. “But … every life is important, and it might be
worth it.”
Rep. DJ Johnson, R-Owensboro, asked
if the local matching funds for the NG911 grant are
available now or not. Sunseri said there are enough Kentucky
911 Services Board administrative funds in reserve now to
cover the first year or two in matching funds, should the
grant be awarded.
“But we would never turn money away
from the General Assembly should this august body deem it a
worthy use of general fund dollars, and we will be making a
formal request in some manner,” Sunseri said.
Some lawmakers wanted to discuss
changes at the Kentucky 911 Services Board, formerly called
the CMRS (Commercial Mobile Radio Service) Board. Comments
were made about a recent four-year state audit that Sunseri
said found improper accounting practices undertaken by a
past board that were uncovered by the audit, requested by
KOHS. The audit showed the past board improperly spent more
than $250,000 “from a fund dedicated by statute to be used
exclusively for 911 call center grants,” said Sunseri.
The funds were repaid from the
board’s administrative fund, Sunseri told lawmakers.
Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville,
thanked the agency for cooperating with the state audit. He
added that there should be tough “consequences” for those
who improperly handled the funds.
“I just hope that there are
consequences for people who did that, as opposed to just
losing their job or their position, that we pursue
consequences” said Riggs. “Otherwise, if we don’t – if there
are no consequences other than losing your position – it
will just continue to grow.”
-- END --
September 26, 2018
Legislative panel considers bank tax reform
FRANKFORT – Don’t bank on the fact that
small-town banks will survive – at least in Kentucky. The
Kentucky Bankers Association told state lawmakers yesterday
that the commonwealth’s tax structure is jeopardizing
community banks.
Kentucky taxes its banks at a rate
higher than any other state in the nation at an average
effective tax rate of 13.3 percent, said bankers association
President Ballard Cassady while testifying before the
Interim Joint Committee on Banking and Insurance. He added
that Indiana’s effective tax rate for its banks is 6.5
percent, Ohio’s is 7.74 percent and Tennessee’s is 9.33
percent.
Cassady said that is why banks in other
states can buy Kentucky banks and essentially fund that
purchase with tax savings. He explained that acquiring banks
do this by reducing the number of employees, branches and
moving investment portfolios to other states. Nine Kentucky
banks have been purchased by out-of-state institutions since
2014, according to the bankers association.
To make matters worse, Cassady said,
Kentucky is taxing its banks at a rate that is an average of
92 percent higher than it taxes any other corporation in the
commonwealth.
But that 92 percent imbalance is just
the average, Cassady said. For example, First Community Bank
of the Heartland in Hickman was taxed at a rate that was 100
percent higher. First State Financial in Middlesboro was
taxed at a rate that was 130 percent higher. Bank of Cadiz
was taxed at a rate that was 200 percent higher. And
Kentucky Farmers Bank in Ashland was taxed at a rate that
was 1,000 percent higher, he said.
“When a bank’s capital remains at work
locally, it ripples through local economies so as to be
multiplied,” Cassady said of the importance of providing
community banks tax relief. “Some economists say by as much
as a factor of 10 – enlarging the local tax base and growing
Kentucky’s tax revenue the right way.”
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Dan
“Malano” Seum, R-Fairdale, asked for a clarification of the
word “franchise” as used in describing Kentucky’s bank tax.
Cassady said the use of the word is somewhat misleading
because it doesn’t mean banks are franchised like many
fast-food restaurants. He said the word “franchise” just
refers to the industry-specific tax.
Rep. Joseph M. Fischer, R-Fort Thomas,
said calling it a “franchise tax” is a misnomer. He said it
is a “tax on capital.” Fischer then asked for a brief
history of state tax policy on banks.
Cassady said the disparity between bank
tax rates and all other corporations in Kentucky could be
traced to a series of events that began in 1995. Before
that, the taxes on banks and other corporations had
different names but the overall rate differed very little,
he said.
“In 1995, we had a court case that made
its way from the Kentucky Supreme Court to the United State
Supreme Court and back,” Cassady said. “Along the way,
Kentucky’s method of taxing banks was found to be
unconstitutional.”
In response, the industry employed tax
professionals and lawyers to work with the state revenue
cabinet to develop what is now called the “bank franchise
tax” which at the time was the model being used in most
states across the country, he said. The new model still
taxed banks at about the same rate as other corporations.
“That all began to change in 2005 when
Kentucky lowered the top tax rate on corporations from 8.25
percent to 6 percent with no change to the bank tax model –
leaving banks at 8.25 percent,” Cassady said.
It only got worse with the Dodd-Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, he
said. The federal regulations forced every bank to move more
of their assets into capital, the primary component of the
state bank franchise tax. Cassady said that immediately
skewed state banks’ tax rate upward.
Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville,
asked what types of institutions are negatively impacted by
the bank franchise tax. “Are you talking about the JPMorgan
Chase of the world or Kentucky community banks?” he said.
Cassady said it is the state’s
community banks that are being crushed by the franchise tax.
“It is more than a 10-ton gorilla sitting on their chest,”
he said. “They are not only burdened with the compliance
costs that came out of the Dodd-Frank ... but also the huge
tax burden they are going to have at the end of the year."
Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, asked what
the state bankers association’s next step was in trying to
get tax reform for their industry during the upcoming
session. Cassady said his organization would be asking that
banks be taxed the same way, and at the same rate, as other
corporations in the commonwealth. He added that the
organization would provide additional details of how they
would like to see that transition take place during an
upcoming Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations &
Revenue.
-- END --
September 20,
2018
Lawmakers study plans to protect the
vulnerable
FRANKFORT – Bridgett Howard lived with
spina bifida for 32 years before pancreatitis sent her to
the hospital where she developed and died from bedsores – in
nine days.
That’s what her father, Tom Howard of
Salyersville, said while testifying before yesterday’s
meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare
and Family Services.
“This doesn’t need to happen,” he said,
adding that Bridgett never developed a bedsore while under
her mother’s care for more than three decades.
Howard was joined by Rep. John Blanton,
R-Salyersville, who introduced legislation in 2017 relating
to pressure sore treatment and prevention, named the Bridget
Ann Howard Act (House Bill 297). The men’s testimony came at
a meeting dominated with issues concerning Kentucky’s most
vulnerable citizens, particularly children, and public
policies to protect them.
Two of the state’s top pediatric
oncologists testified at the meeting about the Kentucky
Pediatric Cancer Research Trust Fund. The fund was created
in 2015 with the passage of Senate Bill 82 and appropriated
$5 million in the current biennium budget. The appropriation
spurred a private donor to contribute an additional $6
million to the fund, said Jamie Ennis Bloyd, the president
of the fund’s board.
Dr. John D’Orazio of the University of
Kentucky said his school is spending the money on two
research projects dealing with leukemia, one with brain
tumors and one with sarcomas.
“Thank you for helping us reduce the
burden of disease caused by pediatric cancer in the
commonwealth,” D’Orazio said to the committee members.
Dr. Ashok Raj of the University of
Louisville testified while wearing a sports jacket of gold
ribbons given to him by a patient. He explained that the
international awareness symbol for childhood cancer is the
gold ribbon.
Raj said U of L is spending part of the
money on CAR T-cell therapy. It is a type of treatment in
which a patient's T cells, a type of immune system cell, are
changed in the laboratory so they will attack cancer cells.
“I know it is kind of the nerd in me
talking, but when you talk about the CAR T-therapy that, to
me, is incredibly exciting,” said Sen. Ralph Alvarado,
R-Winchester, who is a pediatrician. “I try to emphasize
that for all of the members of this committee to understand.
This is revolutionary stuff.”
The committee also heard an update from
the Child Fatality and Near Fatality External Review Panel.
The panel was established with the passage of House Bill 290
during the 2013 Regular Session after news reports about
Kentucky leading the nation in the number of
caregiver-related child deaths.
“What this (panel) does best is to try
to identify gaps in the system,” said retired Jefferson
County Family Court Judge Paula Sherlock, who serves on the
panel and testified before the committee. “What are
emergency rooms not doing? What is the Cabinet (for Health
and Family Services) not doing? What are the courts not
doing?
“This is a forum where we can put it
all on the table and look at it and not in the blame game
but be in the let’s fix this game.”
Sherlock said drug and alcohol abuse
leads to many injuries and deaths, prompting Sen. Danny
Carroll, R-Paducah, to ask if there should be a law
requiring doctors to report suspected drug and alcohol abuse
to police. He said he considered such legislation a couple
of years ago. Panel member Dr. Jaime Pittenger, who also
testified, said the fear was that it would discourage
parents from sending their child to the pediatrician or
being honest with the doctor.
Committee Co-chair Rep. Addia Wuchner,
R-Florence, said the review panel and the pediatric abusive
head trauma legislation (House Bill 285) passed during the
2010 regular session have become national models.
“When we as legislators collaborate and
work with everyone together, I think we come up with the
best solution,” Wuchner said. She added that another tool
Kentucky has to combat child neglect is the Prevent Child
Abuse Kentucky organization.
“We are going to dovetail nicely with
the prior presentation because what we do is prevention,”
said Jill Seyfred, the organization’s executive director.
“We try to catch the kids upstream. We don’t do treatment.
We don’t do intervention. We are prevention in all of its
form.”
She said the organization’s programs
include a new partnership with a managed-care group and the
state hospital association that focus specifically on
parents of newborns before they leave the hospital. It is
designed to promote safe sleep practices and prevent head
trauma.
-- END --
September 14, 2018
Legislative
panel discusses medical marijuana
FRANKFORT -- A drug policy advisor for
three former presidential administrations cautioned state
lawmakers today about legalizing medical marijuana.
"As somebody who has
studied this as a social scientist for over 20 years, my
position is unequivocal that we should not legalize
marijuana," said Kevin Sabet, while testifying before the
Interim Joint Committee on Licensing, Occupations &
Administrative Regulations. "We have a hard enough time
with our legal drugs."
If Kentucky lawmakers were
to legalize medical marijuana, Sabet said they should study
Louisiana. He said that state's very restrictive law has reduced
problems associated with marijuana such as underage use,
workplace accidents and impaired driving. Sabet added that New
Jersey and New York also had some restrictive laws before
liberalizing them.
"I would say look south
and east rather than west," said Sabet, who is also an
assistant professor at the University of Florida where he serves
as director of the school's Drug Policy Institute. His and
Kentucky Society of Addiction Medicine President Michael
Fletcher's testimony was, in part, a rebuttal of individuals who
spoke in favor of proposed medical marijuana legislation at the
committee's Aug. 24 meeting.
"As an addiction
medicine physician, I'm here to champion the implementation of
safeguards in all jurisdictions where marijuana has been
legalized or may be legalized in the future," said
Fletcher. "My comments today reflect the public policy
position stated by American Society of Addiction Medicine."
He said the organization,
known as ASAM, does not support the legalization of marijuana.
Committee Co-chair John
Schickel, R-Union, asked Sabet whether states with legal medical
marijuana have seen an increase in residents filing for
disability. Sabet said he has heard anecdotal stories about
jumps in the number of people on disability rolls, but he hasn't
seen scientific data to back up the claims.
"There has not been a
good look at a lot of the data," Sabet said. "We have
to scrounge around to find even use data that is relevant."
Sen. Christian McDaniel,
R-Taylor Mill, asked what liability a small employer like him
would face if an employee caused an accident while on medical
marijuana.
"I don't have a crystal
ball on how this will affect it," Sabet said, adding that
he isn't a lawyer. "I can tell you in other states there is
a mishmash of lawsuits that have happened.”
Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser,
R-Taylor Mill, asked whether there was a field sobriety test, or
quick method, to determine whether someone was actively under
the influence of marijuana.
"There are tests in
development," Sabet said. "We do not have anything
near what we do for alcohol."
House Speaker Pro Tempore
David Osborne, R-Prospect, asked if any state had repealed laws
liberalizing marijuana use. Sabet said Alaska repealed an early
marijuana law before a ballot initiative in 2014 made it legal.
"I think you have
states going through this debate and discussion," Sabet
said of whether anyone is currently considering repeal measures.
Senate Majority Caucus Chair
Dan "Malano" Seum, R-Fairdale, said he is an advocate
of medical marijuana who smoked it to relieve nausea after
cancer surgery. He said regulating it would help ensure people
were not purchasing marijuana laced with other drugs on
contaminated with heavy metals or pesticides.
"When is the last time
we heard of anybody getting hold of rotgut whiskey?" Seum
said in reference to the watering down alcohol with poisonous
chemicals like turpentine, common during Prohibition. "It
doesn't happen because you can go to a store and get a clean
product. You know what you are buying."
Sabet said he sympathizes
with anyone in situations similar to Seum's.
"I don't think anyone
wants to see adulterated products," Sabet said. "I
worry about the legal stores in Colorado who are getting away
with selling a lot of adulterated products. I also worry about
the black market that is selling adulterated products."
Schickel said he expects
some type of marijuana legislation to be introduced in during
the upcoming session set to start on Jan. 8.
-- END --
September 6, 2018
Calendar set for General
Assembly’s 2019 session
FRANKFORT – The 2019 Regular Session
of the Kentucky General Assembly is scheduled to begin on
Jan. 8 and will last 30 legislative days.
As usual during an odd-numbered
year, in which sessions are half as long as in even-numbered
years, the session will have two parts. The first four days
of the session – Jan. 8 to Jan. 11 – will focus on
organizational work, such as electing legislative leaders,
adopting rules of procedure and organizing committees. The
introduction and consideration of legislation can also begin
during this time.
The second part of the session
begins on Feb. 5, with final adjournment scheduled for March
29.
Legislators will not meet in session
on Feb. 18 in observance of Presidents’ Day. The House and
Senate will also not convene on March 8 or 11.
The veto recess – the period of time
when lawmakers commonly return to their home districts while
the governor considers the possibility of issuing vetoes –
begins on March 14. Lawmakers will return to the Capitol on
March 28 and 29 for the final two days of the session.
The 2019 session calendar is online
at:
http://www.lrc.ky.gov/calendars/19RS_calendar.pdf
.
--END--
September 5, 2018
Kentucky dairy, other farms look
to the future
FRANKFORT — Millions of gallons of
milk—including milk produced in Kentucky—will be purchased
by the federal government to benefit U.S. dairy farmers and
food banks, state lawmakers heard today.
Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund
Oversight Committee Co-Chair Myron Dossett, R-Pembroke, said
56 truckloads of milk containing 2.3 million gallons of milk
will be hauled through Kentucky as part of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) $50 million purchase of
11-13 million gallons from dairy farmers nationwide. All of
the milk purchased by the USDA will be distributed to food
banks across the country, including some in Kentucky.
“That’s going to be beneficial not
only to our farmers, but also to those people who
desperately need the services of the food bank. So we’re
very happy on that right there,” said Dossett.
Kentucky Governor’s Office of
Agricultural Policy Executive Director Warren Beeler told
the committee that the USDA purchase is welcome news to
Kentucky dairies that he said have been hard hit by milk
quotas in other countries, namely Canada.
“They have what we need. They have a
quota-based system where they can control how much milk they
produce,” said Beeler, adding that Kentucky may lose 75
dairies this year due to economic pressures. “When
consumption’s going down and production’s going up, you’re
going the wrong direction … and that’s what happened to us.
So, we’re thankful for anything the federal folks can do to
help.”
Kentucky dairies are also helping
themselves by expanding the products they offer. In Todd
County, Dossett said some dairy farmers are looking at
opening a cheese plant sourced by the milk that the farmers
produce.
Beeler applauded that kind of
initiative, saying his agency is currently talking with two
or three different groups with similar plans.
“You go to a commodity that’s got
some shelf life to it, and you’ve also got something you can
price yourself – that’s not priced for you,” he said.
Exhibits focused on agricultural
innovation at this year’s recently-concluded Kentucky State
Fair also received praise as the committee discussed AgLand
– a new fair exhibit highlighting both the past and
high-tech future of Kentucky farming. Beeler said he was
more proud of the exhibit than of any event in his “40
some-odd years of going to the state fair.”
AgLand, Beeler said, showed
fairgoers that farming is a modern practice, using modern
technologies like soil testing, solar energy and
GPS-controlled equipment.
“If what we’ve got to do is
produce 70 percent more by 2050 to feed 9 billion people
(worldwide) then everything we do – from a technology, from
a science standpoint – has to be cutting edge,” said Beeler.
“We have such a disconnect. People think we’re still
following a mule. This is science - this is technology.”
--END--
August
30, 2018
Kentucky Medicaid program eyes
options in face of shortfall
FRANKFORT—Kentucky is facing a nearly $300 million state
Medicaid shortfall over the next two years that could affect
certain Medicaid benefits, state health officials told a
panel of state lawmakers today.
Cabinet for Health and Family
Services Secretary Adam Meier told the Budget Review
Subcommittee on Human Resources that his staff will look at
benefits, reimbursement rates and other expenditures to
address a projected $156 million Medicaid shortfall this
fiscal year and a $140 million shortfall in fiscal year
2020.
The shortfall is due, at least in
part, to increased costs not accounted for in last year’s
budget projections, according to state Medicaid Chief
Financial Officer Steve Bechtel.
A Section 1115 Medicaid waiver
approved by the federal government in January and now on
hold by a federal court order is considered “one way to
mitigate some of the costs,” said Meier. The state has plans
to use the waiver to modify the state’s existing Medicaid
expansion and implement other policies to help lower state
costs. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,
or CMS, is currently vetting proposed changes to the waiver.
When asked by Sen. Stephen Meredith,
R-Leitchfield, if savings from the waiver are already built
into Medicaid’s budget, Meier said no, adding that the
waiver is “uncertain.” When asked by Meredith what the state
would do without the waiver, Meier said optional and
expanded benefits will probably be looked at more closely.
“We can look at, for example,
dental, vision, pharmacy – all the optional benefits – and
we’ll have to basically weigh what is the cost of each of
those buckets. Or we can look at the eligibility, looking at
the expansion population and optional population,” he said.
“Once we can get a little bit further down the road and we
have some certainty as far as the waiver (we’ll have a
better idea) what we’re able to take away as far as cost.”
Sen. Ralph Alvarado, the
Subcommittee Co-Chair, questioned what he said appears to be
a nearly $1.6 billion increase in Medicaid costs in Kentucky
since 2015. The biggest part of that growth, said the
Cabinet’s Office of Finance and Budget Executive Director
Eric Lowery, is Kentucky’s current Medicaid expansion.
“Along with the expansion came the
woodwork effect of people who were already eligible for the
program but had not yet signed up for it. So, through
(20)14, ‘15 and ‘16 we really saw the growth and then things
kind of leveled back off,” said Lowery.
Alvarado, R-Winchester, said he
expects the state’s health outcomes to improve as personal
income improves, saying the two are linked. He said Kentucky
has seen “dramatic improvements” in colon cancer screening
and some improvement in health outcomes overall.
“We’ve got obviously more
opportunities to improve there, but I think we’ve made some
good progress,” he said.
Going back to the discussion on the
shortfall, Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, asked how the
matter could be addressed aside from cutting certain
benefits. Meier said the Section 1115 waiver is still a
possibility; the Cabinet also plans to look at reducing
costs by strengthening Medicaid managed care contracts and
reforming purchasing and service delivery.
When McGarvey asked Meier if
“pulling benefits” would still be an option, Meier said yes.
“It has to be,” he said. “It’s going
to be based on the number of (Medicaid) eligibles and what
the benefit costs are.”
Approximately 1.4 million
Kentuckians—or about 1/3 of Kentucky residents—receive
Medicaid, according to state Medicaid Commissioner Jill
Hunter. Of those Kentuckians, 1.2 million are in
managed-care programs, she said.
--END--
August 29,
2018
State lawmakers check in on federal bank
regs
FRANKFORT – After years of concern that
the federal Dodd-Frank Act stifled Kentucky’s rural banks, a
state legislative panel reviewed recent changes to that act.
“In the eight years since the enactment
of the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank financial control law in 2010,
roughly one in five Kentucky credit unions and community
banks closed their doors,” U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington,
said while testifying before yesterday’s meeting of the
Kentucky General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on
Banking & Insurance. “Nationwide, more than 43 percent of
banks under $100 million in assets completely disappeared.”
Seventy-two percent of community banks
reported that Dodd-Frank regulations restricted their
ability to extend credit for mortgages, Barr said. He added
that small-business lending is at a 20-year low, and the
share of banks offering free checking fell from 75 percent
to 37 percent.
“By reducing the number of community
financial institutions, Dodd-Frank regulations clogged the
plumbing of our economy, especially in rural and underserved
communities,” Barr said. “Community financial institutions,
after all, support 90 percent of the agricultural loans and
represent the only physical banking presence in 20 percent
of U.S. counties.”
To address the issues, Congress passed
the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer
Protection Act, dubbed the Economic Growth Act, earlier this
year.
“Generally speaking, the act tailored
many of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank law to reflect the
unique nature of community and regional financial
institutions that have a different business model and
different risk profile than the very large bank holding
companies in this county,” Barr said.
Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, asked if
the Economic Growth Act addressed the need for “credit
freezes” to combat cyber criminals stealing individuals’
identity. A credit freeze is designed to prevent a credit
reporting company from releasing someone’s credit rating,
thus preventing additional lines of credit from being
opened.
Barr said, in light of the recent
Experian data breach, credit reporting bureaus must now
provide to consumers, under certain circumstances, fraud
alerts and unlimited, free security freezes and freeze
releases.
Committee Co-chair Rep. Bart Rowland,
R-Tompkinsville, asked whether it was too soon to know if
the Economic Growth Act had the intended consequence of
increasing lending – particularly from community banks.
“Anecdotally, we do hear loan demand is
strong in certain markets and that lending is picking up,”
said Barr, adding that law is still being implemented.
Rowland also asked whether federal
legislators were still considering privatizing at least part
of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Currently,
the NFIP is about $21 billion in debt, despite the fact that
Congress canceled $16 billion of its debt in October of last
year.
Barr, a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives Financial Services Committee, confirmed
legislators were looking at some level of privatization.
“As a result, our committee continues
to work on reforms that would make the program fiscally
sustainable so it would no longer need taxpayer bailouts,”
said Barr, adding Congress extended NFIP through November.
Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, said he
didn’t think wealthy waterfront-property owners should be
allowed to continue to rebuild after floods and be eligible
for taxpayer-backed flood insurance. He said 30 percent of
the claims made to NFIP are for structures that have been
repeatedly flooded and rebuilt with no additional flood
mitigation.
“You will be encouraged to know that
the reform legislation that passed the (U.S.) House takes on
that problem,” Barr said in response. “I certainly support
reforms that discourage continuous building in floodplains.”
Rep. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, asked
whether the Economic Growth Act would ease the regulatory
burden of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) on small
lenders. Starting in 1975, HMDA required mortgage lenders to
report data on housing-related loans to, among other things,
evaluate home lending practices, including determining if
lenders are engaging in discriminatory lending patterns. The
Dodd-Frank act greatly expanded the amount and type of data
that lenders are required to collect.
Barr said the final version of the
Economic Growth Act provided relief to banks who handle less
than 500 mortgages per year. He added that he would have
liked the act to provide greater relief to more
institutions.
Meredith also asked whether the federal
government was considering extending a HMDA-like program to
small business lending. Barr said he hoped regulators
“pulled back on that idea” because of the compliance costs
to lenders.
Meredith responded: “If you want to see
small business lending get dried up in Kentucky, passing
those HMDA-type disclosers onto small-business lending ...
would be disastrous for the industry.”
-- END --
Aug.
24, 2018
Medical marijuana supporters pitch lawmakers
FRANKFORT – Whether legalizing medical
marijuana is the right prescription for Kentucky was
pondered today by a state legislative panel.
“I know medical cannabis can help some
folks,” said Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, while
testifying before the Interim Joint Committee on Licensing,
Occupations & Administrative Regulations. “I say that as
someone who has never done any illegal drug. I say that as
someone who tries to follow every law, even speeding limits.
I would break the law willingly if it would help myself, my
wife or my children.
“And if I would do it, it ought not to
be illegal for our neighbors.”
He testified alongside Rep. Diane St.
Onge, R-Fort Wright, on proposed legislation to legalize
medical marijuana. The two stressed that they strongly
opposed any legislation that might lead to the legalization
of recreational marijuana.
St. Onge said the proposal would not
specify what ailments would be legal to treat with
marijuana.
“We are not doctors,” she said, “and we
feel it is best left to our physicians to recommend in their
confidential patient-doctor relationship what they feel
might help alleviate some of the pain or some of the
symptoms. Marijuana is not a cure that we know of to date.
It is used for palliative effects. We believe that is best
left to our physicians.”
Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon
Thayer, R-Georgetown, applauded the fact Nemes and St. Onge
said the proposal wasn’t an effort to raise money for the
general fund as others have proposed.
“I think advocates for medicinal
marijuana need to stop saying this is going to solve our
pension problems,” Thayer said. “It is a false promise. We
don’t tax pharmaceuticals in this state so why, if we passed
medicinal marijuana, would we tax it? It is unfair.”
Thayer said he was against a provision
in the proposal that would allow people to grow their own
medical marijuana. He expressed skepticism that regulators
could prevent homegrown marijuana from being diverted for
illegal use.
St. Onge said she now supports a
home-grow provision because it accommodates low-income
residents unable to afford marijuana dispensaries or rural
residents in counties with no dispensaries. St. Onge said
the provision would also further discourage the illegal
growing and selling of marijuana to medical patients.
Nemes said medical marijuana would be
regulated by a new state agency called the Department of
Cannabis Administration. He said any violations of the
provisions of the proposed medical marijuana law would be a
criminal offense.
“It will be their job to make sure the
doctors are doing what they need to do and not
overprescribing,” Nemes said. “We don’t want any marijuana
mills like we have had pill mills.”
Registered users couldn’t smoke medical
marijuana in public places, Nemes said. He added that
landlords could also prohibit home growing of medical
marijuana.
The proposal would discourage medical
marijuana “vacationing” by restricting the sale of cannabis
to out-of-state residents. Nemes said the proposed
legislation is about helping the chronically and critically
ill.
“I understand there is opposition to
this,’ Nemes said. “ There is good-faith opposition to this.
There is legitimate opposition to this. I was against this
concept when I ran for office. I respect those who disagree
with me today.”
Interim Committee Co-Chair Rep. Adam
Koenig, R-Erlanger, asked if employers could fire employees
for testing positive for marijuana use.
St. Onge said employers couldn’t
discriminate against job applicants approved by a doctor to
use medical marijuana. She said the employer could prohibit
the use of medical marijuana on their premises. Nemes added
that employers could also prohibit employees operating heavy
machinery from using marijuana.
Rep. Al Gentry, D-Louisville, said he
supported medical marijuana but asked about the legal
liability of employing people using medical marijuana. Nemes
said the proposal included suggestions from the Kentucky
Chamber of Commerce designed to shield employers from those
employees’ actions.
Rep. Kimberly Poor Moser, R-Taylor
Mill, asked what it would cost to establish and operate the
Department of Cannabis Administration. Nemes said it would
be paid for by a licensing fee on medical marijuana
businesses. The proposal calls for the fee to be set at a
percent of the gross receipts for each business.
Rep. Susan Westrom, D-Lexington, said
legalizing some form of marijuana has been a perennial issue
during the nearly two decades she has been in the state
legislature. She said that has given her an abundant amount
of time to study the issue including visiting California and
Colorado dispensaries and the doctors prescribing marijuana
instead of opioids.
“I didn’t realize the science had
become so perfected that you really could treat specific
diagnoses,” Westrom said. “There is something very positive
about medical marijuana. I think there are a lot of people
here who could benefit from this. I just wish we could have
some oncologists who could come in and discuss this.”
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Dan
“Malano” Seum, R-Fairdale, said he has had several doctors
tell him they wished they could recommend marijuana as
another tool to treat patients. He added that there was at
least one oncologist nurse in the audience.
“I am a cancer survivor,” Seum said.
“I’ll tell you point-blank if you get nausea after cancer
surgery ... you will be smoking a joint from here to that
damn wall if it would take that damn nausea away from you –
and I did just that.”
Rep. C. Wesley Morgan, R-Richmond, said
he supported the proposal even though he will not be
returning for the next session of the General Assembly to
vote.
“I will tell you over the last 50 years
we have probably spent $40 trillion trying to enforce the
drug laws,” he said, “and frankly, we have not succeeded.
And that’s a fact.”
Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, who
chaired the meeting, said opponents of legalizing medical
marijuana in Kentucky are scheduled to testify at the
interim committee’s next meeting on Sept 14.
-- END --
August
22, 2018
Kentucky looks at
new reforms to cut jail, prison population
FRANKFORT—Staying out of jail may be
as easy as having a steady job for some former Kentucky
inmates.
Former inmates who stay employed for
one year are about 35 percent less likely to return to jail
than those who don’t work, Kentucky Justice and Public
Safety Cabinet Secretary John Tilley told the Interim Joint
Committee on Local Government in an August 22 meeting. He
praised county jails that offer GED and work certification
programs which, he said, are helping Kentucky reduce its
inmate population and grow the state economy.
“We release 16,000 people a year
from state prison alone – 16,000,” Tilley told the
committee. “Imagine if we could count on having those people
ready for the workforce.”
Fewer than one-third of the state’s
76 county jails have some kind of program to ease reentry
for prisoners, he said. Among the jails that do offer such
programs is the 297-bed Marion County Detention Center where
programs ranging from GED classes to R.E.A.C.H. (Re-Entering
American Communities with Hope) help inmates succeed once
they are released.
A high-profile former inmate at the
Marion County center who Tilley said praised the jail’s
programming is former Northern Kentucky football star Zeke
Pike, a one-time Auburn quarterback who has struggled with
addiction and arrest in recent years.
“I encountered him at the jail
several years after he left Auburn … Long story short, he
told me that inmates want to be at this jail because they
know they’ll get programming help and get back on their
feet. And as far as I know, Zeke’s doing pretty well,” said
Tilley.
But with its successes, the jail has
also faced challenges, said Barry Brady, jailer at the
Marion County Detention Center. The cost of incarceration is
rising. So are operational costs, which Brady said have
increased from a little more than $2 million in 2005 to $4.8
million. Similar stories have been reported by other jailers
in a state where the county inmate population is currently
between 12,000 and 14,000.
Senate President Pro Tem Jimmy
Higdon, R-Lebanon, suggested that performance-based funding
for jails may encourage more counties to “step up” by
becoming accredited or offering effective inmate programs.
“Not all jails are created equal.
Some jails in counties work hard to offer every program that
they can offer. Some jails, the only thing they can do, the
way they’re set up, is to warehouse prisoners – ‘three hots
and a cot,’” said Higdon. “We’ve talked about
performance-based funding in education. It’s time we talked
about performance-based funding for jails.”
Some solutions are expected to come
from 2017 Senate Bill 120, sponsored by Rep. Whitney
Westerfield, R-Crofton. The legislation, now law, is
expected to reduce the inmates in Kentucky jails and prisons
through alternative sentencing—including reentry
programs—and prison industry enhancement programs.
Tilley said the state is waiting on regulations to move
those reforms forward.
Committee Co-Chair Joe Bowen,
R-Owensboro, asked about the education level and skill set
of inmates in Kentucky jails. Brady said many inmates do not
have their diploma or GED, while Tilley said around 70
percent of state inmates come to prison with their diploma
or GED.
“There is a line of thinking, and
there is certainly validated evidence, to suggest that a
lack of education is a predictor of prison,” said Tilley.
While there are highly-educated professionals who suffer
from addiction or other events that could land them in
prison, he said those individuals often “don’t end up in
prison because they’re able to get help and diversion and
treatment outside the walls of a prison or jail.”
Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, said
another predictor of incarceration is a person’s mental
health. Good mental health, he said, comes before a desire
for job training and educational attainment.
“So my question about
performance-based funding: Does it include the factor of, is
mental health counseling and proper medicine being
administered…or is in only based on job training
opportunities and GED opportunities?” asked Riggs.
Tilley said he agrees mental health
should come first, but “there’s … reality and there’s what
policy should look like.” Community mental health centers in
Kentucky haven’t received a Medicaid reimbursement increase
since 1998, he said, and mental health professionals today
are scarce.
“To the question of whether we
should include that as a factor... We’ve got good people
working in community mental health,” said Tilley. “So yes,
the answer’s yes. What it looks like is really up to you …
We want to build it with you … .”
-
- END --
August
14, 2018
Lawmakers review VA suicide prevention
initiatives
FRANKFORT – An average of 20
veterans kill themselves every day.
That was a statistic federal
and state veteran affairs officials kept coming back to while
testifying about suicide prevention programs available to
Kentucky’s 300,000 veterans at yesterday’s meeting of the
Interim Joint Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public
Protection.
“Within our veterans’
community, there has been a recognized problem with young men
and women coming home from serving ... and then finding
themselves drifting outside of the military,” said Rep. Tim
Moore, R-Elizabethtown, who co-chaired the committee. “This is
an issue important to all of us.”
Lexington Veterans Affairs
Suicide Prevention Case Manager Becky Stinsky testified that on
average 70 percent of veterans who kill themselves are not
seeking treatment through the VA health care system. She told
legislators that she conducts suicide prevention training in the
community, including companies that employ large numbers of
veterans, to try to reach that 70 percent.
Kentucky Department of
Veterans Affairs Deputy Commissioner Heather French Henry
testified that her department collaborates closely with the VA.
“If you would have told me
18 years ago that the VA would be offering things like
acupuncture, tai chi and yoga, I would have said there probably
is never going to be a chance,” Henry said
. “But now every
VA hospital really is a specialty care facility when it comes to
mental health, behavioral health. They do offer some of these
more nontraditional ways to address mental health.”
Rep. Dean Schamore,
D-Hardinsburg, asked how long, on average, it takes a veteran to
qualify for VA health care benefits if they have suicidal
thoughts.
“If anyone (with suicidal
thoughts) contacts the VA, whether they are eligible or not, we
are going to care for them,” said Lexington VA Suicide
Prevention Coordinator Rebecca Willis-Nichols, who also
testified before the committee.
She said the process to apply
for VA health care benefits has become “much leaner” and
easier in recent years. It can be done online, via mail or in
person by filling out a 10-minute form, she said.
Schamore then asked what
happens to suicidal veterans that do not qualify for VA health
care benefits.
“For those veterans, we are
going to care for them acutely and make sure they are safe,”
Willis-Nichols said. “We are then going to talk to them about
community resources, whether it is their comp care, whether it
is contacting their health insurance to get them access that
way, or looking at free resources.”
Sen. Perry B. Clark,
D-Louisville, asked what percent of veterans utilize VA health
care. Henry said it was only 9 percent.
“Unfortunately, there are
going to be a percentage that do not want to use the VA,” she
said. “There might still be a misperception that it is a
second-rate health care system. But I will tell you, as one
whose dad gets excellent health care at the VA, it is a top-rate
health care institution – the only national health care system
we got. They do extremely great research and health care
work.”
Rep. Jim DuPlessis,
R-Elizabethtown, asked the officials testifying if they had
insight on why female veterans are two-and-half times more
likely to kill themselves than female civilians.
Henry said she is working hard
to make her department less male centric so women get proper
recognition and care. Willis-Nichols added that VA health care
had historically been such a male-dominated system that women
simply didn’t get the support they needed.
Stinsky theorized that it was
because female veterans are more likely to have access to a gun
then female civilians. She added that female civilians are more
likely to use pills or other methods that are less lethal than
firearms.
“I really just want to
emphasize that time and distance between someone in crisis and
the means in which they can kill themselves makes all the
difference,” Stinsky said. “That time and distance is a
protecting factor.”
She added that VA health care
offers gunlocks to all its patients with no questions asked.
“We don’t put your name on
a list,” Stinsky said. “We give them free of charge.”
-
- END --
August
14, 2018
Step right up: LRC fair booth informs
citizens
FRANKFORT
– As part of an ongoing commitment to encourage
participatory democracy for the citizens of Kentucky, the
Legislative Research Commission (LRC) will unveil an
expanded Kentucky State Fair booth on Thursday.
New components of the fair booth include a virtual reality
experience delivering a bird's-eye view of the legislative
process, information about LRC's various social media
channels and a demo of LegislaTV. That is an expanding
digital signage system at the Capitol Annex, which displays
legislative committee meeting schedules and a stream of
hundreds of informational slides and videos about the
legislative process.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to receive a
complimentary souvenir photograph of themselves in or around
the state Capitol, using green-screen technology.
"The Mission Statement for LRC's nonpartisan staff
includes our commitment to encourage participatory democracy
for the citizens of Kentucky," said LRC Director David
Byerman. "LRC's annual presence at the Kentucky State
Fair is an exciting part of our public engagement strategy.
Through this exhibit, we hope to connect Kentucky residents
more closely to their legislators and the legislative
process."
This year marks the sixth consecutive year that the LRC has
operated a booth in the Main Street section of the South
Wing of the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville. This
annual outreach program of the LRC gives citizens of the
Commonwealth opportunities to learn about the operations of
the legislative branch of Kentucky state government.
Each year the booth averages personal interactions with over
10,000 people. These interactions help citizens discover who
their legislators are through an interactive
find-your-legislator program. Citizens also become familiar
with the legislative process through publications made
available to fairgoers.
-- END --
A photo of Legislative Research Commission (LRC)
Inventory Control and Maintenance staff members
assembling the agency's state fair booth on Monday in
Louisville can be found here.
August
7, 2018
Panel looks at improvement plans for state's
bridges
FRANKFORT – Kentucky transportation
officials plan to spend $700 million to repair or replace
1,000 bridges in six years despite forecasting stagnant
growth in the road fund – the pot of money used to pay for
transportation projects.
“It is one of the most aggressive
bridge rehab and replacement programs in the country,” said
Royce Meredith, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet official
who testified about the initiative during yesterday’s
meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Transportation.
“These are critical structures that affect every
Kentuckian.”
Named Bridging Kentucky, the initiative
will allow transportation officials to tackle more than
three times as many bridge projects as years past. There is
$340 million earmarked for nearly 350 bridges in the state’s
current biennium, or two-year, budget that started on July
1.
“This program is large and broad,”
Meredith said. “It includes structures in all of Kentucky’s
120 counties with a mix of bridges in rural and urban areas.
This is a program that affects all parts of the state and
impacts almost every driver that uses our roads.”
State transportation officials, highway
engineers and consultants are currently screening Kentucky’s
more than 14,000 bridges using detailed analytics and
calculations for the life-cycle costs of rehabilitation
verse replacement. Meredith said the evaluations should be
completed this month. It will be followed by a series of
industry forums this fall with bridge builders.
“We’re not going to rehab a bridge that
should be replaced, and we’re not going to replace a bridge
that should be rehabbed,” Meredith said. “Right now it
appears about 30 percent of these bridges can be rehabbed.”
He said the bridge construction
projects are being prioritized based on budget, construction
of structure and project challenges.
Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, asked
why the number of vehicles that cross each bridge isn’t
being considered in the prioritization process if the
cabinet is using a data-driven system.
“If there are 130 vehicles a day using
the structure verse 13 vehicles a day, the one with 130
should be prioritized,” he said, “but you don’t list the
number of vehicles that use the bridge as a factor.”
Meredith said the number of vehicles is
among the multitude of factors being considered that was not
highlighted in the slide presentation shown to the
committee.
Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, said
there are bridges in eastern Kentucky that cannot handle the
weight of a loaded school bus. He said the children
literally have to get off school buses and walk across some
bridges before the buses can cross the spans. He added that
those bridges should be prioritized even if they have a low
number of vehicles that cross them.
“That’s just good common sense,” Smith
said.
Sen. C.B. Embry Jr., R-Morgantown,
echoed Smith’s comment. He said his district has a
substandard bridge that provides access to four homes.
“They need that bridge available, not
only to get out, but so emergency vehicles can get to them,”
Embry said. “The traffic on that bridge will always be very
low but it is still important that bridge is fixed – even if
the traffic count isn’t very high.”
Rep. Robert Goforth, R-East Bernstadt,
asked where one could find a complete list of bridges that
are being repaired or replaced. Meredith said a list is
being maintained on the website bridgingkentucky.com. He
said that list would be updated in the next couple of weeks.
Rep. Kenny Imes, R-Murray, urged the
transportation department to expedite bridge inspections to
avoid lane closures and traffic jams. He said there have
been lane closures on the Interstate 24 bridge over the
Tennessee River in Calvert City for about three months.
During the last half of the meeting,
Robin Brewer of the Transportation Cabinet testified that
the state road fund ended the fiscal year $7.7 million above
the official revised revenue estimate of $1.5 billion.
Brewer estimates the road fund revenue
through fiscal year 2020 to remain $1.5 billion per year.
“We are not really estimating any
additional growth through the biennium,” she said. “It’s
pretty much on autopilot at this point.”
The committee’s next meeting will be on
Sept 12 at the Wayne County Public Library in Monticello.
-- END --
August 7, 2018
Water needs discussed by state legislative panel
FRANKFORT—Kentucky has billions of
dollars in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure
needs, and some state lawmakers are eager to find solutions.
Interim Joint Committee on Natural
Resources and Energy co-chair Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence,
told Energy and Environment Cabinet officials testifying
before the committee yesterday that there is still local
water infrastructure in the state dating to the Works
Progress Administration of the late 1930s.
“Most cities don’t have the money to
make those kinds of investments anymore,” said Gooch, even
though water lines regularly break and need repair. “Those
kinds of things are problems that we need to address, and
they need help.”
He agreed with Deputy Cabinet
Secretary Bruce Scott and Division of Water Director Peter
Goodmann that local governments need funding to meet their
water infrastructure needs. The source of the funding, said
Gooch, is “something we definitely ought to look at.”
Investment in Kentucky’s drinking
water infrastructure would be the most costly according to
Goodmann, who estimated the cost of needed statewide
investment at $8.2 billion over the next 20 years.
Wastewater infrastructure investment runs a close second at
$6.2 billion over the next 20 years, he said.
Also needed is $100 million for work
on the state’s dams “in the near-term” based on the state’s
2014 Dam Safety Mitigation Plan, Goodmann told the
committee. He was backed up by Scott, who told the committee
that water and sewer infrastructure cannot be overlooked
indefinitely.
“We have to make an investment. We
can’t not make an investment in water and sewer,” said
Scott. The outcome would be to be “reactive”—or wait until a
major infrastructure failure occurs before some action is
taken.
Possible funding options for
infrastructure, Scott said, include federal sources like
Kentucky Infrastructure Authority loans, Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, Appalachian Regional
Commission grants and Abandoned Mine Land grants. State
sources may include state general funds, tobacco settlement
funds, or coal severance funds. Local funding and private
funding—through a P3 partnership, perhaps—are other
possibilities, Bruce said.
Rep. Reginald Meeks, D-Louisville,
asked Scott and Goodmann about the Cabinet’s view of
Louisville Metro’s sewer company, the Metropolitan Sewer
District (MSD), which he said has had some “serious issues.”
“It is in our interest that the
small communities be served, period,” Meeks said, but the
state’s view of MSD, he said, is also of interest.
Scott said the state has the
authority to deal with an issue if “demonstrative progress”
is not being made. “The question becomes what constitutes
demonstrative progress?” he said.
Two unforeseen sewer collapses in
Louisville have raised the question of whether the collapses
“negatively impact Jefferson County’s ability to manage its
sewage, stormwater or not,” said Scott. “That’s something we
have to talk with them about and see whether or not that’s
something we have to get involved in in terms of mandates.”
--END--
Top
July 19, 2018
Experts view youth violence as public health crisis
FRANKFORT – A
legislative panel explored the issue of violence, mental health
and guns among Kentucky’s youth during a recent gathering
“This is a topic
that we talk about amongst each other ... but it’s something we
haven’t really talked about publicly yet,” Sen. Julie Raque
Adams, R-Louisville, said during yesterday’s meeting of the
Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare and Family
Services. “I think it deserves a forum.”
Dr. Brit
Anderson, who practices pediatric emergency medicine in
Louisville, testified that she realized discussions about
firearm injuries can be a divisive topic, but firearm injuries
among children is a public health problem. She said recognizing
that can allow society to change the conversation and its
approach to these injuries.
“Many people
read about children killed or seriously injured in the
newspaper,” Anderson said, “but before that story is written, I
meet that child. I’m sorry to be graphic but it is a reality. I
know what it is like to lead a team to save a life. Sometimes we
succeed, sometimes we do not. I know how hard it is to watch a
child bleed, cry, or worse yet, not respond at all
“I have choked
back tears trying to remain professional as I call a time of
death and look down at a tiny body. And I know the horrible,
chilling, heart-wrenching wail of a parent who has just lost a
child.
Anderson was
among a group of doctors and health professionals who testified.
She said the group included gun owners, non-gun owners,
Republicans and Democrats brought together because they all
treat children impacted by firearm injuries.
Dr. Cynthia
Downard, a pediatric surgeon in Louisville, said suicide is the
third-leading cause of death for people 10 to 24 years of age in
the United States. But in Kentucky, it is the second leading
cause of injury-related deaths in this age group. And 58 percent
of those deaths are suicides.
“I think this
is, again, a significant public health problem we need to pay
attention to,” Downard said. “As Dr. Anderson said, the sound of
a mother losing her child is something you never forget and I
would never want to hear again.”
Dr. Christopher
Peters, an adolescent psychiatrist in Louisville, said
policymakers need to think of suicide as a preventable death. He
said the most common way someone takes their own life is by a
self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“The CDC
recently reported a 30 percent increase in the rate of suicide
for this country since 1999,” Peters said. “Kentucky has its own
increase within that average of 30 percent.
He said
teenagers who live in homes with a loaded, unlocked gun are at
four times greater risk of killing themselves than if it was
unloaded and locked away.
Adams said the
group’s presentation was not a referendum on gun ownership or
non-gun ownership. She said it just reflected the violence
occurring across the nation.
Sen. Tom Buford,
R-Nicholasville, asked what could be done.
Peters said
increasing access to health care, improving identification of
children who need mental health treatment and limiting
children’s access to guns would make a difference.
“It is as simple
as locking it up,” he said. “Keep guns locked and safe.”
Co-chair Rep.
Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, asked whether mental-health
professionals had identified the contributing factors to the
increase of anxiety and mental-health issues among the nation’s
youth.
“It is a
difficult question to answer,” Peters said. “People spend their
lives really studying this issue of suicidology.”
Rep. Kimberly
Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, thanked the group for their
presentation.
“This is a
critical conversation we need to have,” she said. “It is in the
news quite a bit. We need to look at this as a big-picture
problem.”
She added that
there seems to be a lack of coping skills among the nation’s
youth.
-- END --
July
6, 2018
New state laws go into effect July 14
FRANKFORT – Most new laws approved during
the Kentucky General Assembly's 2018 session will go into effect
on Saturday, July 14.
That means drivers will soon be required to
leave at least three feet of space between their vehicles and
cyclists they pass. Children under the age of 17 will not be
allowed to get married. And penalties will get tougher for those
who post sexually explicit images online without the consent of
the person depicted.
The Kentucky Constitution specifies that
new laws take effect 90 days after the adjournment of the
legislature unless they have a special effective date, are
general appropriations measures, or include an emergency clause
that makes them effective immediately upon becoming law. Final
adjournment of the 2018 Regular Session was on April 14, making
July 14 the effective date for most bills.
Laws taking effect that day include
measures on the following topics:
Abstinence Education. Senate Bill 71 will require the
inclusion of abstinence education in any human sexuality or
sexually transmitted diseases curriculum in Kentucky high
schools.
Bicycle safety. House Bill 33 will require drivers to keep
their vehicles at least three feet away from bicyclists during
an attempt to pass. If that much space isn’t available, drivers
must use reasonable caution when passing cyclists.
Breweries. House Bill 136 will increase what breweries can
sell onsite to three cases and two kegs per customer. The new
law will also allow breweries to sell one case per customer at
fairs and festivals in wet jurisdictions.
Dyslexia. House Bill 187 will require the state Department
of Education to make a “dyslexia toolkit” available to school
districts to help them identify and instruct students who
display characteristics of dyslexia.
Financial literacy. House Bill 132 will require Kentucky
high school students to pass a financial literacy course before
graduating.
Foster Care and Adoption. House Bill 1 will take steps to
reform the state’s foster care and adoption system to ensure
that a child’s time in foster care is limited and that children
are returned to family whenever possible. It will expand the
definition of blood relative for child placement and ensure that
children in foster care are reunified with family or placed in
another permanent home in a timely manner.
Organ donation. House Bill 84 will require coroners or
medical examiners to release identifying and other relevant
information about a deceased person to Kentucky Organ Donor
Affiliates if the person’s wish to be an organ donor is known
and the body is suitable for medical transplant or therapy.
Police cameras. House Bill 373 will exempt some police body
camera footage from being publicly released. It will exempt the
footage from certain situations being released if it shows the
interior of private homes, medical facilities, women’s shelters
and jails or shows a dead body, evidence of sexual assault, nude
bodies and children.
Prescription medicines. Senate Bill 6 will require
pharmacists to provide information about safely disposing of
certain prescription medicines, such as opiates and
amphetamines.
Price gouging. Senate Bill 160 will clarify laws that
prevent price gouging during emergencies. The bill specifies
that fines could be imposed if retailers abruptly increase the
price of goods more than 10 percent when the governor declares a
state of emergency.
Revenge porn. House Bill 71 will increase penalties for
posting sexually explicit images online without the consent of
the person depicted. The crime would be a misdemeanor for the
first offense and felony for subsequent offenses. Penalties
would be even more severe if the images were posted for profit.
Teen
marriage. Senate Bill 48 will prohibit anyone under the age
of 17 from marrying. It will also require a district judge to
approve the marriage of any 17-year-old.
Terrorism. Senate Bill 57 will allow a person injured by an
act of terrorism to file a claim for damages against the
terrorist in state court.
--END--
June 7, 2018
PSC
reviews state of Kentucky’s electric power plants
FRANKFORT—Coal is still the primary fuel source for electricity
generation in Kentucky, but the demand for coal-fired power is
waning.
That was the word from Kentucky Public Service Commissioner
Talina Mathews, who told the Interim Joint Committee on Natural
Resources and Energy today that coal generated 83 percent of
Kentucky’s electricity in 2016, but preliminary data shows that
percentage declined below 80 percent in 2017.
“I think that’s interesting – and the gap is mostly made up from
natural gas,” said Mathews.
She directed lawmakers to charts illustrating changes in
electricity consumption, especially in the industrial sector
where Mathews said demand for electricity fell from over 50
percent in recent years to 37 percent in 2016. She attributed
most of that drop to the closure of the Paducah gaseous
diffusion plant, a federal facility that produced enriched
uranium until 2013.
But electricity consumption in Kentucky has been decreasing for
much longer than 2013, Mathews said, with consumption steadily
decreasing since 2008. “We’re using less – there’s less
electricity generated for all sectors in Kentucky,” she said.
Also affecting coal-fired electricity generation in Kentucky are
the retirements, or closure, of 12 coal plants between 2013 and
2017. Two other PSC-regulated coal-fired plants operated by LG&E
and KU are planned for retirement next year, said Mathews.
The reasons for the closures are many, she said: low natural gas
prices, the advanced age of the plants (each with an average age
of 54 years), efficiency, federal regulatory rules governing
mercury and air toxics standards, or MATS, and declining demand,
among other factors.
As far decreased consumption, Committee Co-Chair Rep. Jim Gooch,
R-Providence, wondered if conservation could also be at play.
Mathews said yes, to some degree.
“I think some of it is. I think you buy a (new) refrigerator,
it’s going to use less electricity … with the standards on
appliances. I think it’s mostly industrial load, though,” said
Mathews. “(And) yes, if you looked at the average
household use of electricity, you’re going to see it’s
declining.”
While most of the plants being retired are coal-fired, not all
are. LG&E and KU retired their Haefling #3 plant
in 2013 after 43 years in operation – although retirement of
natural gas plants is not the norm in Kentucky, per Mathews’
testimony. And that’s not just a question of fuel price
according to testimony from Mathews, who said the price of coal
is steady.
“I think the cost of extraction has led prices to go up, but
it’s not significant,” she said. Natural gas prices, while
“volatile” before 2008, have remained low for years, she said,
and are expected to stay low for at least another 10 years.
The cost of electricity has gone up, however, said Mathews, for
a variety of reasons including environmental costs, declining
load and cost related to early closure of power plants.
--END--
June 6,
2018
Two
new bridges could widen funding gap
FRANKFORT – Two proposed Ohio River bridges
have highlighted Kentucky’s need to generate more money to pay
for transportation projects, the state transportation secretary
told a panel of legislators yesterday.
“My primary reason for being here is to
convey the need for increased funding,” Secretary Greg Thomas
said while testifying before a meeting of the Interim Joint
Committee on Transpiration. “It’s a pretty dire outlook.”
He said he came to that conclusion as he
explored how Kentucky could afford to build two proposed
interstate bridges – in the next six years. One proposed bridge
would create an Interstate 69 Ohio River crossing between
Evansville and Henderson. The second bridge would replace an
aging Brent Spence Bridge that carries Interstate 71/75 traffic
between Covington and Cincinnati.
“As we learn more and more, it is becoming
more and more obvious that those two bridges are going to
present (financial) challenges for us,” Thomas said.
He estimated Kentucky’s share of the
proposed $1.1 billion I-69 bridge to be at least $455 million.
Thomas said he estimated the state’s share of the proposed $2.6
billion Brent Spence Bridge replacement to be at least $385
million. That would mean Kentucky would have $140 million a year
to spend on $10.5 billion worth of proposed transportation
projects, he said.
“That is kind of the message I’m here to
deliver,” Thomas said. “I think it is very important that we
together keep our focus on the need for increased funding as we
move forward.”
Committee Co-chair Sen. Ernie Harris,
R-Prospect, said he appreciated Thomas “telling it as it is.”
Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, said
Thomas was “absolutely right” and that he too appreciated the
secretary’s candor.
“We need to look at some way to not just
stabilize the revenue for the road fund but also increase
revenue for the road fund because we have a lot of ... roads
that need to be maintained and upgraded,” Hornback said. “We
have a lot of growth in Kentucky and we got to take care of that
because, without infrastructure, we won’t have the investments
in manufacturing and other things we need here in Kentucky.”
Rep. Sal. Santoro, R-Florence, asked about
the impact of electric cars and hybrid cars on the amount of gas
taxes collected by the state.
Thomas said he thinks it’s negligible
because the 563 electric vehicles about 31,500 hybrids
registered in Kentucky make up less than 1 percent of all
vehicles licensed in the state. He estimated the number of
electric and hybrid vehicles would only reach 3 percent in 10
years.
“I think the most pressing problem is the
efficiency gains out there,” Thomas said in reference to more
fuel-efficient vehicles. He said the reduction in revenue gains
is tied to continued efficiency gains.
-- END --
June 5, 2018
Pension
update shows some improvement
FRANKFORT—Assets in the Kentucky Retirement Systems have
increased by $905 million so far this fiscal year with
investment gains topping $1 billion year to date, officials told
the state’s pension oversight board yesterday.
KRS
Executive Director David Eager told the Public Pension Oversight
Board that the $905 million increase in assets is like “water in
the bathtub,” with more flowing in than flowing out. “It went up
$900 million, said Eager.
Investment
gains, while below last year’s total of nearly $2 billion,
should allow KRS to finish the fiscal year with over $1 billion
in new income, Eager said. “We’ve got three months more to tack
on here … Hopefully we’ll be up a little more than $1.1 billion
by the end of the year.”
Also
showing promise are investment returns for KRS so far in fiscal
year 2018, with returns for pension and insurance investments up
7.72 percent and 8.02 percent respectively. Eager said those are
“attractive returns” which are better than returns in 2016 and
slightly below last year’s returns.
Less
encouraging to some lawmakers is the cash flow situation at KRS,
which has a negative cash flow of -$197 million. Also
experiencing a negative cash flow is the Kentucky Teachers’
Retirement System (KTRS) which KTRS Deputy Executive Director
Beau Barnes says has a negative cash flow of -$258 million so
far this fiscal year.
Both Barnes
and Eager explained the negative cash flow as a matter of having
not enough cash on hand to meet demand for benefits. One
consideration, said Eager, is an imbalance in the number of
retirees versus active employees.
“We are in
a situation with the KRS non-hazardous plan where we have 5,000
more retirees than we have active people. Pretty hard to have
positive cash flow when you’re paying out that level of benefits
to that many people,” he said. “It’s a problem – it’s not as big
a problem as you might feel.”
Barnes
stressed that his system’s negative cash flow is not as
threatening as it might sound, adding that KTRS had a negative
cash flow of $650 million two years ago.
“This is a
very manageable negative cash flow for us,” said Barnes. “We are
not, for example, having to avoid certain investments, longer
term investments, that we were avoiding when we had the $650
million and growing negative cash flow.”
Board
Co-Chair Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro, said negative cash flows
are not something that the state retirement systems should take
in stride.
“I want to
caution this committee and those here today that we shouldn’t
get comfortable with negative cash flow figures even from any
type of historical perspective where we did worse,” said Bowen.
“We’ve got to move beyond that at some point.”
Another
issue facing the state pension systems is a spike in
retirements. Eager said KRS retirements are up 1,100 in 2018
compared to 2017, he said, with another spike expected this
August. “That’s a real strain on us. Again, we’ll get it done,”
Eager told the board.
A brief
presentation was also received on the Judicial Form Retirement
System, which includes the Judicial Retirement Plan and
Legislators Retirement Plan. Judicial Form Retirement System
Executive Director Donna Early said some third-quarter results
were “lackluster.”
--END--
June 1,
2018
Felony
expungement reviewed by state legislative panel
FRANKFORT—Committee testimony on a 2018 bill that proposed
adding to the list of low-level felonies that could be expunged
in Kentucky led to comments today about the cost of felony
expungement in the state.
Individuals
who are certified to have their non-violent felony record
expunged—or deleted from court records—in Kentucky must pay a
$500 filing fee to apply to have the record deleted. The same
$500 fee was proposed in 2018 Senate Bill 171, sponsored by
Senate President Pro Tem Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon. That
legislation, which did not become law this year but may be
proposed again, would make additional low-level felonies
eligible for expungement.
It is the
felony expungement cost, however, that some members of the
Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary expressed concern with
during testimony today on both SB 171 and its predecessor 2016
House Bill 40, which was passed into law two years ago.
Rep.
McKenzie Cantrell, D-Louisville, said a Louisville-area program
called the Reily Reentry Project is paying expungement costs for
those wanting to clear their criminal record and improve their
quality of life. She said the $500 fee is “a real barrier” for
many folks.
“I really
would like for you to reconsider the amount of the filing fee
that we’re charging because I think it is holding people back,”
she told Higdon as he presented SB 171 before the committee for
discussion.
In
response, Higdon said there was some discussion during debate on
HB 40 in the 2016 Regular Session about making it easier to pay
the filing fee.
“I’m sure
that would be something that we could do because it’s probably a
good idea, if you owe the court, to pay them,” said Higdon.
“They have ways to collect.”
Rep. Jason
Nemes, R-Louisville, said those who have charges dismissed
should not have to ask or pay to have their record cleared.
“If the
(charge) is dismissed, that should be off my record immediately.
I shouldn’t have to pay a dollar for that and I shouldn’t have
to ask for it to be done,” said Nemes. He spoke specifically of
misdemeanors, but said felonies may deserve some leeway as well.
“We need to
start from the proposition that some of these Class Ds
(low-level felonies) shouldn’t be felonies in the first place,”
he said, adding that SB 171 “doesn’t go far enough.”
Higdon told
Nemes that one solution could be to give more discretion to the
judges and prosecutors and “let them decide.”
Current law
requires that $50 of every $500 filing fee collected be put into
a trust for deputy court clerks. Under SB 171, $50 of that $500
would also go to the Kentucky State Police for processing of
expungements, and $100 would go to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s
office that prosecuted the case to help process expungements.
Felony
expungements in Kentucky have increased exponentially since the
passage of 2016 HB 40, according to officials from the
Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC.) Kelly Stephens who
manages the AOC’s Information and Technology Services (ITS)
Court Services Division told the committee that there were 83
felony expungements granted in Kentucky in 2016. That number
grew to 912 in 2017, followed by 330 felony expungements to date
in 2018, she said.
“In 2016 –
(HB 40) was passed and effective July 15 – the process itself
can take up to six months, so we didn’t see as many in 2016,”
she said. “In 2017, I think we saw the numbers kind of shake out
how we expected.”
Expungements for acquittals, dismissed charges and misdemeanor
convictions have also been numerous since 2016, said Stephens,
with more than 15,000 of those expungements granted since 2016.
--END--
May 2,
2018
Kentucky’s tobacco settlement money is in – with more coming
FRANKFORT—Kentucky’s latest share of a multi-billion-dollar
national tobacco settlement agreement is $102 million with more
money on the way, says the Governor’s Office of Agricultural
Policy.
GOAP
Executive Director Warren Beeler told the General Assembly’s
Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee today that
the $102 million, received last month, will provide around $28.4
million in 2018 for state and county agricultural projects
funded through the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, or
KADF. And more funds are expected, thanks to a reformulation of
settlement funds by the tobacco companies making the payments.
The
reformulation—based on actions taken by the companies to ensure
compliance with the two-decades old settlement agreement entered
into between 46 states, including Kentucky, and the nation’s
largest cigarette manufacturers—will boost the $28.4 million to
around $40 million over the biennium, said Beeler. For counties,
that means a 40 percent increase in available funds.
“So you can
tell your counties, the county money’s going up 40 percent,” he
told lawmakers on the committee.
The
recently-passed state budget will divert around $13 million in
2019-2020 for agricultural improvements to the state fairgrounds
in Louisville, leaving less money for other projects and
programs. While budgeting funds for state fairground
improvements means less money for other agricultural projects
and programs funded with tobacco settlement dollars, Beeler said
he considers the improvements “an investment in agriculture.”
The budget
provision will have little impact otherwise, Beeler said. Even
with $7 million gone in 2019, he said tobacco dollars for state
projects funded through the KADF will be within $100,000 of this
year’s total.
“So we came
through it as good as anybody,” said Beeler.
Overall,
Beeler said Kentucky has grown its farm gate cash receipts – or
sales from Kentucky agricultural operations – by around $2
billion, year after year, with $560 million in tobacco
settlement money it has spent on agriculture to date.
“That
money’s worked like a dream. If you could go with me, you’d see
what I see. It’s been absolutely terrific,” he said.
--END--
April
14, 2018
Kentucky General Assembly’s 2018 session ends
FRANKFORT --
The Kentucky General Assembly’s 2018 regular session ended this
evening, capping off a session in which lawmakers approved the
state’s next two-year budget and numerous other measures that
will affect people throughout the state.
Most new laws –
those that come from legislation that don’t contain emergency
clauses or different specified effective dates – will go into
effect in mid-July.
A partial list
of bills approved this year by the General Assembly include
measures on the following topics:
Abortion. House Bill 454 will
prohibit a certain type of abortion procedure, known as a D & E,
if a woman is more than 11 weeks pregnant. The legislation does
not ban other types of abortion procedures. (Enforcement of this
new law has been temporarily halted by a federal judge until
motions challenging the measure are heard in June.)
Abstinence Education. Senate
Bill 71 will require the inclusion of abstinence education in
any human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases curriculum
in Kentucky high schools.
Bicycle safety. House Bill 33 will
require drivers to keep vehicles at least three feet away from
bicyclists during an attempt to pass. If that much space isn’t
available, the driver must use “reasonable caution” when passing
cyclists.
Breweries. House Bill
136 will increase what breweries can sell onsite to three cases
and two kegs per customer. Another provision will allow
breweries to sell one case per customer at fairs and festivals
in wet jurisdictions.
Budget. House Bill 200
will guide state spending for the next two fiscal years. The
plan fully funds the state’s main public pension systems at the
levels recommended by actuarial analysis. It calls for 6.25
percent baseline cuts for most state agencies, although some
agencies are spared. Agencies that will avoid cuts include the
Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Kentucky State Police, and
local school-based Kentucky Family Resource and Youth Services
Centers. The budget plan will boost base per-pupil funding for
K-12 education to a record level of $4,000 per student in each
fiscal year. It also includes more than $60
million in new revenue to help implement proposed adoption and
foster care reforms and tens of millions of dollars to hire more
social workers.
Dyslexia. House Bill 187 will
require the state Department of Education to make a “dyslexia
toolkit” available to school districts to help them identify and
instruct students who display characteristics of dyslexia.
Financial literacy. House Bill 132
will require Kentucky high school students to pass a financial
literacy course before graduating.
Foster Care and Adoption. House
Bill 1 intends to reform the state’s foster care and adoption
system to ensure that a child’s time in foster care is limited
and that children are returned to family whenever possible. It
would expand the definition of blood relative for child
placement and ensure that children in foster care are reunified
with family or placed in another permanent home in a timely
manner.
Gangs. House Bill 169
will establish penalties for criminal gang-related crimes,
especially those involving gang recruitment. The legislation
will make gang recruitment a felony instead of misdemeanor for
adults and make minors involved in such activity face felony
charges in certain cases.
Jail security. House Bill 92 will
allow jail canteen profits to be used for the enhancement of
jail safety and security.
Organ donation. House Bill 84 will
require coroners or medical examiners to release identifying and
other relevant information about a deceased person to Kentucky
Organ Donor Affiliates if the person’s wish to be an organ donor
is known and the body is suitable for medical transplant or
therapy.
Pharmacies. Senate
Bill 5 is aimed at ensuring that independent pharmacists are
fairly reimbursed for filling prescriptions of Medicaid
recipients. This measure will place the Kentucky Department for
Medicaid Services in charge of setting the reimbursement rates
for a pharmacist. The rate is currently set by pharmacy-benefit
managers hired by the state’s Medicaid managed-care
organizations.
Police cameras. House Bill 373 will
exempt some police body camera footage from being publicly
released. It will exempt the footage from certain situations
being released if it shows the interior of private homes,
medical facilities, women’s shelters and jails or shows a dead
body, evidence of sexual assault, nude bodies and children.
Prescription medicines. Senate Bill
6 will require a pharmacist to provide information about the
safe disposal of certain prescription medicines, such as opiates
and amphetamines.
Price gouging. Senate Bill 160 will
clarify laws aimed at preventing price gouging during
emergencies. The bill specifies that fines could be imposed if a
retailer suddenly increases the price of goods more than 10
percent when the governor declares a state of emergency.
Public pensions. Senate
Bill 151 will make changes aimed at stabilizing public pension
systems that face more than $40 billion in unfunded liabilities.
Changes proposed by the pension reform legislation include
placing future teachers in a hybrid “cash balance” plan rather
than a traditional benefits plan and limiting the impact of
accrued sick leave on retirement benefit calculations.
Revenge porn. House Bill 71 will
increase penalties for posting sexually explicit images online
without the consent of the person depicted. The crime would be
misdemeanor for the first offence and felony for subsequent
offences. Penalties would be even more severe if the images were
posted for profit.
Road Plan. House
Bill 202 will authorize over $2.4 billion for bridges, repaving
and other highway needs throughout Kentucky over the next two
fiscal years.
Tax reform. Tax reform
provisions included in House Bill 366 will generate about $400
million in additional revenue over the next two years. The plan
include a cigarette tax increase of 50 cents per pack and an
expansion of the state sales tax to some services, such as
landscaping, janitorial, laundry and small-animal veterinary
services. It will also create a flat 5 percent tax for personal
and corporate income taxes in Kentucky. The inventory tax would
also be phased out over a four-year period. Under the plan, the
only itemized deductions allowed would be for Social Security
income, mortgage income and charitable giving. It would also
disallow the deductions for such things as medical costs, taxes
paid, interest expense on investments, and casualty and theft
losses. It would also remove the $10 state personal income tax
credit.
Teen marriage. Senate Bill 48 will
prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from getting married. It
would also require a district judge to approve the marriage of
any 17-year-old. While current law states 16- and 17-year-olds
can be married with parental consent, a district judge can
approve the marriage of a child below the age of 16 if the girl
is pregnant.
Terrorism. Senate Bill 57 will allow
a person injured by an act of terrorism to file a claim for
damages against the terrorist in state court.
--END--
April 14, 2018
This
Week at the State Capitol
FRANKFORT -- State lawmakers put the
finishing touches on the General Assembly’s 2018 session this
week by overriding gubernatorial vetoes, most notably on the
state budget and tax reform legislation, and passing bills right
up to the session’s final hours.
By overriding vetoes this week, lawmakers
ensured that their preferred versions of the budget and tax
measures become law.
The tax reform measure, House Bill 366,
will increase state revenues which, in turn, allowed lawmakers
to craft a state budget that avoids some, but not all, of the
budget cuts that were contained in the governor’s original
budget proposal.
Highlights of the tax plan – which is
expected to generate nearly a half of billion dollars in
additional revenue for the state over the next two fiscal years
– include a cigarette tax increase of 50 cents per pack and an
expansion of the state sales tax to some services, such as
landscaping services, janitorial services, veterinarian services
for small animals, fitness and recreational sports centers,
commercial laundries, golf courses and country clubs, dry
cleaning, pet grooming, weight loss centers and campgrounds.
The tax reform plan will allow the vast
majority of working Kentuckians to see their income taxes go
down. Most working Kentuckians currently have at least 5.8
percent of their pay go toward income taxes. But, starting this
summer, that rate will go down to a flat 5 percent for everyone.
The corporate income tax rate will also go
to a flat 5 percent.
Proponents of the tax plan say that it does
what many say good tax policy should strive to do: broaden the
tax base while lowering rates. They also note that the plan
moves the state toward a consumption-based tax system. Critics
of the plan say the tax changes disproportionately benefit the
wealthiest Kentuckians.
As a result of the tax plan, budget cuts
are less severe than some expected. The spending plan includes
6.25 percent baseline cuts for most state agencies, although
some agencies are spared. Agencies that will avoid cuts include
the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Kentucky State Police, and
local school-based Kentucky Family Resource and Youth Services
Centers.
The budget fully funds the state’s main
public pension systems at the levels recommended by actuarial
analysis.
It also boosts base per-pupil funding for
K-12 education to a record level of $4,000 per student in each
fiscal year. It would also increase school transportation
funding to $127.8 million in each year of the budget cycle.
The budget plan includes more than $60
million in new revenue to help implement newly approved adoption
and foster care reforms, including more than $23 million for
placement of foster children with relatives, and tens of
millions of dollars to hire more social workers and increase
social worker salaries.
In a separate action this week, lawmakers
also overrode a gubernatorial veto to House Bill 362, a pension
“phase in” bill for local governments. The legislation will
allow city and county government to phase in increased
contributions to their pension systems while allowing local
governments to receive financing at zero percent interest when
leaving the system.
Also this week, lawmakers sent a bill to
the governor’s office aimed at reducing criminal gang activity.
House Bill 169 will make gang recruitment a felony instead of
misdemeanor for adults and make minors involved in such activity
face felony charges in certain cases.
Although the legislative session has now
ended, constituents are still encouraged to contact their
Representatives and Senators to voice their opinions about
issues of interest. If you’d like to share your thoughts and
ideas with state lawmakers, please call the General Assembly’s
toll-free message line at (800) 372-7181, or find contact
information for individual legislators at www.lrc.ky.gov.
--END--
April 13,
2018
General
Assembly overrides budget veto
FRANKFORT –
The Kentucky House and Senate today overrode the governor’s
vetoes of the state’s two-year, $22 billion budget and
accompanying revenue measure.
The veto of
the budget bill, known as House Bill 200, was overridden in the
Senate 25-12 and in the House 66-28. The budget includes 6.25
percent baseline cuts for most state agencies, although some
agencies are spared.
“House Bill
200 ensures we fully fund the Department of Veterans’ Affairs,
that we fully fund the Kentucky State Police, that we ensure the
request for new cruisers and rifles for the Kentucky State
Police is fully funded,” said Senate Appropriations and Revenue
Committee Chairman Christian McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill. “House
Bill 200 makes sure the Commonwealth will not open and does not
allocate money for private prisons.”
McDaniel
said HB 200 would boost base per-pupil funding for K-12
education to a record level of $4,000 per student in each fiscal
year while providing money for school buses. HB 200 also
includes more than $60 million in new revenue to help implement
proposed adoption and foster care reforms, he said, adding
additional money for social workers and prosecutors is also
included.
“It makes
sure we fully fund the request of the Kentucky Teachers’
Retirement System for a full pension contribution,” McDaniel
said. “I could go on and on, but we’ve all had nearly two weeks
to go through House Bill 200 to know what it is about.”
A senator
who didn’t vote to override the veto of HB 200 was Morgan
McGarvey, D-Louisville.
“This
budget does do some good things,” he said. “We have to admit
that. That is what makes this at times a tough vote, but there
is nothing in this budget that is a gift. It still plays a magic
act where we ask you to look over here at the good things and
not address the fact that we are very much still picking winners
and losers.”
During the
House debate on HB 200, State Government Chair Jerry Miller,
R-Louisville, said he supported the override because the budget
finally addressed the underfunded pensions. He said prior
budgets contained money for local projects without properly
funding the initiatives.
“Unfortunately we have at least $43 billion underfunded (our
pension systems),” said Miller. “We had to take action because
since 1943, candy has been given without being fully paid for.
And that’s why I’m going to vote to override the veto.”
One of the
representatives who voted to uphold the governor’s veto was Jim
Wayne, D-Louisville, who said the General Assembly had a chance
to do better.
“We need to
take this budget, and defeat it –support the veto—and then
together … work on a common vision, shared high values, reaching
out for the very best of who we are and what our people are,” he
said.
The veto of
the accompanying revenue measure, known as House Bill 366, was
overridden in the Senate 20-18 and in the House 57-40.
HB 366
creates a flat 5 percent rate for personal and corporate income
taxes, expands the sales tax to some services such as car
repairs and raises the cigarette tax 50 cents to $1.10 per pack.
The only itemized deductions allowed under HB 366 will be for
Social Security income, mortgage income and charitable giving.
And the inventory tax will also be phased out over a four-year
period.
In the
Senate, Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said
HB 366 will generate nearly a half of billion dollars in
additional money for the state over the next two fiscal years.
“What this
bill does is what Republicans have talked about for many years
on tax reform,” he said. “It lowers the rates and increases the
base – moving away from taxes on production and moving to taxes
on consumption.”
Thayer said
that has been part of a winning formula for Florida, Texas,
Indiana and Tennessee. He said HB 366 would move Kentucky from
33rd in business competitiveness to 18th.
“When we
become more competitive, we create more jobs,” Thayer said. “We
then create more taxpayers with more money going into the
coffers to pay for things like education.”
Senate
Minority Floor Leader Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville, spoke
against the veto override.
“What this
tax bill really does is raise $436 million in taxes from the
people who can least afford to pay more,” he said.
During
House debate of HB 366, Minority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy
Hook, also spoke against the veto override.
“This bill
is not tax reform. This bill is a tax shift. And it’s a tax
shift from the wealthy and the corporations to those least able
to pay,” he said.
Among the
Representatives who voted to override the veto of HB 366 was
Jason Nemes, R-Louisville.
“This is an
education bill. That’s why our teachers demand an override.
That’s why our public employees demand an override,” he said.
Later in
his speech, he said, “Are you with public educators or are you
not?”
The General
Assembly also overrode a veto of House Bill 362, a measure
designed to give some county governments, municipalities and
school districts relief from soaring pension costs this year.
The House voted 94-2 to override while the Senate voted 34-4.
The
measure, sometimes referred to as a “rate-collar,” will provide
the pension relief government entities desperately needed in
order to phase in, over a maximum of 10 years, the full increase
in rates passed by the Kentucky Retirement System board last
December.
-- END –
April 13, 2018
Gang
violence legislation goes to governor
FRANKFORT—The Kentucky General Assembly has passed legislation
that would increase penalties for criminal gang-related crimes,
especially those involving gang recruitment.
House Bill
169, sponsored by Rep. Robert Benvenuti, R-Lexington, received
final passage today in the House on a vote of 59-30 after
passing the Senate 21-17. The bill now goes to the governor to
be signed into law.
The
legislation—which would make gang recruitment a felony instead
of misdemeanor for adults, and allow minors involved in such
activity to face felony charges in certain cases—was amended to
lessen penalties for most juvenile offenders, even if they are
being treated as an adult by the courts.
Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Whitney Westerfield,
R-Hopkinsville, presented House Bill 169 in the Senate.
Westerfield said bill as amended would only apply enhanced
felony charges to youths who had prior records for certain
offenses or had been charged with a serious offense, such as
murder.
Benvenuti
said HB 169’s passage has been in the making for at least two
years, with similar legislation passing the House in 2017 by a
wide margin.
Among those
opposing the bill in the House was Rep. George Brown Jr. The
Lexington Democrat said the legislation will increase, not
prevent, gang violence. He also said it will disproportionately
affect people of color.
“This
legislation is a poster child for gang recruitment and will only
enhance (gang) numbers in our communities, and in jails and
prisons,” said Brown.
Benvenuti
called the need for the legislation a “reality” with at least 30
criminal gangs actively recruiting inside Kentucky. “The vast
majority of states, all but a handful, have statutes at least as
strict as HB 169,” he said.
--END--
April 6,
2018
This
Week at the State Capitol
FRANKFORT
-- This week, lawmakers fulfilled a main duty the state
constitution requires of them as final approval was given to a
state budget that will guide more than $22 billion worth of
spending over the next two years.
The budget
plan does not include all of the program cuts that received much
attention when they were unveiled in the governor’s original
budget plan. Rather, lawmakers approved a tax measure on the
same day they approved the budget that raises revenue to stave
off many of the proposed cuts.
In passing
the budget plan, lawmakers emphasized that it fully funds the
state’s main public pension systems at the levels recommended by
actuarial analysis.
The budget
includes 6.25 percent baseline cuts for most state agencies,
although some agencies are spared. Agencies that will avoid cuts
include the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Kentucky State
Police, and local school-based Kentucky Family Resource and
Youth Services Centers.
For K-12
education, the budget plan, known as House Bill200, would boost
base per-pupil funding for K-12 education to a record level of
$4,000 per student in each fiscal year. It would also increase
school transportation funding to $127.8 million in each year of
the budget cycle. It would also provide more than $10 million
next fiscal year to help 31 school districts replace lost
revenues following a drop in the assessment on unmined coal,
among other provisions.
HB 200 also
includes more than $60 million in new revenue to help implement
proposed adoption and foster care reforms, including more than
$23 million for placement of foster children with relatives, and
tens of millions of dollars to hire more social workers and
increase social worker salaries.
Additional
funds for spending on social workers and prosecutors is also
included in the budget, with provisions that would add $10
million to hire 94 additional Youth Workers for the Department
of Juvenile Justice and around $6 million to hire more
prosecutors.
The budget
bill passed the House by a 59-36 vote and was approved by the
Senate on a 25-13 vote.
Increased
revenue that the budget depends on for some of its spending will
be generated by the provisions found in House Bill 366, a tax
reform measure that has been approved and sent to the governor.
The measure, which includes a 50 cent tax increase on packs of
cigarettes, would generate nearly a half of billion dollars in
additional money for the state over the next two fiscal years.
Besides the
cigarette tax, the plan would create a flat rate for personal
and corporate income taxes in Kentucky while expanding the sales
tax to certain services.
The
personal income tax rate would be set at a flat five percent
instead of the current brackets ranging from two percent to six
percent, while the corporate income tax would also go to a flat
rate of five percent instead of the current brackets ranging
from four percent to six percent. The inventory tax would also
be phased out over a four-year period.
The only
itemized deductions allowed under HB 366 would be for Social
Security income, mortgage income and charitable giving. It would
disallow the deductions for such things as medical costs, taxes
paid, interest expense on investments, and casualty and theft
losses. It would also remove the $10 state personal income tax
credit.
Another
provision would lower the pension income exclusion to $31,110
from $41,110.
The plan
would also place a sales tax on some services associated with
certain repairs, installation and maintenance related to
personal property, such as a car. The sales tax would also be
expanded to other selected services including landscaping
services, janitorial services, veterinarian services for small
animals, fitness and recreational sports centers, commercial
laundries, golf courses and country clubs, dry cleaning, pet
grooming, weight loss centers and campgrounds.
The tax
measure was approved by the Senate on a 20-18 vote and by the
House on a 51-44 vote.
While much
attention was on the budget and tax reform measures approved
this week, lawmakers also approved a number of other bills,
including legislation on the following topics:
Road Plan. House
Bill 202 will guide over $2.4 billion in spending for Kentucky’s
bridges, repaving projects and other road needs throughout
Kentucky over the next two fiscal years. The bill has been
approved and delivered to the governor. Lawmakers have also
approved House Joint Resolution 74, which identifies projects
for in the last four years of the state’s six-year Road Plan.
Projects in this plan are prioritized but not yet funded.
Adoption
and foster care. House
Bill 1 would reform Kentucky’s adoption and foster care system
with the goal of ensuring that a child’s time in foster care is
limited and that children are returned to family whenever
possible. The legislation would also expand the definition of
blood relative for child placement and ensure that children in
foster care are reunified with family or placed in another
permanent home in a timely manner. It would also require more
case reviews for each child in foster care, create a “putative
father registry” so that a child’s possible (but not verified)
biological father can be notified of the child’s prospective
adoption, and allow the state to seek termination of parental
rights for new mothers who won’t seek drug treatment after
giving birth to a drug-addicted baby.
Abstinence
education. Senate
Bill 71 would require the abstinence education be included when
schools offer any human sexuality or sexually transmitted
diseases curriculum.
Alcohol. House
Bill 400 would allow direct shipment of alcoholic beverages to
people’s homes. The legislation would allow visitors at bourbon
distilleries to ship limited amounts of spirits home as well as
join bourbon of the month clubs. HB 400 would also permit
vineyards to ship specific amounts of wine out of state. Another
provision would allow liquor stores to ship a limited amount of
spirits purchased from their shops. In addition, it would also
require the shippers of the spirits to verify the delivery is
made to someone at least 21 years old living in a “wet” area.
Lawmakers
have now returned to their homes districts for a ten-day “veto
recess.” This is the period of time in which lawmakers wait
until the end of the time period in which the governor can cast
vetoes on legislation that has recently passed. This waiting
period ensures that lawmakers have a chance to consider
overriding any vetoes before officially adjourning the 2018
session. The session’s final days are scheduled to be held on
April 13 and 14.
If you’d
like to share your thoughts with lawmakers about any of the
measures that have been approved this year, you can do so by
calling the General Assembly’s toll-free message line at
1-800-372-7181.
--END--
April 3,
2018
Foster
care and adoption reform bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT—A
bipartisan legislative initiative to reform Kentucky’s adoption
and foster care system has been delivered to the governor to be
signed into law.
House Bill
1, sponsored by House Majority Caucus Chair David Meade,
R-Stanford, and Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, reforms the
state’s foster care and adoption system to ensure that a child’s
time in foster care is limited and that children are returned to
family whenever possible. The legislation is based on
recommendations of the state House Working Group on Adoption,
which met most of last year.
Meade, who
is the father of both an adopted child and a biological child,
explained the need for HB 1 when the bill first came to the
House floor for a vote in February.
“We owe it
to all these children, the parents, and the families across the
state to start reforming a system in desperate need,” Meade told
his colleagues. “This is an opportunity to do something truly
remarkable for the children and the families of this state and
start changing lives for some of the most vulnerable.”
More than
8,600 Kentucky children are now in foster care and awaiting
permanent homes, according to committee testimony this session.
HB 1
includes major provisions that would expand the definition of
blood relative for child placement and ensure that children in
foster care are reunified with family or placed in another
permanent home in a timely manner. The legislation would also
require more case reviews for each child in foster care, create
a “putative father registry” so that a child’s possible (but not
verified) biological father can be notified of the child’s
prospective adoption, and allow the state to seek termination of
parental rights for new mothers who won’t seek drug treatment
after giving birth to a drug-addicted baby.
Senate
changes to HB 1 that made it into the final bill include
provisions that would protect a mother from losing her parental
rights if she was properly prescribed and using medication that
could have caused her newborn’s addiction. The amended bill
would also clarify that foster parents and child placement
agencies be given a 10-day notice before a foster child is
reunified with his or her birth parents or placed in a new home.
HB 1
received final passage yesterday on a vote of 90-1 in the House.
It had passed the Senate unanimously earlier in the day.
--END--
April 2, 2018
Road Plan receives final passage, goes to governor
FRANKFORT—A two-year state Road Plan that would authorize over
$2.4 billion for bridges, repaving and other highway needs
throughout Kentucky over the next two fiscal years is on its way
to the governor’s desk after receiving passage in the Kentucky
House.
House Budget Review Subcommittee on Transportation Chair Rep.
Sal Santoro, R-Florence, said before a House vote on House Bill
202 last month that the measure would invest nearly $1 billion
in bridge and road work while bolstering economic development.
“This legislator knows our rural roads and our people in our
rural communities need help, and we’re going to take care of
them,” Santoro said.
Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chair Christian
McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, praised the legislation when it was
amended and unanimously passed in the Senate on March 22.
“This is a road plan that is balanced,” McDaniel said. “We have
seen a lot that are not in the past. It takes an exceptional
amount of discipline to put forward a plan like that. And
frankly, in many ways, an exceptional amount of courage.”
Also on its way to the governor is House Joint Resolution 74,
which contains projects in the last four years, or “out years,”
of the state’s six-year Road Plan. Projects in the out years of
the plan are prioritized but not yet funded. HJR 74 was amended
and passed unanimously by the Senate last month.
HB 202 and HJR 74 received final passage in the House today by
votes of 76-14 and 75-15 respectively.
--END--
April
2, 2018
Abstinence education bill goes to
governor
FRANKFORT – A bill that would require the inclusion of
abstinence education in any human sexuality or sexually
transmitted diseases curriculum received final passage today in
the state Senate.
Senate Bill 71, as amended in the House, passed by a 36-1 vote.
Bill sponsor Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said the
House amendment makes clear that the legislation is not an
abstinence-only bill. Though the legislation would require
abstinence education to be a part of any sexual education
curriculum offered to students, the curriculum will “not be
limited to abstinence and monogamy,” he said.
The provisions of SB 71 would be included in comprehensive
sexual health education standards that are currently under
review by the state education department if the measure becomes
law.
-- END --
April 2, 2018
Pharmacy benefit manager bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT – The state Senate gave final passage today to a bill
intended to ensure independent pharmacists are fairly reimbursed
for filling prescriptions of Medicaid recipients.
Senate Bill 5, as amended by the House, would make the Kentucky
Department for Medicaid Services in charge of setting the
reimbursement rates for a pharmacist. The rate is currently set
by pharmacy-benefit managers (PBMs) hired by the state’s
Medicaid managed-care organizations (MCOs).
“As many of you know, the Kentucky legislature has spent an
inordinate amount of time over the past several sessions of the
General Assembly trying to play the role of policeman between
PBMs and pharmacists,” said Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, who
sponsored the legislation. “The (amendment) gives the Kentucky
Medicaid department clear authority to police pricing terms and
contracts while we are not in session.”
He said Kentucky Medicaid spends $1.7 billion annually on
prescriptions and SB 5 would help authorities track that money
and determine whether locally-owned pharmacies were being
reimbursed fairly.
Another provision would allow the state Medicaid and insurance
departments to issue penalties if a PBM fails to comply with the
legislation.
“This bill ... truly is a very transparent bill,” Wise said,
adding SB 5 may become a model for the nation.
Independent pharmacies in several states have claimed in recent
months that PBMs owned by national pharmacy chains are not
fairly reimbursing them. The dominate PBM in Kentucky, for
example, is only paying independent pharmacists a professional
dispensing fee of 85 cents per prescription, Wise said. The
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services states that fee
should be around $10.64, plus the cost of the drug being
dispensed.
The measure passed by a 37-0 vote.
-- END --
April 2, 2018
$22 billion state spending plan receives final passage
FRANKFORT— A $22 billion state spending plan that would restore
some funding cuts proposed by the governor while ensuring that
Kentucky fully funds its public pension systems has received
final passage in the House after being approved by the Senate
earlier today.
House Bill 200 was given final approval on a House vote of
59-36. The Senate approved the bill on a vote of 25-13.
Pension funding is where most of the new spending in HB 200
would go, with billions of dollars slated to fully fund
Kentucky’s public employee and teacher retirement plans over the
next two years. Additional dollars in the legislation include
$59.5 million next fiscal year to cover health insurance for
some retired teachers who are not yet Medicare eligible, among
other provisions.
While the budget still includes 6.25 percent baseline cuts for
most state agencies as recommended by the governor, a few
agencies—including the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Kentucky
State Police, and local school-based Kentucky Family Resource
and Youth Services Centers, or FRYSCs—will have their funding
restored. The FRYSCs alone will receive an additional $4.1
million in state dollars this fiscal year and $9.7 million in
each of the next two fiscal years to restore their proposed
cuts.
For K-12 education, HB 200 would boost base per-pupil funding
for K-12 education, or SEEK, to a record level of $4,000 per
student in each fiscal year. It would also increase school
transportation funding to $127.8 million in each year of the
budget cycle to help meet the pupil transportation needs of
Kentucky’s school districts. And it would add over $10 million
next fiscal year to help 31 school districts replace lost
revenues following a drop in the assessment on unmined coal,
among other provisions.
For postsecondary education, HB 200 in its final form includes
more than $227 million for need-based scholarships and grants.
It also adds $62 million over the biennium in state funds for
the Postsecondary Education Performance Fund which is designed
to modernize how the state funds its public colleges and
universities, as well as provide millions of dollars in funding
for other higher education needs.
HB 200 also includes more than $60 million in new revenue to
help implement proposed adoption and foster care reforms
including more than $23 million for placement of foster children
with relatives, tens of millions of dollars to hire more social
workers and increase social worker salaries, and at least $5
million for kinship care.
Additional funds for public safety are also found in the bill,
which would appropriate over $85 million in federal funds to
support victims of crime programs. Yet other provisions would
add $10 million to hire 94 additional Youth Workers for the
Department of Juvenile Justice and around $6 million to hire
more prosecutors, along with additional funding in other areas.
Public libraries would also get a boost in the bill, which would
add over $8.5 million in state funds in direct local aid for the
institutions. And KentuckyWired – the state’s
open-access broadband network now under construction through a
public/private partnership – would receive no state General Fund
appropriations but would receive over $70 million in
non-governmental expense (NGE) spending authority over the
biennium to continue work that project.
Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chair Christian
McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, said HB 200 would provide a
structurally balanced budget for the first time in more than two
decades. He did, however, admit that its passage is a “hard
process.”
“I have no doubt that 123 years ago it was designed to be a hard
process,” McDaniel said. “But ultimately we have to come
together and do what’s best for the commonwealth and for 4.3
million people who count on us to ensure the appropriate
functions of their government continue.”
Senate Minority Floor Leader Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville, stood
to speak against HB 200. He said he was concerned about
reductions in higher education funding and the lack money for
safety measures in secondary schools. “It is still a bad budget
that does not fund education as it should be,” he said. “It does
not meet the needs of the state.”
Also speaking in opposition to the bill in the House was Rep.
Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, who said the 6.25 percent cuts to most
agencies that remain in HB 200 combined with certain other
provisions in the bill will “continue to hurt Kentucky.”
“We can do better than this,” Wayne said. “Collectively, we have
to agree that we’re on a mission to invest in this great
Commonwealth, not disinvest.”
House Appropriations and Revenue Chair Steven Rudy, R-Paducah,
said the free conference committee appointed on March 22 by the
House and Senate to reach agreement on HB 200 listened to
Kentuckians when drafting the legislation.
“A lot of hard work, a lot of compromise, has gone into it,”
said Rudy. “We listened … to the concerns in the areas from the
people across the Commonwealth and tried to craft the best
document for the taxpayers, and the citizens, and those who are
involved in state government.”
Kentucky prohibits its state budget revenue from being included
in its spending bills, so the revenue for the next two-year
state budget is approved separately by state lawmakers. The
funding required to carry out the appropriations in HB 200 is
found in HB 366, which also received final passage in the House
today. That bill passed on a final vote of 51-44 after clearing
the Senate on a vote of 20-18.
HB 200 now goes to the governor to be signed into law. If the
governor vetoes the bill, the General Assembly can override that
veto when it returns to Frankfort to conclude the session in
mid-April after a brief veto recess. That recess is scheduled to
begin tomorrow.
Also given final passage today was the state Legislative Branch
budget in HB 204 and the Judicial Branch budget in HB 203. HB
204, which fully funds the pensions of legislative staff but
does not fund the Legislators Retirement Plan, received final
passage on a House vote of 86-8. HB 203 received final passage
on a House vote of 81-9. The two bills had passed the Senate on
votes of 36-2 and 26-12 respectively last month.
--END--
April 2, 2018
State revenue bill heads to governor
FRANKFORT – The Kentucky General Assembly passed a revenue
measure today that would generate nearly a half of billion
dollars in additional money for the state over the next two
fiscal years.
It would do that by creating a flat rate for personal and
corporate income taxes in Kentucky while expanding the sales
tax, said Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chairman
Christian McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill. Known as House Bill 366, it
passed the House on a 51-44 vote and Senate on a 20-18 vote.
McDaniel said the personal income tax rate would be set at a
flat five percent instead of the current brackets ranging from
two percent to six percent.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said
lowering the high end of the current personal income tax rate to
five percent would put more than $500 million back into people’s
pockets per year. It would also make Kentucky the 10th lowest
state in personal income tax in the nation, he added.
“This will increase the competitiveness of this state when it
comes to attracting jobs following up on the pro-business bills
we passed last year that have resulted in the announcement of
over 17,000 new jobs and $9 billion of economic impact to this
commonwealth,” Thayer said.
McDaniel said the only itemized deductions allowed under HB 366
would be for Social Security income, mortgage income and
charitable giving. It would disallow the deductions for such
things as medical costs, taxes paid, interest expense on
investments, and casualty and theft losses. It would also remove
the $10 state personal income tax credit.
Another provision would lower the pension income exclusion to
$31,110 from $41,110.
McDaniel said Kentucky’s corporate income tax would also go to a
flat rate of five percent instead of the current brackets
ranging from four percent to six percent. The inventory tax
would also be phased out over a four-year period.
This brought criticism from legislators such as Senate Minority
Floor Leader Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville.
“This tax plan is a regressive tax plan that is not in the best
interest of working Kentuckians,” he said. “Lowering of the
corporate tax rate is a giveaway. It is not going to stimulate
any investment in Kentucky. It is not fair that this bill shifts
the burden to working families and people on a fixed income to
cut corporate taxes. That is essentially what it does.”
In the House, Rep. Chris Harris, D-Forest Hills, also stood in
opposition to HB 366.
“I’ve heard on this floor many times this session, ‘I like to
deal in facts,’” he said. “…Well, the fact is, this bill raises
revenue and instead of securing the pensions for our teachers
like we ought to be doing, we’re giving corporations a tax
break.”
McDaniel said that Kentucky would broaden its tax base by
putting a sales tax on certain services labor and services
associated with certain repair, installation and maintenance
related to personal property, such as a car.
He said the sales tax would also be expanded to other selected
services including landscaping services, janitorial services,
veterinarian services for small animals, fitness and
recreational sports centers, commercial laundries, golf courses
and country clubs, dry cleaning, pet grooming, weight loss
centers and campgrounds. It would not include barbers and
cosmetologists.
The cigarette tax would also be raised 50 cents to $1.10 per
pack, under HB 366.
Senate President Robert Stivers II, R-Manchester, said the
revenue measure would allow the General Assembly to pass a
structurally balanced budget for the first time in two decades
while providing vital government functions such education.
House Appropriations and Revenue Chair Steven Rudy, R-Paducah,
said HB 366 would modernize Kentucky’s tax structure to both
improve personal income and fuel job growth.
“Today is our day to declare that Kentucky is ready to move
forward with comprehensive tax reform,” he said. “Today we
boldly declare that being at the bottom of the barrel is not
good enough, and that the people of Kentucky deserve better.
Today is the day that this body will declare that having an
average household income 18 percent below the national average
is not good enough.”
SB 366 now goes to the governor.
-- END --
April 2, 2018
Bourbon by mail: Bill would make it possible
FRANKFORT – A measure that would allow direct shipment of
alcoholic beverages received final passage today in the state
Senate and is on its way to the governor to be signed into law.
The measure, known as House Bill 400, is an economic development
and tourism bill, said Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, who
presented the measure in the Senate today.
“As our Kentucky bourbon industry experience continues to grow
and become more of a Napa Valley-type experience with more than
1.2 million visitors last year alone, the No. 1 question asked
by visitors that come to our commonwealth is why can’t they have
these items shipped directly home?” he said.
HB
400 would address this by allowing visitors at bourbon
distilleries to ship limited amounts of spirits home as well as
join bourbon of the month clubs, Schickel said. HB 400 would
also permit vineyards to ship specific amounts of wine out of
state.
Another provision would allow liquor stores to ship a limited
amount of spirits purchased from their shops. In addition, it
would also require the shippers of the spirits to verify the
delivery is made to someone at least 21 years old living in a
“wet” area.
“House Bill 400 is another important step on removing artificial
barriers to free enterprise,” said Senate Majority Floor Leader
Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown. “It is another step in unraveling
the overly obtrusive post-Prohibition alcohol laws that have
been in place in Kentucky for over a half-century.”
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chad McCoy, R-Bardstown, passed the
Senate on a 33-5 vote.
HB 400 also contains an emergency clause, meaning it would
become law upon the governor’s signature.
-- END --
March 30, 2018
This
Week at the State Capitol
FRANKFORT
-- Efforts to reform the state’s public pension systems have
taken a winding road and faced uncertain prospects at times
since the issue came to the forefront of public discussion last
year. But after making changes based on input received from
stakeholders throughout the General Assembly’s 2018 session,
public pension legislation reached the end of its legislative
journey this week as lawmakers approved a bill on the issue and
delivered it to the governor’s office to be signed into law.
One notable
change to the legislation in recent days was removing a
provision that would have reduced the cost-of-living adjustment
for retired teachers. The previous proposal would have reduced
that adjustment from 1.5 percent to 1 percent, but there’s no
such reduction in the plan lawmakers ultimately approved.
The goal is
to stabilize pension systems that face more than $40 billion in
unfunded liabilities. More funding is one part of the plan,
according to the proposed state budgets both chambers have
approved but, as of this writing, have not come to a final
agreement on. Changes proposed by the pension reform
legislation, Senate Bill 151, are aimed at shoring up the system
in a number of ways, such as by placing future teachers in a
hybrid “cash balance” plan rather than a traditional benefits
plan and by limiting the impact of accrued sick leave on
retirement benefit calculations.
While much
of the focus at week’s end was on the movement of the pension
legislation, a number of other bills also received final
approval and were sent to the governor this week, including
measures on the following topics:
Prescription medicines. Senate
Bill 6 would require a pharmacist to provide information about
the safe disposal of certain prescription medicines, such as
opiates and amphetamines.
Terrorism. Senate
Bill 57 would allow a person injured by an act of terrorism to
file a claim for damages against the terrorist in state court.
Police
cameras. House
Bill 373 would exempt some police body camera footage from being
publicly released. It would exempt the footage from being
released when it shows the interior of private homes, medical
facilities, women’s shelters and jails or shows a dead body,
evidence of sexual assault, nude bodies and children.
Abortion. Abortion.
House Bill 454 would prohibit a certain type of abortion
procedure, known as a D & E, if a woman is more than 11 weeks
pregnant. The legislation does not ban other types of abortion
procedures.
Lawmakers
have adjusted their 2018 legislative calendar in order to
convene the Senate and House on Monday, April 2, with hopes that
a state budget agreement will have been reached between the
chambers at that time. A legislative recess is scheduled to
begin on April 3, with lawmakers returning to the Capitol to
adjourn the session by April 14.
Citizens
who want to share feedback on the issues confronting our state
can do so by calling the General Assembly’s toll-free message
line at 1-800-372-7181.
--END--
March 29, 2018
Public pension bill heading to governor
FRANKFORT – A bill that supporters say would help reduce more
than $40 billion in unfunded costs to the state’s pension
systems received final passage today by a 22-15 vote in the
Kentucky Senate.
The legislation, found in Senate Bill 151, was amended today to
add pension provisions that would place future teachers in a
hybrid “cash balance” plan. It’s similar to the state’s
retirement plan for state employees hired as of 2014. Another
section of SB 151 would prevent current teachers and workers
from applying sick days toward retirement eligibility.
Cost of living raises for current retired teachers would remain
unchanged in the bill, as would the benefit calculation and
years of service required for retirement of current teachers or
state employees. And sick days could still be accrued for use by
active teachers and employees.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said SB
151 wasn’t going to harm public education in Kentucky as implied
by critics of the legislation.
“I would urge everyone to take a deep breath and not buy into
the talking points and hyperbole,” he said. “This is good news
for teachers – current, retired and future – because it puts
Kentucky’s pension systems on a path to sustainability.”
Thayer said the bill would reduce the risk for taxpayers who are
bearing most of the burden of the cost of fully funding pension
obligations.
Sen. Jared Carpenter, R-Berea, said SB 151 was an attempt to
preserve the pensions for future public workers while honoring
the obligations to current workers.
“I think this is fair,” he said. “It is reasonable. It is the
right thing to do. I think just to say ‘no’ for the fact of
saying ‘no’ is just trying to win a political party or political
debate. I got friends on both sides.”
Among those voting against SB 151 in the Senate was Minority
Floor Leader Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville.
“If our forefathers who served in the halls of the state senate
and state house of representatives could see where we are as a
commonwealth, they would be appalled,” he said in reference to
the pension provisions being added in an amendment. “This is not
the way democracy is supposed to work. Democracy depends on the
free exchange of ideas and consideration of the rights and
opinions of others.”
Sen. Johnny Ray Turner, D-Prestonsburg, also spoke against the
measure.
“Teaching is a very rewarding but difficult job,” he said. “I
believe I’m the only one in the Kentucky State Senate that has
taught at the elementary level, high school level and coached
several sports at many different levels. I always believed that
you should treat people the way that you want to be treated. And
I believe everyone in this body is here to do the right thing.
But I don’t believe anyone here would want to be treated the way
Senate Bill 151 is going to treat our state employees and
teachers.”
Earlier in the day, Rep. John Carney, R-Campbellsville, who
presented the bill before the full House, said SB 151 would not
violate the state’s “inviolable contract” – statutory language
put into law decades ago to assure state employees and teachers
that most of their retirement benefits cannot be reduced. It
would, however, allow the state to make changes to retirement
plan benefits that take effect under SB 151 later this year.
Carney called SB 151 a “first step” to tackling the state’s
underfunded pension liabilities when the bill passed the House
on a vote of 49-46.
This bill “is not perfect. No legislation is,” Carney told his
colleagues in the House. “But this legislation will ensure
solvency of the retirement systems for years to come.”
Among those voting against SB 151 in the House was Rep. Derrick
Graham, D-Frankfort. The retired Kentucky public school teacher
said Kentucky teachers and state employees would be hurt by the
legislation.
“I urge the members of this body to vote against this bill for
the future of our Commonwealth, for the future of our students,
for the future of public education and public employees,” said
Graham.
SB 151 is sponsored by Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro, who is also
the primary sponsor of SB 1 – a well-publicized pension bill
that was introduced in the Senate earlier this month.
During the Senate debate, Bowen emphasized that SB 151 should
not be perceived as an attack on teachers or any public worker.
“This is an attempt to salvage the pension systems,” he said.
“This is an attempt to keep the promises that have been made,
and we are only doing it because we do respect those people that
walk into our classrooms each and every day and go above and
beyond. And we do appreciate those folks who work for us in
state government.”
-- END --
March 29, 2018
Police death benefits bill passes Senate
FRANKFORT – Line-of-duty death benefits for spouses of police
and other hazardous duty personnel in the state’s public
retirement systems would increase under a bill approved today by
a 37-0 vote in the Kentucky Senate.
House Bill 185 would increase line-of-duty benefits for
surviving spouses from 25 to 75 percent of the deceased
individual’s monthly average rate of pay, with dependent
children also receiving a share. It then goes a step further to
allow surviving spouses to continue receiving a portion of the
death benefit when he or she remarries, at a reduced rate of up
to 25 percent of the late former spouse’s monthly average pay.
A Senate amendment named the measure the Officer Scotty Hamilton
and Officer Nick Rodman Memorial Act of 2018. Hamilton was a
Pikeville officer fatally shot earlier this month. Rodman was a
Louisville officer who died a day after being involved in a
wreck with a suspect.
Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, was among several
legislators who stood in honor of law enforcement officers
killed in their district in recent years.
“I think it is especially poignant because it’s one year to the
day of Officer Rodman’s death,” McGarvey said. “We thank his
family for their courage and sacrifice.”
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Dan “Malano” Seum, R-Fairdale, said
it was an honor to support the bill.
“I go way back with my police department,” the retired
businessman said. “Back in 1966 when I opened my first store in
south Louisville, these guys saved me more than once.”
The veteran lawmaker said he recalled voting for a bill that
increased the death benefit to $80,000 from $25,000 for an
officer killed in the line of duty.
HB 185 now goes to back to the House for consideration of the
Senate change.
-- END --
March 27,
2018
Workers’ comp bill going to governor
FRANKFORT—A revamp of the state’s workers’ compensation system
for Kentucky workers injured on the job in the future has
received final passage in the Kentucky House.
House Bill
2, sponsored by Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, passed on a vote
of 55-39. It now goes to the governor to be signed into law.
“These are
measures that only make us more competitive,” Koenig said of the
provisions in HB 2 as amended in the Senate last week.
HB 2 was
filed as a response to a 2017 Kentucky Supreme Court ruling in Parker
v. Webster County Coal. That ruling declared
unconstitutional the state workers’ compensation system’s
practice of terminating workers’ comp income benefits once an
injured worker qualifies for normal Social Security retirement
benefits.
HB 2 was
described as providing “a fair system for which workers who are
injured will be paid,” by Senate President Robert Stivers,
R-Manchester, when the bill was amended in the Senate last week.
Under HB 2,
as amended by the Senate, workers’ compensation medical benefits
would have to be paid to certain permanently partially disabled
workers beyond 15 years if a state administrative law judge
deems the benefits medically necessary. The bill would also add
to the list of injuries for which benefits must be paid as long
as there is a disability, among other provisions.
An
additional Senate change agreed to by the House would extend the
period for all workers’ comp income benefits to age 70 or four
years after the date of the injury, whichever comes last.
Voting
against the bill in the House was Rep. Al Gentry, D-Louisville,
who said earlier this session that his data on the state’s
workers’ comp loss ratios and premiums show the system is doing
well.
Gentry, who
lost one of his arms in a work accident over two decades ago,
said he voted against the bill “because voting ‘yes’ is giving
up on my brothers and sisters in the disabled worker community
who have been knocked down, have gotten back up and, like me,
refuse to quit.”
HB 2 was
amended and passed by the Senate on a 23-14 vote last week.
--END--
March 27,
2018
State
lawmakers adjust 2018 session calendar
FRANKFORT
-- Lawmakers have decided to convene the Senate and House on
Thursday, March 29, instead of Wednesday, March 28, as
originally planned.
Lawmakers
serving on a free conference committee are expected to continue
state budget negotiations tomorrow.
The updated
2018 General Assembly calendar can be viewed here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/calendars/18RS_calendar.pdf
--END--
March 27, 2018
11-week abortion measure goes to governor
FRANKFORT—Legislation that would ban an abortion procedure known
as a D & E in Kentucky beginning at 11 weeks of pregnancy for
most women is on its way to becoming law.
House Bill 454 received final passage in the House today by a
vote of 75-13 after being amended and passed by the Senate on a
vote of 31-5 last week. The only change made to the bill by the
Senate adds Kentucky’s statutory definition of an “unborn
child,” which current law defines as “an individual organism of
the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.”
HB 454 would only ban the D & E—or dilation and
evacuation—procedure starting at 11 weeks except in medical
emergencies. It would not ban other forms of legal forms of
abortion until week 20 of pregnancy, when all types of abortion
are prohibited in Kentucky except in emergency cases.
A D & E is described by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services as an abortion that uses “sharp instrument techniques,
but also suction and other instrumentation such as forceps, for
evacuation.”
HB 454 sponsor Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, says the D & E
procedure comprises around 16 percent of abortions performed in
Kentucky. The purpose of the bill is to codify “the state’s
valid interest in banning this brutal, intentional dismemberment
procedure,” Wuchner said earlier this session.
Intentional violation of HB 454—of which Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Ft.
Thomas, is also a primary co-sponsor—would be a Class D felony,
with an exemption for the woman on whom the procedure is
performed.
Among those voting against the measure was Rep. Ruth Ann
Palumbo, D-Lexington, who said legislation similar to HB 454 has
been found unconstitutional in other states.
“In Alabama, this was challenged in federal court and declared
unconstitutional. Texas — challenged in federal court and
declared unconstitutional,” Palumbo said, adding that HB 454
would impact patient health care options.
Wuchner, however, said HB 454 is in the “state’s interest.”
“This (bill) here in the Commonwealth is about the humane
treatment of an unborn child, to protect that unborn child from
dismemberment,” she said.
--END--
March 23, 2017
This Week at the State Capitol
FRANKFORT – There are always surprises in sessions of the
Kentucky General Assembly. But one safe assumption when a state
budget must be approved is that Senate and House members will
form a committee in the session's final days to iron out
differences in each chamber’s preferred state spending plan.
That’s what happened this week as Senate and House members
created a conference committee in the hopes of reaching an
agreement on Kentucky’s next two-year budget before a
legislative recess that’s scheduled to start on March 29.
While many parts of the two chambers’ budgets are in agreement
with each other, there are notable differences in each chamber’s
spending priorities. Among the questions conference committee
members are confronting are:
-- How much should the budget depend on possible new revenue
sources? The House plan made spending decisions based on the
possibility of new revenue sources, most notably a proposed 50
cents per pack increase in the cigarette tax and a 25 cent per
dose tax increase on prescription opioids at the distribution
level. The Senate plan is not based on any tax increases.
-- How should increases in funding for public pension systems be
prioritized? Compared to the House plan, the Senate plan directs
a larger percentage of its pension funding to the least-funded
systems -- the state employee’s system and the police system –
rather than the teachers’ retirement system, though the
teachers’ plan would still be funded at levels required by
statute.
-- How far should spending cuts go? The Senate plan restored
some, but not all, of the cuts to state agencies, including
universities, that were proposed in the governor’s original
budget proposal. The House plan included less spending cuts and
would have spared most university funding.
These are just several among a range of complex budget issues
that lawmakers will work on resolving in the days ahead. Their
goal is to agree upon a budget early enough that they’ll still
have a chance to override vetoes, if the governor casts any,
before the session ends.
While work on the budget continued this week, a number of other
bills advanced, including measures on the following topics:
Price gouging. Senate
Bill 160 would clarify laws aimed at preventing price gouging
during emergencies. The bill specifies that fines could be
imposed if a retailer suddenly increases the price of goods more
than 10 percent when the governor declares a state of emergency.
The legislation received final passage on a 58-36 vote in the
House on Tuesday and has been delivered to the governor to be
signed into law.
Police protection. House
Bill 193 would increase penalties for intentionally exposing a
law enforcement officer with bodily fluids or waste. The crime
would be considered a misdemeanor, though felony charges could
be imposed if the bodily fluids carries a communicable disease
that’s likely to be passed to the officer. The bill was approved
by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and now goes to the
full Senate.
Dyslexia. House
Bill 187 would require the state Department of Education to make
a “dyslexia toolkit” available to school districts to help them
identify and instruct students who display characteristics of
dyslexia. On Thursday, the House voted 87-0 in agreement with a
Senate amendment to the bill, which now goes to the governor to
be signed.
Abortion. House
Bill 454 would prohibit a certain type of abortion procedure,
known as a D & E, if a woman is more than 11 weeks pregnant. The
legislation does not ban other types of abortion procedures. The
bill passed the Senate 31-5 on Thursday and has been returned to
the House for consideration of a Senate amendment.
Opioids. Would
allow police in the state’s high-population areas – Louisville,
Lexington and some Northern Kentucky counties-- to detain people
revived from a heroin overdoses and place them in a center
equipped to deal with substance abuse disorder and acute opioid
overdoses. The bill passed in the House on Tuesday on a 92-3
vote and has been delivered to Senate for further consideration.
Financial literacy. House
Bill 132 would require Kentucky high school students to pass a
financial literacy course before graduating. The bill receive
final passage in the House on an 88-3 vote on Wednesday and has
been delivered to the governor.
Revenge porn. House
Bill 71 would increase penalties for posting sexually explicit
images online without the consent of the person depicted. The
crime would be Class A misdemeanor for the first offence and
Class D felony for subsequent offences. Penalties would be even
more severe if the images were posted for profit. The bill
passed the House 90-2 on Thursday and now goes to the governor’s
office.
To offer feedback to lawmakers on the issues under consideration
at the State Capitol, call the General Assembly’s toll-free
message line at 1-800-372-7181.
--END--
March 22,
2018
Senate approves worker’s comp bill
FRANKFORT – A bill that supporters say is
needed to control workers’ compensation losses following a 2017
Kentucky Supreme Court decision cleared the state Senate today
on a 23-14 vote.
House Bill 2, as amended, is a response to
the 2017 Kentucky Supreme Court ruling in Parker
v. Webster County Coal, said Senate President Robert Stivers
II, R-Manchester, who presented the bill. That ruling declared
unconstitutional the state workers’ compensation system’s
practice of terminating workers’ comp income benefits once an
injured worker qualifies for normal Social Security retirement
benefits.
HB 2 would not impact injured workers
currently receiving workers’ comp benefits, Stivers said. In
future cases, it would limit benefits to workers with certain
injuries to 15 years, with a chance after 15 years to be
recertified to continue receiving benefits.
“But truly, I believe it to be a fair
system for which workers who are injured will be paid,” Stivers
said.
Other provisions would increase the
percentage of the average weekly wage that can be paid as income
to injured workers and revise medical treatment guidelines and
limits on attorney fees, among other things.
Voting against HB 2 was Sen. Morgan
McGarvey, D-Louisville, who said there was no compelling need
for the proposed law. He said Kentucky’s workers’ compensation
fund is fiscally sound.
“We all want jobs,” McGarvey said. “We all
want businesses to be here, but we can be for business without
being anti-worker. That is what this bill is.”
Stivers said the measure was a result of
compromises.
“I’m not going to say that everybody agrees
with everything in this,” he said, “but it is something a lot of
people have had input in. It started over a year ago.”
HB 2 now goes back to the House for
consideration of the Senate change.
-- END --
March 22, 2018
Senate green lights road plan
FRANKFORT – The Senate approved today a $2.5 billion Biennial
Highway Construction Plan that would focus on the safety and
maintenance of Kentucky’s bridges.
But such important infrastructure projects will be threatened in
the future, warned Senate Transportation Committee Chair Ernie
Harris, R-Prospect, who presented the highway construction plan,
contained in House Bill 202.
“We have a perfect storm that is going to hit us in two years,”
he said, adding that the federal government will reduce the
amount it pays for road projects across Kentucky. The feds
currently pay 80 percent, with the state picking up the
remaining 20 percent, of many projects.
Sen. Christian McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, praised Harris for
presenting a fiscally sound plan while the federal match is
still at 80 percent.
“This is a road plan that is balanced,” McDaniel said. “We have
seen a lot that are not in the past. It takes an exceptional
amount of discipline to put forward a plan like that. And
frankly, in many ways, an exceptional amount of courage.”
He said Harris has shown that in his steadfast stewardship of
the highway construction plan.
HB 202 passed by a 37-0 vote.
The accompanying six-year road plan, found in House Joint
Resolution 74, also passed the Senate today by a 37-0 vote. The
resolution includes more than $4 million in projects that are
not funded in the two-year plan.
All the measures now go back to the state House for
consideration of changes made in the Senate.
-- END --
March 22, 2018
Senate approves 11-week abortion measure
FRANKFORT – A second-trimester abortion procedure known as D & E
would be prohibited in Kentucky for most women who are at least
11 weeks into their pregnancy under a bill that passed the state
Senate today by a 31-5 vote.
House Bill 454, as amended, would not ban abortion at or after
11 weeks but would ban the D & E – or dilation and evacuation –
procedure except in medical emergencies. A D & E is described by
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as an abortion
that uses “sharp instrument techniques, but also suction and
other instrumentation such as forceps, for evacuation.”
“Abortions by dismemberment, crushing or suction are brutal
procedures which are and should be considered repulsive,
barbaric and inhumane by any societal standards,” said Sen.
Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, who presented HB 454. “This
bill upholds basic human dignity.”
One lawmaker voting against the bill was Sen. Reginald Thomas,
D-Lexington, who told the Senate that HB 45 would outlaw the
safest abortion producer – forcing women to seek out riskier,
more dangerous, producers.
“We don’t even stop there. We want to pass a law that has been
unanimously ruled illegal,” said Thomas, adding federal courts
struck down similar laws in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama,
Texas, and Louisiana.
Sen. Wil Schroder, R-Wilder, said Kentucky is in the
jurisdiction of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in
Cincinnati, and that no federal judge from that circuit has had
a chance to rule on this type of law.
HB 454 now goes back to the House for consideration of a Senate
change.
-- END --
March 22, 2018
Dyslexia intervention bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT— The Kentucky House has given final passage to a bill
that would guide local school district efforts to identify and
teach young students with dyslexic traits.
House Bill 187, sponsored by Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, and
known as the “Ready to Read Act” was approved by the House on a
final vote of 87-0 today. The bill would require the state to
make a dyslexia “toolkit” available to all school districts by
next January to guide instruction of students with dyslexic
traits in kindergarten through third grade. Districts could then
develop policies to help those students, including policies for
identification of students who display characteristics of
dyslexia.
Districts that choose to develop such policies would be required
to provide the state with specific data by June 30 of each year,
including data on the number of students in the district who
were identified as displaying dyslexic traits and the number of
students evaluated.
Also, a study project would be created to help the state learn
more about early screening and intervention services for
children with dyslexic traits. Three school districts—one urban,
one suburban, and one rural – will be selected by the state to
participate in the project, which would last three school years.
HB 187 would also require Kentucky colleges and
universities—subject to available funding—to include training on
dyslexia identification and interventions by the 2019-2020
academic year for students studying to become school teachers.
Dyslexia is defined by the bill as “a specific learning
disability” that “is characterized by difficulties with accurate
or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding
abilities.” Wuchner said in testimony on HB 187 in committee
earlier this session that dyslexia is believed to affect nearly
60,000 Kentucky students.
“That would be the size of one of our largest or second largest
school districts that may be affected by dyslexia,” she said.
HB 187 now goes to the governor to be signed into law.
--END--
March 22, 2018
‘Revenge porn’ bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT—A bill that would make it a crime to post sexually
explicit images of someone online without that person’s consent
is on its way to the governor to be signed into law.
House Bill 71, sponsored by Rep. Diane St. Onge, R-Ft. Wright,
aims to crack down on so-called “revenge porn” –
sexually-explicit photos or videos often used to humiliate the
person photographed or turn a profit for the person posting the
photos online.
Penalties for posting such an image would be a misdemeanor for a
first offense or a Class D felony for each subsequent offense.
If the image was posted for profit, the penalties would be
ramped up to a Class D felony for a first offense and a more
serious Class C felony for subsequent offenses.
Those who post such material could also be liable in civil
court, where $1,000 in damages could be assessed under HB 71 for
each image each day it remains online after a request has been
made to remove it. Additional language would prohibit an online
entity from demanding payment to remove the image or images.
While penalties for violators would be serious in many cases,
those convicted under the legislation would not have to register
as a sex offender under Kentucky law.
HB 71, which passed the Senate on a 37-0 vote yesterday,
received final passage in the House today on a vote of 90-2.
--END--
March 22, 2018
Judicial redistricting bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT—A judicial redistricting bill that would add court
judgeships in a few areas of the state and remove judgeships
from other areas has received final passage on a vote of 63-31
in the Kentucky House.
House Bill 348, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, and
Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, would add family court judges to
the judicial circuit serving Pulaski, Lincoln and Rockcastle
counties and the judicial circuit serving Boone and Gallatin
counties. A third family judge would be added in Bullitt County,
where a district judgeship would be converted to a family court
judgeship to accommodate the change.
Judgeships that would be eliminated as of 2023 to help pay for
the new seats include a circuit judgeship in Floyd County and
district judgeship in far West Kentucky. The West Kentucky
position would be created by combining two districts – one in
Fulton and Hickman counties and one in Carlisle and Ballard
counties—into one district.
Nemes said HB 348 adjusts judgeships according to caseload when
he spoke on the bill before the House Judiciary Committee in
early March. He said the circuits in southern and northern
Kentucky which are slated to receive new judges under the bill
especially have “a tremendous need.”
“There’s a lot of places in Kentucky where judges are working
extremely hard but in those two places – I don’t see how they’re
even getting the job done, they’re so overworked,” said Nemes.
One House member voting against the bill was Rep. Larry Brown,
R-Prestonsburg. The Floyd County judgeship that would be
eliminated by the bill serves citizens in his district.
“I think the numbers were askew,” said Brown. “And I think we’re
being unfairly punished in Floyd County by losing a circuit
judge who has done nothing but his job, and done it above and
beyond the call—having to go to different circuits and take care
of business there as well.”
The legislation would also require the Kentucky Supreme Court to
certify the need for any changes in the state’s judicial
circuits or districts based on an eight-year review of the
courts by the Administrative Office of the Courts. That review
may be ordered by the state Supreme Court starting in 2020.
HB 348, which was approved by the Senate on a vote of 32-5
yesterday, now goes to the governor to be signed into law.
--END--
March 22, 2018
Police protection bill advanced by Senate panel
FRANKFORT -- A bill that would increase penalties for
intentionally exposing a law enforcement officer to bodily
fluids or bodily waste was approved today by the Senate
Judiciary Committee with a 7-0 vote.
House Bill 193 intends to “fill in the gap” in the law for
protection of Kentucky law enforcement officers, said Rep. Stan
Lee, R-Lexington, the sponsor of HB 193. The measure passed the
House last week with an 81-3 vote.
Under the bill, exposing an officer to bodily fluids or waste
would be a misdemeanor, although felony charges could be applied
if the bodily fluids or waste carry a communicable disease that
could likely be transmitted.
There were concerns raised that a felony may be too strong of a
charge for such an offense, with Sen. Whitney Westerfield,
R-Hopkinsville, saying there’s a possibility the penalty may be
lowered to a misdemeanor when the bill is considered in the full
Senate.
Sen. John Schickel spoke in favor of HB 193 today in committee
as a retired law enforcement officer.
“This is an excellent bill. Our police officers need these
protections,” said Schickel.
HB 193 now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
--END--
March 22,
2018
Joyce
Honaker announced as 2018 Vic Hellard Jr. Award winner
FRANKFORT –
Joyce Honaker, whose public service career included a stretch as
the lead staff member for one of the General Assembly’s busiest
committees, was announced today as the recipient of the 2018 Vic
Hellard Jr. Award.
Honaker is
known around the Capitol for the diligence and professionalism
she put into her work for state lawmakers and for being a role
model to her coworkers at the Legislative Research Commission
(LRC.) She worked at LRC for 32 years, from 1971 until her
retirement in 2003, most notably as the Committee Staff
Administrator for the State Government Committee.
Honaker
said she is pleased and appreciative to be recognized with LRC’s
highest honor. She noted that the high standards she tried to
follow during her career were set by the award’s namesake, Vic
Hellard, who served as LRC Director from 1977 until 1995. He
passed away in 1996.
”Vic
certainly gave us the encouragement needed to do a good job and
to do the kind of research the legislators wanted and needed,”
said Honaker.
Honaker was
known for holding many of the same values as Hellard, said LRC
Director David A. Byerman.
“Joyce was
a manager who knew how to give staff the freedom and flexibility
while also holding them to a very high standard,” he said. “She
is still remembered fondly for the work she did and the
professional way that she did it.”
Many of
LRC’s top committee staff members served under Honaker’s
tutelage and speak highly her managerial acumen. They also
praise the way she excelled in the support role she played in
the state’s redistricting efforts. By leading a large team that
provided staff support for lawmakers’ complex responsibility to
redraw boundaries for the state’s legislative and congressional
districts, she proved to be a trusted and steady leader in a
challenging position.
During her
career, Honaker was also known for the valuable contributions to
the National Conference of State Legislatures, where she was one
of the founding members of the Research and Committee Staff
Section (RACSS) in 1987. She served as the staff section’s first
chairperson. Under her leadership, RACSS began a concerted
effort to broaden its scope and expand professional development
opportunities to a broader range of staff professionals. NCSL
also selected Honaker to travel abroad and work with staff in
newly developing countries like Namibia, Nigeria and Hong Kong
as a consultant.
Honaker
will be recognized as the 2018 Vic Hellard Jr. Award recipient
today in the Senate and House chambers. A reception later in the
day in the Capitol Annex will honor her and the two other
finalists for the award, former LRC workers Jim Swain and the
late Gordon Adkins.
--END--
March 21,
2018
Senate plan tackles shortage of judges
FRANKFORT – With no revenue to create new
judgeships, the state Senate approved a measure today to
“redeploy” judges to regions seeing population growth.
House Bill 348, as amended by the Senate,
would add family court judges to both the judicial circuit
serving Lincoln, Pulaski and Rockcastle counties and judicial
circuit serving Boone and Gallatin counties. Those new
judgeships would be filled during the general election in
November so the new family courts could be operational by Jan. 7
of next year.
“The current family judge for Lincoln,
Pulaski and Rockcastle counties is currently doing the work of
almost three judges,” said Sen. Rick Girdler, R-Somerset. “That
in and of itself is almost criminal.
The new judgeships would be paid for by the
elimination of a circuit judge in Floyd County and a district
judge in far West Kentucky by 2023. The change in far West
Kentucky would be handled by combining two district judgeships –
one in Fulton and Hickman counties and one in Carlisle and
Ballard counties – into one district judgeship. The circuit
judgeship for those counties is already combined.
HB 348 would also convert a district court
judge to a family court judge in Bullitt County.
Girdler said HB 348 is not the statewide
judicial plan the Kentucky Court of Justice spent more than two
years researching and developing and that the Senate passed last
session.
“We are simply reallocating existing
resources to address an emergency situation,” he said, adding
the judges are being removed from areas seeing a decline in
population.
Another provision of HB 348 would require
the Kentucky Court of Justice to resubmit a new judicial
redistricting plan to the General Assembly before Dec. 31, 2020,
for consideration in the non-budget session in 2021.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer,
R-Georgetown, said HB 348 was just a first step in ensuring
residents of the growing regions of the state have access to
justice.
“This bill is a compromise on that judicial
redistricting plan,” he said. “I know after a long time in this
chamber that you don’t give up the good for the sake of the
perfect and sometimes you take half of a loaf instead of the
whole loaf.”
Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, said taking
away judges from areas projected to lose population becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy
“This bill has a negative impact on us in
the mountains,” he said. “We continue to see this attempt to
shift some of the judges out of the mountain region.”
He said rural areas hit by the loss of coal
jobs need more, not less, support from the state
Senate President Robert Stivers II,
R-Manchester, stood in support of the bill.
“Should we have gone further? Without a
doubt,” he said, “but at least we got a start on having policy
and process to determine how we create or decertify judgeships
in the future.”
HB 348 now goes back the House for
consideration of the Senate change.
-- END --
March 21, 2018
Financial literacy bill on way to governor
FRANKFORT—Kentucky public school students would have to satisfy
a financial literacy requirement before they could graduate high
school under a bill now on its way to the governor’s desk.
The requirement under House Bill 132, sponsored by Rep. Jim
DuPlessis, R-Elizabethtown, and Rep. James Tipton,
R-Taylorsville, would be implemented beginning with students
entering the 2020-2021 ninth-grade class.
DuPlessis said before a House floor vote on HB 132 in January
that the bill would ensure that every Kentucky public high
school graduate is taught how to budget, save, and invest.
“If we want to fix financial illiteracy, we must get away from
the notion that it is a privilege to know how money works,”
DuPlessis told his House colleagues.
Coursework or programs that would meet the requirement under HB
132 would be determined by the high school’s school-based
decision making council or principal, according to the bill.
Guidelines for the coursework or program would be developed at
the state level with local programs aligned to the state
standards.
HB 132 initially passed the House on a vote of 68-24. It was
amended and approved by the Senate earlier this week on a 35-3
vote. Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, presented the bill for a
vote on the Senate floor.
“The lack of financial literacy is costing our state money,”
said Wise. “When people are deep in consumer debt, they tend to
file for bankruptcy more often, they are more likely to need
state assistance, and they certainly are not adding to the
consumer economy when they send the majority of their spending
capability in interest payments to out-of-state credit card
companies.”
HB 132 passed on a final vote of 88-3 today in the House. It has
been sent to the governor to be signed into law.
--END--
March 21, 2018
Standards-for-treatment disorders bill goes to governor
FRANKFORT— A bill that would attack Kentucky’s opioid crisis
through better state substance use disorder treatment and
recovery program standards has received final passage in the
Kentucky House.
House Bill 124, sponsored by House Health and Family Services
Committee Chair Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, and Rep.
Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, would require enhanced
licensure and quality standards for substance use disorder
treatment and recovery after a state review of current statewide
standards, subject to available funding. Enhanced standards
would cover residential, outpatient and medication-assisted
treatment (MAT) services, according to the bill.
Wuchner said she has traveled the state visiting treatment and
recovery centers and found that some programs have “a lot of
dynamics and a lot of differences.”
“That doesn’t mean that every program has to be the same, but
there should be components of that program that are consistent
with best practices,” said Wuchner.
HB 124 was amended in the Senate on a 36-0 vote late last week
to include FDA-approved MAT treatment for inmates who are
opioid-dependent or who have other substance abuse disorders.
“As some of those products that are used for medically-assisted
treatment come to market and come to bear, there are more
products now that could be used in the corrections environment
that minimize diversion, and that’s why this piece was added,”
said Wuchner.
HB 124 received final passage in the House today on a vote of
93-0. The bill was initially passed in the House on an 85-2 vote
in January.
--END--
March 21, 2018
Senate bill to curb gun violence OK’d by House panel
FRANKFORT--Legislation to curb gun violence by convicted felons
passed the House Judiciary Committee today on an 18-0 vote.
Senate Bill 210 would increase penalties that can be imposed on
convicted felons for possession of a firearm during the
commission of certain crimes.
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Dan Seum, R-Fairdale, the sponsor
of SB 210, said during a legislative committee meeting earlier
this month that the legislation resulted from a request by
Louisville’s mayor, police and prosecutors to address gun
violence throughout Kentucky.
Louisville Metro Police Major Billy Hibbs, who specializes in
investigating gun-related crimes, supported SB 210 before the
committee today.
”What we’re seeing is the same repeat offenders. They’ve been
told not to possess a weapon, and they continue to do it,” said
Gibbs. “We need this bill.”
SB 210 now goes to the full House for consideration.
--END--
March 21, 2018
Law enforcement mental health bill passes
FRANKFORT – Law enforcement officials who encounter tragic and
horrific events while on the job would get mental health and
wellness support under a measure on its way to the governor
after receiving final passage yesterday on a 38-0 vote in the
state Senate.
“On a personal note, from being involved in a fatality accident
about two years into my career, I can tell you firsthand the
value of this type of program,” said Sen. Danny Carroll,
R-Paducah, a former police officer who presented the measure,
known as House Bill 68. “Back during those times, there were no
supports in place. You simply went to a physiatrist for an
evaluation. He or she either said you were fit or you were not
fit for duty – and that was the end of it.”
He said he that fatal accident almost ended his career, in part,
because he didn’t receive helpful counseling.
“Those things do not go away,” Carroll said of the fatal wreck.
“Those are memories that stay with you your entire life.
Sometimes they are very difficult to deal with.”
At the center of the measure is post-critical incident seminar,
or PCIS. It is a program established by the FBI in the 1980s and
first adapted by South Carolina. Kentucky would be about the
10th state to adopt it.
The initiative would be paid with donations, grants and money
from the state Department of Criminal Justice Training budget.
The state budget would contain no new money for the initiative.
SB 68 also contains an emergency clause, meaning it would become
law upon the governor’s signature. The House passed HB 68 on a
95-0 vote last month.
-- END --
March 20, 2018
Senate
passes state spending plan
FRANKFORT –
The latest version of Kentucky’s next budget passed the Senate
today – and it contained no new taxes.
“It
reflects our priorities by committing to not raising taxes on
hardworking Kentuckians for errors of omission or commission
from previous generations of politicians,” said Senate
Appropriations and Revenue Chair Christian McDaniel, R-Taylor
Mill. “We placed high priority, and honored the requirement of
the constitution, to present a balanced budget.”
He said the
budget, contained in House Bill 200, reflects a commitment to
public safety by investing in law enforcement, the state crime
lab, frontline social workers and foster and adoption services.
McDaniel
said HB 200, as amended in committee, further reflected a
commitment to education. He said it did this by investing record
amounts in per-pupil funding for schools, known as Support
Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK), and funding school
transportation at historic records. That’s in addition to moving
to performance-based funding for the state’s eight public
universities while ensuring funding for Western Kentucky
University and Northern Kentucky University are on par with the
state’s other six universities.
“We also
maintain our focus on solving the thorniest issue facing the
commonwealth, which is the unfunded liabilities in our pension
systems by investing record dollars into the Kentucky Retirement
Systems, while fully funding the statutory requirement to the
Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System,” McDaniel said.
He added
that the Senate’s version of the budget does not continue to
fund the legislators’ own retirement plan. That money is instead
budgeted for the Kentucky Employee Retirement System
non-hazardous plan, which McDaniel said was the worst-funded
pension in the nation.
The Senate
plan added another $100 million per fiscal year for the state
police retirement system. That is in addition to $425 million
for the fiscal year 2019 and $392 for fiscal year ’20 for that
non-hazardous retirement fund.
For the
teachers’ retirement system, the Senate plan provided the 13
percent statutory required funding. While the Senate plan
doesn’t contain $59.5 million for retired teachers’ health care,
it would use a nearly $1 billion trust fund to pay for the
insurance. McDaniel said the bill would also ensure the
retirees’ premiums wouldn’t go up just because of that funding
change.
The Senate
plan added language to direct $8.5 million in the fiscal year
2019 to the state education department for local school
districts that are impacted by the loss of tax revenue on
unmined mineral assessments. That’s in addition to $1.75 million
in each fiscal year for school technology in coal counties.
Those
provisions, and others designed to help Eastern Kentucky,
prompted Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, to praise the Senate
plan. He said the budget would keep some Eastern Kentucky school
districts from having to close their doors. Smith said, however,
that he hopes more funding for the area could be added as the
bill works its way through the remainder of the legislative
process.
“But every
investment comes with a cost,” McDaniel said. “We are not able
to invest in many programs to attract new industries and create
expansion opportunities, but we do invest in our most valuable
resources. That is our teachers, public servants and our
children.”
McDaniel
said the governor’s proposed budget recommended reductions of
6.25 percent in the upcoming biennium in most budget areas. He
said the Senate’s version of the budget generally applied the
cut to the executive branch except for veterans’ affairs and
state police.
Sen. Morgan
McGarvey, D-Louisville, said legislators should have been given
more time to review a measure that directs how Kentucky will
spend about $22 billion over the next two fiscal years.
“But no
matter what is in the budget, I don’t think that it fully and
accurately captures the idea that we don’t have enough money to
run the basic needs and obligations of state government as it
currently exists,” he said. “Until we recognize that, and until
we do something about that, we will not be passing or providing
the funding for a government the people of Kentucky require.”
Sen. Tom
Buford, R-Nicholasville, said the Senate vote was just a step in
the process, adding the budget would change in a conference
committee. That’s a group of legislators who meet for the
purpose of reconciling differences between House and Senate
versions of bills.
“Yes, to
many this is a hard-candy Christmas,” he said in reference to
the lean budget. “There comes a time when you have resources
that are tight. We have a lot of issues here we have to deal
with that are not normally on the table.”
He then
warned of the chaos of not passing a budget.
“I can tell
you that’s very unpleasant,” Buford said. “The schools don’t get
their money. No one gets their money. You kind of leave it on
the governor’s table to make these necessary government
expenditures, and it is not fun.”
HB 200
passed by a 26-11 vote.
Also
approved today were the amended legislative budget (House Bill
204) and judicial budget (House Bill 203), which where were
passed by Senate votes 36-2 and 26-12 respectively. McDaniel
said both HB 204 and HB 203 budgets contain 6.25 percent cuts
for all non-constitutional functions.
All three
bills now go back the House for consideration of the Senate
changes.
-- END --
March 20,
2018
Opioid
overdose bill goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—Those who overdose on heroin or other opioid drugs in
Kentucky’s largest population areas would be immediately
detained by first responders and taken to a hospital under a
bill that has passed the House.
House Bill
428, sponsored by Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill,
would specifically apply to overdose victims in Lexington,
Louisville, or areas like Northern Kentucky where adjoining
counties each have populations over 90,000.
Moser, who
is the director of the Northern Kentucky Office of Drug Control
Policy, said the need for the bill was brought to her attention
by first responders who she said are often called to resuscitate
the same person for opioid overdose multiple times. Moser said
there were over 15,100 emergency medical runs requiring
resuscitation due to opioid overdoses in Kentucky last year, not
counting more than 2,000 runs in Jefferson County alone.
First
responders “brought this issue to me because they are unable to
get the folks into treatment when they are resuscitated,” said
Moser. “These folks wake up and they are able to just get up and
walk away and refuse treatment” even though she said they may
still be under the influence of drugs.
“They need
to get to a hospital for stabilization, referral to treatment
and further treatment and this is what this bill seeks to do,”
said Moser.
Failure to
receive appropriate treatment for opioid overdose often leads to
death, with 1,404 deaths from opioid overdose reported in
Kentucky in 2016 alone, said Moser.
“Death is a
distinct possibility with opioid overdoses,” she said.
HB 428
passed the House on a 92-3 vote. It now goes to the Senate for
its consideration.
--END--
March
20, 2018
Bill
targeting pharmacy benefit managers amended by House
FRANKFORT—A
Senate bill that would level the playing field for reimbursement
of Medicaid managed care fees to Kentucky’s independent
pharmacies has been returned to the Senate with some House
changes.
Senate Bill
5, sponsored by Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, passed the
Senate 32-4 and was sent to the House for agreement in early
March. The bill would address lack of reimbursement to
independent pharmacies by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and
Medicaid managed care organizations, or MCOs, by requiring the
state Department for Medicaid Services to directly administer
its outpatient pharmacy benefits.
House-approved changes to SB 5 would further clarify where the
roughly $1.7 billion in state funds spent on Medicaid managed
care pharmacy benefits each year are going, said Rep. Bart
Rowland, R-Tompkinsville. Rowland, who presented SB 5 for a vote
before the full House, said Kentucky doesn’t know where the
money goes now due to a contractual loophole.
Because of
the loophole, he said “Kentucky Medicaid has no contractual
authority over the PBMs. As a result, Medicaid cannot currently
account for how that $1.7 billion in taxpayer money is currently
spent.
SB 5 as
amended by the House would answer the question of how much of
that money “is going to Kentucky pharmacists, how much is going
PBMs, and how much is going to the MCOs,” he said. It would
specifically require PBMs to report fees assessed on pharmacies
they own compared to fees assessed on independent pharmacies and
remove PBM authority to set reimbursement rates and give that
power to the state Medicaid program. It would also require the
state Medicaid program to approve certain contracts, and approve
new fees that MCOs or PBMs try to impose on a pharmacist.
Noncompliance by PBMs could result in fines or license
suspension ordered by Medicaid program or state Department of
Insurance, said Rowland.
The House
voted 97-0 to approve SB 5 with its changes. The bill now
returns to the Senate for agreement with those changes.
--END--
March 20,
2018
Eye bill receives final passage
FRANKFORT—A
bill regulating online eye exams and prescriptions offered in
Kentucky is on its way to the governor after receiving final
passage on an 88-0 vote in the state House yesterday.
HB 191
“permits the use of telehealth and it permits consumers to
choose where they purchase their glasses and contact lenses,”
the bill’s sponsor Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, told the House
in a floor debate on the bill earlier this session.
The Senate
amended and passed the bill on a vote of 36-0 last week.
HB 191
would require those offering eyeglass or contact prescriptions
based on eye tests offered by smartphone app or online to have
the prescription signed off on by a Kentucky licensed medical
provider.
Those
buying the products would have to be at least age 18 and have
received an in-person eye exam within the last two years.
HB 191 was
filed in response to a rise in online companies that allow
Kentuckians to get virtual eye exams, and prescriptions based on
those exams, without input from licensed Kentucky medical
professionals.
--END--
March
19, 2018
Line-of-duty death benefits bill goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—Line-of-duty death benefits for spouses of police and
other hazardous duty personnel in the state’s public retirement
systems would increase under a bill that has cleared the
Kentucky House.
House Bill
185, sponsored by Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, would
increase line-of-duty benefits for surviving spouses from 25 to
75 percent of the deceased individual’s monthly average rate of
pay, with dependent children also receiving a share. It then
goes a step further to allow surviving spouses to continue
receiving a portion of the death benefit when he or she
remarries, at a reduced rate of up to 25 percent of the late
former spouse’s monthly average pay.
Blanton, a
retired Major with the Kentucky State Police, said the
legislation will apply to the family of any hazardous duty
worker in state’s public retirement systems – from state
troopers, local police and sheriff’s deputies to firefighters
and others.
“We owe
this to them,” said Blanton.
The bill
had bipartisan support in the House, which voted 89-0 to approve
the measure.
Among those
sitting in the House gallery listening as Blanton presented the
bill were the widows of Richmond Police Officer Daniel Ellis,
Louisville Metro Police Officer Nick Rodman and Bardstown Police
Officer Jason Ellis. All three officers were killed in the line
of duty in recent years.
House
Majority Floor Leader Jonathan Shell, R-Lancaster, said he is
close friends with several people who were also close to Officer
Rodman.
“A lot of
times we hear about tragedies like this that happen to families
all across Kentucky, and a lot of times we’re kind of numb to it
because it doesn’t impact us personally,” said Shell, who said
he voted in honor of Officer Rodman in his friends’ stead and
also in honor of other fallen officers.
Rep.
McKenzie Cantrell, D-Louisville, who represents Officer Rodman’s
family in her district, also spoke in support of HB 185. She
said the officer’s death less than a year ago “rocked our south
end community in Louisville.”
“I’m glad
that those of us in the legislature today who voted yes are
finally catching up and putting policy in place that recognizes
the sacrifice that the families of our fallen officers make,”
she said.
HB 185 now
goes to the Senate for consideration.
--END--
March
19, 2018
Senate
approves personal finance education bill
FRANKFORT –
Reading, writing, arithmetic – and financial literacy.
The state
Senate approved a measure today that would require a financial
literacy course as a high school graduation requirement. The
legislation, known as House Bill 132, passed by a 35-3 vote.
Sen. Max
Wise, R-Campbellsville, who presented the bill, said it was
needed because Kentucky ranks 48th in financial literacy.
“The lack
of financial literacy is costing our state money,” he said.
“When people are deep in consumer debt, they tend to file for
bankruptcy more often, they are more likely to need state
assistance and they certainly are not adding to the consumer
economy when they send the majority of their spending capability
in interest payments to out-of-state credit card companies.”
Sen. Dorsey Ridley, D-Henderson, asked how the measure would be
paid for before voting for HB 132. Wise said the state education
department is working to provide funding for those schools who
do not have the resources available.
The Kentucky Board of Education would be responsible for
establishing the standards and graduation requirements for
financial literacy, according to HB 131. Completion of courses
or programs that meet set financial literacy standards would
become a graduation requirement beginning with students entering
ninth grade in 2020-’21.
Sen.
Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, said other states have found success in
teaching financial literacy before talking about some model
programs.
“I do think
financial literacy is so important for all of us,” he said. “I
look forward to voting for it.”
Sen. Dennis Parrett, D-Elizabethtown, stood in support of HB 132
and said he filed a similar measure last session.
“This is a
bill I am certainly glad to see in this chamber,” he said. “I
believe this bill will have more impact on the future of
Kentucky than most bills we are going to have on this floor this
year.”
HB 132 now
goes back to the House for consideration of the change made in
the Senate.
--
END --
March 16, 2018
This Week at the State Capitol
March 12-16
FRANKFORT -- The first piece of legislation to pass a
legislative chamber this week dealt with making playground
equipment accessible to all children. One of the final bills of
the week to advance through a chamber focused on the mental
health of students. In between, lawmakers cast votes on a range
of topics including bike safety, health care, prayer, and teen
marriage.
It was a particularly busy week at the State Capitol as lawmaker
moved into the home stretch of the General Assembly’s 2018
session. There are now eight legislative days until final
adjournment. For a bill moving through the process to have a
chance to be signed into law, it must pass the Senate and House
by the session’s final day, which is scheduled for April 13.
Legislation that moved closer to becoming law this week included
measures on the following topics.
Felons. Senate
Bill 210 would increase penalties against convicted felons for
possessing a firearm while committing certain crimes. The
measure was approved by the Senate on Wednesday and has been
sent to the House for consideration.
Criminal gangs. House
Bill 169 would increase penalties for those recruiting others
into criminal gangs. The bill, which would make such recruiting
a crime, is intended to target the threat posed by gangs that
deal in illegal drugs, weapons, human trafficking and other
criminal behavior. The legislation was approved by the House on
Thursday and has been sent to the Senate.
Playgrounds. House
Resolution 191 encourages local governments and public agencies
that provide playgrounds to offer play equipment that can be
enjoyed by all children regardless of their physical or mental
abilities. The resolution was approved by the House on Monday.
Mental health. House
Bill 604 would require school districts to employ at least one
mental health professional for each 1,500 students. The bill
passed the House on Friday and has been sent to the Senate.
Prayer. House
Bill 40 would designate the last Wednesday in September of each
year as “A Day of Prayer for Kentucky's Students.” This measure
would enshrine in statute a day that has already been observed
by some students in recent years. Under the bill, students would
be encouraged to pray, meditate, or reflect “in accordance to
their own faith and consciences” on the prayer day. They would
also be allowed to participate in a student-initiated event
before the start of the school day. The bill was approved by the
House on Thursday and has been sent to the Senate.
Revenge porn.
House Bill 71 would criminalize “revenge porn,” the online
posting of sexually explicit images or videos without the
consent of the subject. The bill was approved by the Senate
Judiciary Committee on Thursday and now awaits action by the
full Senate.
Child Protection. Senate
Bill 137 would help in the prosecution of child molesters by
allowing out-of-court statements from children who have been
sexual abused to be admissible in court, under certain
circumstances. The measure was approved by the Senate on
Wednesday and has been sent to the House for further action.
Bicycle-safety. House
Bill 33 would require drivers to keep vehicles at least three
feet away from bicyclists during an attempt to pass. If that
much space isn’t available, the driver must use “reasonable
caution” when passing cyclists. The bill has been passed by both
chambers and is ready to go to the governor so that he can
consider signing it into law.
Teen marriage. Senate
Bill 48 has received approved by both legislative chambers and
now goes to the governor’s desk. If signed into law, the measure
would prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from getting married.
It would also require a district judge to approve the marriage
of any 17-year-old. While current law states 16- and
17-year-olds can be married with parental consent, a district
judge can approve the marriage of a child below the age of 16 if
the girl is pregnant.
The big issue expected to command much attention in the days
ahead is consideration of the state budget proposal, which has
already been approved in the House and now awaits Senate action.
Citizens who want to weigh in on the state’s spending priorities
or any other matters can share thoughts with Kentucky lawmakers
by calling the General Assembly’s toll-free message line at
(800) 372-7181.
--END--
March 16, 2018
Mental health bill aimed at curbing school violence clears House
FRANKFORT—A bill that lawmakers hope will address the mental
health needs of Kentucky public school students in response to
school shootings like the one at Marshall County High School in
January made it through the Kentucky House today.
House Bill 604, sponsored by Rep. Will Coursey, passed by the
House today on a vote of 81-1. The bill would
require school districts or public charter schools to hire or
contract with one mental health professional per every 1,500
students as public or private funds become available, beginning
with the 2019-2020 school year. That mental health professional
would help meet another requirement in the bill directing all
public schools to adopt a “trauma-informed approach” that
focuses on the needs of struggling students to create safer
schools.
The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, or SAMHSA, defines a “trauma-informed approach”
as realizing “widespread impact of trauma and … potential paths
for recovery,” recognizing signs of trauma, and responding “by
fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies,
procedures and practices.”
It would be the duty of the mental health professional under HB
604 to build a trauma team that would “provide training,
guidance, and assistance” to school and staff and help students
in need, with guidance also provided by the state Department of
Education in the form of a toolkit including strategies for
building a trauma-informed approach.
Coursey, D-Symsonia, filed HB 604 in the aftermath of a Jan. 23
shooting in his district in which two Marshall County High
School students – Bailey Nicole Holt and Preston Ryan Cope, both
age 15—were killed when a classmate allegedly opened fire at the
school. At least a dozen other individuals were shot but
survived, with many others sustaining injuries.
“While we will never be as we were, I’m proud to say that who we
are hasn’t changed,” Coursey told the House.
Coursey said HB 604 is based on the fact that many students have
no one at home to talk to when they are facing a traumatic event
like a parent’s divorce or some other loss. And while schools
cannot control what happens at home, Coursey said “they can and
should help whenever possible.”
“My sincere hope is that we can find the money in our budget to
bring these (mental health professionals) into our schools as
soon as possible,” he said.
Rep. Steve Riley, R-Glasgow, enthusiastically supported the
bill. The retired public school educator said guidance
counselors in schools are “overwhelmed” and cannot meet all the
needs of their school’s students.
Riley said while HB 604 will help to create a better school
culture. “If we don’t do this in schools, we are going to
continue to have problems,” he said.
HB 604 now goes to the Senate for consideration.
--END--
March 16, 2018
Regulatory fee measure goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—A bill that would allow many of the fees collected by
the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to be set by the
Cabinet—and not the General Assembly—has narrowly been approved
by the state House.
House Bill 327, sponsored by Rep. Russell Webber,
R-Shepherdsville, passed the House 46-40. Should it become law,
regulatory fees for services ranging from assisted living
facilities and child care facilities to restaurants and hotels
would be removed from state law and set by state regulation,
with some prescribed limits.
Only Kentucky birth certificate fees collected by the Cabinet
would remain in state law, according to the bill.
Webber said the bill will let the Cabinet keep up with costs
that current statutory fees don’t cover.
“What’s happening now is the Cabinet, to cover those fees, is
having to go and use General Fund dollars because those amounts
are no longer sufficient,” he said.
Eighty percent of state fees are already set by administrative
regulation, Webber added.
Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, was one House member who voted
against the bill. Wayne said HB 327 would give non-elected state
officials authority that should remain with elected state
officials.
“We will be abdicating our authority to bureaucrats to set fees,
to basically tax our citizens here,” said Wayne. “So I strongly
suggest that we reject this legislation and we keep our power as
representatives of the people to set the taxes in the
Commonwealth.”
Among those supporting the bill was Rep. Jim Gooch,
R-Providence, who said the legislation will ensure the
regulatory fees go to their intended purpose.
“These fees are established so the (Cabinet) can regulate their
departments,” said Gooch.
HB 327 now goes to the Senate for its consideration.
--END--
March 15,
2018
Gang
violence legislation moves to Senate
FRANKFORT—Criminal gang members could face felony instead of
misdemeanor penalties for gang recruitment and spend more time
in jail under a bill that has cleared the Kentucky House.
House Bill
169 sponsor Rep. Robert Benvenuti said a rise in criminal gangs
targeting children as young as eight years old makes HB 169
necessary. He said current state laws don’t adequately target
the threat posed by gangs recruiting children and adults to
traffic in drugs, weapons and human beings in Kentucky.
HB 169 will
modernize state law “so that we ensure, to the best of our
ability, that gangs do not continue to grow and to devastate
every corner of this Commonwealth,” said Benvenuti.
Specifically, the bill would make it a felony for adults – who
now face misdemeanor charges for criminal gang recruitment--to
engage in that crime. It would also allow minors who recruit
members of criminal gangs to face felony charges after a first
offense.
Additionally, the bill would define a “criminal gang” as three
or more people who share a name, hand gestures, symbols or other
chosen traits, has been officially identified as a gang, and has
at least two members who have been involved in a “pattern” of
criminal activity. It would also tighten the definition of a
criminal gang syndicate while outlining rules for judicial
treatment of criminal gang members.
Voting
against HB 169 was Rep. Attica Scott, who questioned the bill’s
cost – which a fiscal note attached to HB 169 estimates could
cost $19.5 million over several years—and its intention.
“I voted no
on HB 169 because it is designed to lock up as many young people
of color as possible,” Scott said. “And I voted no because $19
million, even over 10 years, is a lot of money to spend to
incarcerate more bodies.”
Three floor
amendments to the bill were voted down before HB 169 was
approved by the House on a vote of 71-17.
The bill
now goes to the Senate for its consideration.
--END--
March 15,
2018
Bill
would create annual “Day of Prayer” for Kentucky students
FRANKFORT—An annual day of prayer for Kentucky’s students would
become part of state law under a bill passed today in the House.
House Bill
40 sponsor Rep. Regina Huff, R-Williamsburg, said the annual
prayer event has been proclaimed by Kentucky’s governor the past
two years. HB 40 would designate the last Wednesday of September
each year as “A Day of Prayer for Kentucky’s Students” by law,
and require the governor to issue an annual proclamation for the
event.
Huff said
that HB 40 is respectful of all faiths by asking that
Kentuckians spend the day praying, meditating or reflecting “in
accordance with their own faith and consciences.” Students would
be allowed to participate in the event at school before the
start of the instructional day.
“Their
event at school will be student-initiated and conducted, and
always before the start of the school day,” Huff said.
The
Kentucky event would be part of a global prayer initiative that
Huff said would be held the same day.
The idea
for HB 40 was raised by students in Huff’s district and others
who she said “want to know that we are all united in this effort
and that, on that particular day each year, we will be united
with them.”
“Given all
that our students are facing … Our students need to know that we
are standing with them,” she said. “We all need to embrace this
and be united in an effort of support in each individual’s
manner of prayer for our schools, students and administrators.”
HB 40
passed on a vote of 83-5 and now goes to the Senate for its
consideration.
--END--
March
15, 2018
Revenge porn bill passes in Senate committee
FRANKFORT –
A Senate committee advanced a bill today that would criminalize
“revenge porn,” a phrase used to describe sexually explicit
images or videos posted online without the consent of the
subject.
The
measure, known as House Bill 71, would make the first offense a
misdemeanor and any subsequent offenses a Class-D felony. If a
defendant profited from spreading the images online, the
penalties would be enhanced to a Class-D felony for the first
offense and a more serious Class-C felony for subsequent
offenses.
HB 71 would
also pave the way for victims of revenge porn to file lawsuits
against the person who posted the images. Damages would be
$1,000 for each image and each day the image remained online
after it was requested to be removed. Another provision would
prohibit an online operator from demanding money to remove
revenge porn.
Some
exemptions to HB 71 would include images involving voluntary
nudity in public.
Sen. John
Schickel, R-Union, spoke in favor of HB 71 during the Senate
Judiciary Committee meeting.
“This isn’t
just a hypothetical,” he said. “This is something that happens
every day.”
HB 71
passed the committee by a 6-0 vote. The measure is now before
the Senate for further consideration.
-- END
--
March
15, 2018
Bill
makes changes to rape and sodomy laws
FRANKFORT
-- The Senate has advanced a measure to broaden the state’s rape
and sodomy statutes.
House Bill
101 would expand third-degree rape or sodomy to include an adult
having sex with a 16 or 17 year old if the age difference is 10
years or greater. A violation of HB 101 would be punishable by
up to five years in prison. HB 101 passed the Senate yesterday
by a 34-1 vote.
Sen. Wil
Schroder, R-Wilder, said HB 101 would stop an accused rapist
from mounting a trial defense that the sexual intercourse was
consensual when the victim was 16 or 17 and the defendant was at
least 10 years older.
He asked
fellow parents to image their 16-year-old son or daughter being
sexually involved with an adult 10 or more years older.
“This would
put a stop to that,” Schroder said. “Currently, it is appalling
but it is not criminal. This would make it criminal.”
Sen.
Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, stood in support of HB 101.
He said 24 other states have passed similar laws in light of
compelling evidence for the need.
“Children
of this age demand protection,” Westerfield said.
HB 101 now
goes back to the House for consideration because the Senate
amended the bill.
-- END
--
March
14, 2018
Net
metering bill passes House, moves to Senate
FRANKFORT—A
bill that would let state regulators determine how much solar
customers in Kentucky are credited for their surplus power
narrowly passed the state House yesterday by a vote of 49-45.
House Bill
227 sponsor Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, said the bill as
passed would amend the state’s law on net metering—which Gooch
said requires “rooftop solar” customers be paid the “full retail
rate” for surplus solar energy fed into the electrical grid—by
letting the state Public Service Commission decide how much net
metering customers should be compensated, and what costs they
should pay.
Existing
private net metering customers and those who buy existing
net-metered property would be grandfathered in through 2043,
with the bill taking effect in 2019, said Gooch.
Gooch said
solar customers don’t pay maintenance, transmission and many
other costs that electric utilities and their customers pay.
Because of that, he said, the current rate structure for net
metering benefits only solar customers.
“It’s
critical that the system costs of net metering not be shifted to
non-net metered customers,” he said.
Any
concerns about whether the bill will put solar contractors out
of business were also responded to by Gooch. “They will still
sell solar panels to people who want them,” he said. “It may
take delay their payoff a little bit longer, but … we still
believe it is a viable option.”
Rep. Phil
Moffett, R-Louisville, express concern about the legislation,
saying that only a fraction of the state’s electric power is
generated by solar power.
“I find
this bill really to be a solution looking for a problem,”
Moffett said, saying the legislation is not urgent in a state
with such low use of solar power.
Also
speaking against the bill was Rep. Angie Hatton, D-Whitesburg.
Hatton, who expressed concern about the possibility of increased
electricity costs.
“This bill
creates an unlevel playing field favoring utility-owned solar
over private home owner or small-business owned solar,” she
said. “Kentucky solar businesses will close, and the energy
rates will continue to climb and utilities eliminate their
competition.”
One
lawmaker who supported the bill was Rep. Brian Linder, R-Dry
Ridge. Linder said HB 227 prevents what he called a “reverse
Robin Hood” that requires utility customers to help pay the cost
of solar installation. He said that cost runs around $20,000 per
house, according to committee testimony.
“I don’t
know about you, but not a lot of people in my district have
$20,000 sitting around to put solar on their house,” said
Linder.
HB 227 now
goes to the Senate for consideration.
--END--
March 15,
2018
Online eye-exam bill passes Senate
FRANKFORT –
Kentucky is a step closer to regulating online businesses
offering prescription eyeglasses and contacts to individuals who
take vision tests on their computers or smartphones.
The move
came yesterday when the Senate amended and then unanimously
passed House Bill 191. The measure would require the person
taking the online test for a prescription to be 18 or older and
have received an in-person exam within the last 24 months.
The online
services would also be required to have doctors licensed in
Kentucky signing off on the prescriptions or findings of the
virtual exams. Other provisions of HB 191 would hold online
exams to the same standards as in-person exams, require the
online companies to register with the state attorney general and
require them to carry liability insurance.
“House Bill
191 protects consumers who use these technologies and provides
consumers the same protections they would have if they got their
prescription from an in-person exam,” said Sen. Julie Raque
Adams, R-Louisville.
Sen. Ralph
Alvarado, R-Winchester, said the amendment changed the language
in HB 191 to make it congruent with Senate Bill 112, a measure
promoting the use of telehealth in Kentucky. SB 112 passed the
Senate last month and is now being considered in the House.
“We wanted
to make sure the language in (HB 191) would still permit people
to use telehealth for their eye examinations,” Alvarado said.
HB 191 now
goes back now goes back to the House for consideration of the
Senate change.
-- END
--
March 15,
2018
Bill
addresses the prosecution of child molesters
FRANKFORT –
A bill that would make it easier to prosecute child molesters is
currently in the House for consideration.
The
measure, known as Senate Bill 137, would allow out-of-court
statements from a child who has been sexually abused to be
admissible in court, under certain circumstances. It passed the
Senate by a 29-9 vote yesterday.
The
sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, emphasized
the child’s statements would not automatically be admitted at
trial. He said SB 137 would set up a mechanism for the
statements to be considered. For example, there would still have
to be an evidentiary hearing.
“We should
allow this evidence to be considered by courts of law for the
benefit of child victims of these heinous crimes,” Westerfield
said.
He said SB
137 is needed because currently a child’s statements made out of
court are considered hearsay and inadmissible at trial.
Westerfield said that means when a teacher is told by a child
that he or she has been sexually abused that statement can’t be
used as evidence at trial.
Minority
Floor Leader Sen. Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville, voted against
the measure, in part, because he said the Kentucky Supreme Court
and the state bar association was better equipped to address the
issue.
“We
certainly want to help prosecute individuals who have committed
these heinous acts against children,” Jones said. “I’m just not
sure it is appropriate to do it through the mechanism we are
using to change the rules of evidence.”
He said SB
137 was “ripe for abuse,” particularly in child custody cases.
Sen. Danny
Carroll, R-Paducah, said as a former police officer he had
worked child sexual abuse cases where justice wasn’t served
because the victim’s statements to adults were ruled hearsay.
“It is my
belief that the passage of this bill will bring justice for our
kids who are victims, especially those that are victims of
sexual or physical abuse,” Carroll said. “There are offenders,
abusers of children, who are getting away with it because there
is no way for the court to consider these statements. That
should change.”
-- END --
March 14, 2018
Bill seeks to address felons carrying guns
FRANKFORT –
Legislation to curb gun violence by convicted felons passed the
state Senate today by a 36-0 vote.
The
measure, known as Senate Bill 210, would increase the penalty
imposed on a convicted felon for possession of a firearm during
the commission of certain crimes.
“In other
words, it enhances the penalties the second time around,” said
Majority Caucus Chair Sen. Dan “Malano” Seum, R-Fairdale.
He said he
introduced SB 210 at the request of Louisville’s mayor, police
and prosecutors who are exploring ways to reduce gun violence.
There were 127 murders in 2016 and 117 murders last year just in
the city. And for every person fatally shot there are three
wounded by gunfire.
“That kind
of sums up our gun violence,” Seum said.
Sen. John
Schickel, R-Union, spoke in support of SB 210. He said gun
violence is also a problem in Northern Kentucky and Lexington.
“We are
just kidding ourselves if we think that if we don’t address this
gun violence that it will just go away on its own,” he said.
“It’s not. This legislation is very appropriate.”
SB 210 now
goes to the House for consideration.
--
END --
March 14, 2018
Senate bill promotes safe disposal of narcotics
FRANKFORT –
In an effort to help curb Kentucky’s opioid epidemic, the state
Senate passed a measure today that would encourage the use of a
drug disposal product to help patients safely get rid of unused
painkillers.
The
legislation, known as Senate Bill 6, would require a pharmacist
to offer to sell or distribute the drug disposal product with
every prescription filled for a drug containing an opiate,
benzodiazepine, barbiturate, codeine or amphetamine. SB 6 would
also require the pharmacist to consult with a patient about the
importance of the proper disposal of unused, expired or unwanted
prescription drugs.
“This is
important legislation,” said sponsor Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr,
R-Lexington. “The eyes of the nation are on Kentucky today.”
She said
Kentucky has a chance to lead the nation in passing legislation
to promote the use of this type of drug disposal product. It
works by filling the prescription bottle with water, adding the
drug disposal product (sold in the form of a powder) and shaking
the bottle for about 30 seconds.
What is
left is a biodegradable gel-like substance that is safe to be
thrown away in the trash, Kerr said, adding that it would not
contaminate water supplies.
Sen.
Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said he supported the concept
of SB 6 but couldn’t vote for it because the legislation didn’t
provide a funding mechanism, though he acknowledged the benefits
of safely disposing painkillers.
“It makes
no sense to me whatsoever that the insurance companies and
Medicaid would not want to pay for this because they are going
to save a ton of money,” he said, adding that the drug disposal
product costs a little over $1 but a single opioid overdose
costs between $58,000 to $94,000 in medical expenses.
SB 6 passed
by a 34-2 vote. It now goes to the House for further
consideration.
--
END --
March 14, 2018
Child marriage bill proceeds to full House
FRANKFORT—Legislation that would rein in child marriage across
Kentucky was approved unanimously today by the House Judiciary
Committee.
Senate Bill
48, sponsored by Rep. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, would
prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from getting married in
Kentucky. Another provision would require parental input for
17-year-olds wanting to marry.
While
current law states 16- and 17-year-olds can be married with
parental consent, a district judge can approve the marriage of a
child below the age of 16 if the girl is pregnant.
Donna
Pollard, who at age 16 married a 30-year-old man with her
mother’s consent, spoke in support of HB 48 before the committee
vote. Pollard said her marriage resulted in domestic violence
and sexual exploitation.
In
Kentucky, there were 11,000 reported cases of child marriage
from 2000 to 2015. Of those marriages, only 7 percent were
between two minors, said Pollard.
SB 48 now
goes to the full House for its consideration. It passed the
Senate by a 34-3 vote on March 7.
--END--
March 14, 2018
Bill addresses the prosecution of child molesters
FRANKFORT –
A bill that would make it easier to prosecute child molesters is
currently in the House for consideration.
The
measure, known as Senate Bill 137, would allow out-of-court
statements from a child who has been sexually abused to be
admissible in court, under certain circumstances. It passed the
Senate by a 29-9 vote yesterday.
The
sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, emphasized
the child’s statements would not automatically be admitted at
trial. He said SB 137 would set up a mechanism for the
statements to be considered. For example, there would still have
to be an evidentiary hearing.
“We should
allow this evidence to be considered by courts of law for the
benefit of child victims of these heinous crimes,” Westerfield
said.
He said SB
137 is needed because currently a child’s statements made out of
court are considered hearsay and inadmissible at trial.
Westerfield said that means when a teacher is told by a child
that he or she has been sexually abused that statement can’t be
used as evidence at trial.
Minority
Floor Leader Sen. Ray S. Jones II, D-Pikeville, voted against
the measure, in part, because he said the Kentucky Supreme Court
and the state bar association was better equipped to address the
issue.
“We
certainly want to help prosecute individuals who have committed
these heinous acts against children,” Jones said. “I’m just not
sure it is appropriate to do it through the mechanism we are
using to change the rules of evidence.”
He said SB
137 was “ripe for abuse,” particularly in child custody cases.
Sen. Danny
Carroll, R-Paducah, said as a former police officer he had
worked child sexual abuse cases where justice wasn’t served
because the victim’s statements to adults were ruled hearsay.
“It is my
belief that the passage of this bill will bring justice for our
kids who are victims, especially those that are victims of
sexual or physical abuse,” Carroll said. “There are offenders,
abusers of children, who are getting away with it because there
is no way for the court to consider these statements. That
should change.”
--
END --
March
13, 2018
Body
camera bill passes House, moves to Senate
FRANKFORT—A
bill that would specify when footage from body cameras worn by
law enforcement may be accessed and used by the public received
approval today in the state House.
House Bill
373 sponsor Rep. Robert Benvenuti, R-Lexington, said the growing
popularity of body cameras among law enforcement agencies has
made the legislation necessary since footage from those cameras
is not currently addressed in the Kentucky Open Records Act.
That is the state law that provides legal access to public
records.
“What the
bill does is it says when a department decides to wear body-worn
cameras that we’re going to create a construct around how that
video is to be used and when it can be released because our
current Open Records law does not address it and leads to a lot
of confusion,” said Benvenuti.
HB 373
would allow public agencies to restrict access to footage from
body cameras worn by law enforcement in specific cases, said
Benvenuti, including but not limited to cases where a recording
shows the interior of specific places (including private homes,
medical facilities, or jails), a deceased person’s body,
evidence of sexual assault, nude bodies, a child under the age
of 18, or the inside of a women’s shelter.
Restricted
access would be lifted, he said, when a recording depicts use of
force by a law enforcement officer, shows someone being
arrested, involves a formal complaint against law enforcement,
or when a recording is requested by a criminal defendant or his
or her attorney.
Benvenuti
said the scene of a motor vehicle fatality is an example of an
incident that may be recorded by body camera but which law
enforcement likely does not want to be made public.
“That’s
obviously not footage we would want put out on YouTube or the
internet,” he told the House.
Benvenuti
emphasized that HB 373 would in no way require law enforcement
agencies to buy or use body cameras, adding “that is up to
individual departments and their communities to decide whether
or not they have the resources and the availability and the
training to use those body cameras. So this bill has nothing to
do with that.”
HB 373
passed the House by a vote of 94-2. It now goes to the Senate
for consideration.
--END--
March
13, 2018
Attorney concealed-carry bill passes the House
FRANKFORT--The House today approved a bill that would add to the
list of state attorneys allowed to carry concealed weapons
nearly anywhere in the state.
Under House
Bill 315, the deputy attorney general, assistant deputy
attorneys general, assistants, and special attorneys would have
permission to carry a concealed weapon during their working
years or retirement if the attorney has the proper license. The
only place where concealed-carry would be limited for the
attorneys would be in jails or other detention facilities, where
carrying a concealed weapon on the premises would require
permission of the jailer or warden.
HB 315
sponsor Rep. Robert Benvenuti, R-Lexington, spoke of the
importance of the proposal on the House floor today.
“These
attorneys handle some of the most complex cases including murder
cases, homicide cases, and appeals,” said Benvenuti. “They
deserve the very same protection that we give all our other
prosecutors here in Kentucky.”
Passing the
House on a 90-6 vote, HB 315 now goes to the Senate for its
consideration.
--END--
March 13,
2018
Home
Baking Bill Passes Senate Committee
FRANKFORT
-- Legislation that would allow Kentucky home bakers to sell
products out of their own kitchens as long as they follow
certain labeling and sanitation guidelines passed the Senate
Agriculture Committee today.
House Bill
263 would require anyone looking to sell baked goods out of
their home to be registered with the state and have a mandatory
inspection, said the
bill’s sponsor Rep. Richard Heath, R-Mayfield.
Under
Kentucky’s current laws, someone could face a $5,000 fine or up
to 30 days in jail for selling baked goods to customers from
their home kitchen.
This bill
“ensures that a safe marketplace can exist for home bakers,”
said Rep. Heath.
Home baked
products could be sold by pick-up or delivery at markets,
roadside stands, community events, or online under HB 263.
After passing the full House last week, HB 263 has now passed
the Senate committee with a 9-0 vote. The measure now goes to
the full Senate for its consideration.
--END--
March 12, 2018
Bicycle-safety bill coasts through Senate
FRANKFORT – The state Senate passed a bill clarifying how
motorists interact with bicyclists by a 36-0 vote today.
The legislation, known as House Bill 33, would require drivers
to keep vehicles at least three feet away from bicyclists during
an attempt to pass. If that much space isn’t available, HB 33
states that the drivers must us “reasonable caution” when
passing cyclists. Another provision allows a driver to cross a
yellow line to pass as long as the cost is clear.
An amendment would prohibit cyclists from riding more than two
abreast in a highway lane unless the roadway is marked for
bicycle use.
When Sen. Ernie Harris, R-Prospect, presented the HB 33, he said
the Senate had passed similar legislation during the prior two
sessions that didn’t become law.
HB 33 now goes back now goes back to the House for consideration
of the Senate change.
-- END --
March 12, 2018
11-week abortion measure goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—A second-trimester abortion procedure known as D & E
would be prohibited in Kentucky for most women who are at least
11 weeks into their pregnancy under a bill that has cleared the
state House.
House Bill 454 passed the House by a vote of 71-11. It now goes
to the Senate for its consideration.
HB 454 would not completely ban abortion at or after 11 weeks
but would ban the D & E—or dilation and evacuation—procedure
except in medical emergencies. A D & E is described by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services as an abortion that uses
“sharp instrument techniques, but also suction and other
instrumentation such as forceps, for evacuation.”
Abortion procedures that would still be allowed in the state
should HB 454 pass into law are induction abortion, which uses
medication to induce labor, and dilation and curettage (D & C),
which uses suction.
HB 454 sponsor Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, said the D & E
procedure is used in approximately 16 percent of abortions
performed in Kentucky. The purpose of her bill, she said, is to
codify “the state’s valid interest in banning this brutal,
intentional dismemberment procedure.”
Intentional violation of the HB 454 would be a Class D felony
under the legislation, with an exemption for the pregnant woman
on whom the procedure is performed.
One lawmaker voting against the bill was Rep. Mary Lou Marzian,
D-Louisville, who told the House that similar legislation has
already be found unconstitutional in Texas. Marzian said
abortion decisions should be left up to a woman and her
physician.
“I respect women and their families and their doctors to be able
to make a choice about their personal, private medical
decisions,” said Marzian.
House Bill 454, which is also sponsored by Rep. Joe Fischer,
R-Ft. Thomas, is the second bill proposing limits on abortion
procedures to make it to the floor of the Kentucky House in a
little over a year. Legislation prohibiting abortions in
Kentucky at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except when the
mother’s life is in danger, passed into law in 2017 under Senate
Bill 5.
--END--
March 12,
2018
Insurance fraud bill moves to Senate
FRANKFORT--Legislation that would create a new range of
penalties for those who have committed insurance fraud is
currently in the Senate for consideration.
Penalties
in House Bill 323, sponsored by Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville,
would be based on the amount of fraud that has been committed.
Felony penalty levels would be defined for insurance fraud
ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000 or more, with misdemeanor
penalties for fraud of lesser amounts also defined.
The bill
passed the House 83-0 on Friday.
“You don’t
have to take my word for it that it (insurance fraud) is a
problem in Kentucky,” said Riggs as he presented the bill on the
House floor last Friday. The National Insurance Crime Bureau has
placed Kentucky as a top ten state for insurance fraud, Riggs
said.
Victims of
insurance fraud, and their insurers, would also be able to seek
compensation in civil court for their damages under HB 323,
which is another change to current law, added Riggs.
Rep. Jason
Nemes, R-Louisville, also spoke of the importance the
legislation on the House floor.
“It gets
the whole system, hopefully, focused on prosecuting and taking
these issues seriously,” Nemes said.
--END--
March 9, 2018
This Week at the State Capitol
FRANKFORT – Capitol observers have been tuned in for months to
find out what form lawmakers’ public pension reform plans might
take and how legislators would cast their first votes on the
issue.
They got some answers as Senate Bill 1 advanced through a Senate
committee this week.
On Wednesday, the latest version of proposed pension was
approved by the Senate State and Local Government Committee on a
7-4 vote. By week’s end, though, the legislation had taken an
uncertain turn as it was recommitted back to the committee for
further review rather than coming up for a vote in the full
Senate.
In looking at the issue, lawmakers are striving to establish
sound financial footing for ailing pension systems that are
estimated to have unfunded liabilities between $40 billion and
$60 billion. Additional funding for pension systems is part of
the budget proposal that is moving through the legislature.
Senate Bill 1 proposes changes to the system that would help
reduce unfunded liabilities in a number of ways, such as by
reducing the cost-of-living adjustments for retired teachers
pensions from 1.5 percent to 1 percent until the teachers’
system is 90 percent funded.
While much of the focus was on the pension bill this week, a
number of bills on other issues also moved through the
legislative process:
Disabled Parking Permit. House
Bill 81 would limit eligible individuals or organizations to one
free permanent or temporary disabled parking placard while
requiring $10 for each additional placard. The measure, which is
meant to limit the misuse of disabled parking permit placards,
passed the House by an 85-10 vote. It now goes to the Senate for
its consideration.
Bicycle-safety. House
Bill 33 would require drivers to keep vehicles at least three
feet away from bicyclists during an attempt to pass. If that
much space isn’t available, the driver must use “reasonable
caution” when passing cyclists. In hopes to increase roadway
safety, HB 33 passed a Senate committee this week and now goes
to the full Senate for consideration.
Pregnant Inmates. Senate
Bill 133 would improve outcomes for pregnant inmates by limiting
shackling during childbirth and by allowing access to substance
abuse treatment. The bill is intended to ensure pregnant
women are receiving proper nutrition behind bars, adequate
sanitary items, and undergarments. SB 133 has passed the Senate
and now goes to the House for further consideration.
Fertility Treatment. Senate
Bill 95 would require health insurers of cancer patients to
cover fertility preservation, the process of saving or
protecting eggs, sperm or reproductive tissue so that a person
can use them to have biological children in the future. To give
hope to men and women facing infertility caused by cancer
treatments, SB 95 has been approved by the Senate and now goes
to the House for further consideration.
Abortion. House
Bill 454 would ban an abortion procedure known as a “D & E” for
women who are at least 11 weeks into their pregnancy except in
medical emergencies. The measure would not result in a complete
ban of all abortions after 11 weeks but would solely target D &
E procedures described as an “intentional dismemberment
procedure.” Passing a House committee this week, HB 454 now goes
to the full House for consideration.
Road Plan. House
Bill 202 would create a two-year state Road Plan that would
authorize over $2.4 billion for bridges, repaving and other road
and highway projects statewide through 2020. The plan focuses on
road safety as well as economic development for Kentucky.
Passing the House this week with a 66-25 vote, HB 202 now goes
to the Senate or its consideration.
Holocaust Education. House
Bill 128 would require public middle and high schools across
Kentucky to teach their students about the Holocaust and other
internationally-recognized acts of genocide. To ensure that
students are being given Holocaust curriculum based in fact, HB
128 passed the House by a vote of 93-1 and now goes to the
Senate.
To leave a message for any legislator, call the General
Assembly’s Message Line at 1-800-372-7181. People with
hearing difficulties may leave messages for lawmakers by calling
the TTY Message Line at 1-800-896-0305.
--END--
March 9, 2018
Anti-child pornography measure goes to governor’s desk
FRANKFORT—A bill that would more tightly secure materials held
in court proceedings that depict child pornography is on its way
to becoming law.
House Bill 120, sponsored by Rep. Chad McCoy, R-Bardstown,
received final passage by a vote of 83-0 today in House. The
bill, which first passed the House in January, was amended and
unanimously approved by the Senate on Tuesday.
“The point of this bill is stop the proliferation of child
pornography through the court system, to make sure if it’s used
as evidence it can’t be then further distributed,” said McCoy.
HB 120 requires that law enforcement or the prosecutor secure
any child pornography or material depicting a sexual performance
by a minor in their custody that is part a criminal or civil
proceeding. Any request to copy the material by a defendant in
the case would be prohibited as long as the material is made
“reasonably available” at a designated facility to the defendant
and his or her attorney for legal purposes.
The bill also specifies that the court would not be responsible
for storing such material except by court order, and then only
if the material is introduced as an exhibit for trial.
The bill now goes to the governor to be signed into law.
--END--
March 8, 2018
Bill
to amp up pharmacists’ role in opioid fight goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—Kentucky’s community pharmacies would play a bigger
role in the state’s fight against opioid addiction under
legislation that has passed the state House.
House Bill
246, sponsored by pharmacist and State Rep. Danny Bentley,
R-Russell, and Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, would create a
pilot program to gauge the effectiveness of a community pharmacy
care delivery model for dispensing of non-controlled medication
assisted therapy for those with opioid use disorder, or OUD,
under approved protocols.
The pilot
program would be implemented by the state, as funds are
available, “to determine practices that increase access to
treatment, reduce frequency of relapse” and help to control
costs. Counties or populations chosen to participate in the
program would be designated by the state.
“Successful
completion of the pilot project will demonstrate the impact of
the community pharmacy practice model,” said Bentley, adding
that HB 246 would be “a model for Kentucky and maybe a model for
the United States.”
Pharmacist
and State Rep. Robert Goforth, R-East Bernstadt, said HB 246
would allow the state to build on existing regulations that
authorize pharmacists to dispense non-controlled medication like
naltrexone under approved protocols.
Goforth
said barriers to access to long-acting naltrexone and a lack of
reimbursement now keep community pharmacists from participating
in naltrexone-based medication assisted therapy programs.
“Pharmacists are highly-educated health care professionals with
unparalleled accessibility and can play a larger role in
addressing this significant public health issue” involving
opioid addiction, he said.
HB 246
passed the House on a vote of 90-0. It now goes to the Senate
for its consideration.
--END--
March 7, 2018
Holocaust education bill passes House, goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—Public middle and high schools across Kentucky would
be required to teach their students about the Holocaust and
other internationally-recognized acts of genocide under a bill
which has passed the state House.
The legislation is House Bill 128, sponsored by Rep. John
Carney, R-Campbellsville, and Rep. Mary Lou Marzian,
D-Louisville. It was championed this session by eighth-grade
students and their teachers from the private St. Francis of
Assisi School in Louisville, many of whom were on the House
floor when the bill was passed.
Carney, who chairs the House Education Committee, said that
“most school districts are already teaching the Holocaust,”
which was the systematic killing of an estimated 6 million
Jewish people in the 1930s and 1940s under the direction of the
Nazi regime. “Unfortunately, there are some folks
in society who are beginning to question it.”
HB 128 will ensure middle and high students in Kentucky are
taught a Holocaust curriculum based in fact, he said.
Marzian recognized the students from St. Francis of Assisi
School for their work.
“They have worked so hard on this piece of legislation and have
such social justice hearts that it’s been a pleasure,” she said.
Also present on the House floor for the passage of HB 128 was
author and Holocaust teacher Fred Gross who survived the
Holocaust as a child. HB 128 includes a provision
that would cite the legislation the “Ann Klein and Fred Gross
Holocaust Education Act” in honor of Gross and Klein, a survivor
of Auschwitz and a Holocaust educator who died in 2012.
A few lawmakers said that, while they support the bill, other
crimes against humanity should also be recognized.
Rep. Lynn Bechler, R-Marion, who voted for the measure,
expressed concern about putting more mandates on public school
teachers.
“I believe that everybody should know what happened in the
Holocaust, the horrors of the Holocaust. I continue to have
problems, however, as the session goes on, that we require more,
and more and more from our teachers and our schools,” said
Bechler.
HB 128 passed the House by a vote of 94-1. It now goes to the
Senate.
--END--
March 7, 2018
Road plan, related bills pass House, sent to Senate
FRANKFORT—A two-year state Road Plan that would authorize over
$2.4 billion for bridges, repaving and other road and highway
projects statewide through 2020 passed the House today by a vote
of 66-25.
Road safety is at the top of the list for the road plan found in
House Bill 202, which House Budget Review Subcommittee on
Transportation Chair and bill sponsor Rep. Sal Santoro,
R-Florence, said would invest nearly $1 billion in bridge and
road work across the Commonwealth.
“Today a bridge collapsed in Letcher County,” said Santoro,
adding that bridges in 103 of the state’s 120 counties are
deficient. “So, the plan – we’re going to fix these bridges in
the Commonwealth. It’s time.”
The plan would also focus on projects that boost economic
development, like $14 million proposed in HB 202 for
transportation infrastructure to support EnerBlu, Inc. The
California-based company announced last year its plans to locate
a lithium battery gigafactory manufacturing facility in Eastern
Kentucky, along with offices in Lexington.
“This legislator knows our rural roads and our people in our
rural communities need help, and we’re going to take care of
them,” Santoro told the House. HB 202 is also sponsored by House
Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chair Rep. Steven Rudy,
R-Paducah.
One of the lawmakers voting against the road plan in HB 202 was
Rep. Chris Harris, D-Forest Hills, who is from Pike County.
Harris said tens of millions of dollars in projects that are
“vital to opening up the roads in Eastern Kentucky” were
completely removed from the plan.
“They’re not moved back, they’re not bumped back to a different
time, not delayed, they’re just taken out like they don’t
exist,” said Harris. “This is not what the people in Pike and
Martin counties expect from their leadership.”
Funding for the two-year road plan would come from the state
Transportation Cabinet budget found in HB 201, sponsored by
Rudy. Approved by the House today on a 78-16 vote, that bill
includes funding for both the biennial Road Plan, airport and
railroad improvements and Cabinet operations, along with other
needs.
The last four years, or so-called “out years,” of the state’s
larger six-year Road Plan—which includes the two-year Road
Plan—are found in House Joint Resolution 74. The resolution,
sponsored by Rudy and Santoro, includes over $4 billion in
projects that are not scheduled for funding in the two-year Road
Plan but may be funded in the future. That legislation was also
approved by the House, 71-21.
All of the measures now go to the Senate for its consideration.
--END--
March 7, 2018
11-week abortion measure passes House panel
FRANKFORT—A House committee voted today to ban an abortion
procedure known as a “D & E” for women who are at least 11 weeks
into their pregnancy except in medical emergencies.
HB 454 sponsor Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Florence, told the House
Judiciary Committee earlier this week that her bill would not
completely ban abortion at or after 11 weeks, but would target
only the D & E—or dilation and evacuation—procedure which she
described as an “intentional dismemberment procedure.”
Specifically, HB 454 would prohibit any abortion that “will
result in the bodily dismemberment, crushing or human
vivisection of the unborn child” when the likely
post-fertilization age is 11 week of more, except in a medical
emergency. A D & E is described by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services as an abortion method
that uses “sharp instrument techniques, but also suction and
other instrumentation such as forceps for evacuation.”
“While there is no doubt that I am pro-life, this is not a total
ban on abortion in the Commonwealth after 11 weeks, but a
prohibition on a procedure that is gruesome, brutal and not
necessary since women have other methods available to them,”
said Wuchner.
Wuchner said other procedures that a woman can pursue for
abortion at or after 11 weeks include dilation and curettage (D
& C) and induction abortion.
Those speaking against the bill in committee this week included
Marcie Crim of the Kentucky Health Justice Network. Crim said
that of the 42 million abortions that the World Health
Organization (WHO) estimates are performed worldwide each year,
at least 20 million are considered “unsafe.”
“Where there are restrictive abortion laws, there are unsafe
abortions,” Crim told the committee.
Intentional violation of the HB 454 would be a Class D felony
under the legislation, with legal immunity for the pregnant
woman on whom the procedure is performed.
House Bill 454 is the second bill proposing limits on abortion
procedures to make it to the floor of the Kentucky House in a
little over a year. Legislation prohibiting abortions in
Kentucky at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except when the
mother’s life is in danger, passed into law in 2017 under Senate
Bill 5.
HB 454, which is also sponsored by House Judiciary Committee
Chair Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Ft. Thomas, now goes to the full House
for its consideration.
--END--
March 7, 2018
Attorney concealed-carry bill given committee OK
FRANKFORT--The House Judiciary Committee today approved a bill
that would add to the list of state attorneys allowed to carry
concealed weapons nearly anywhere in the state.
Under House Bill 315, the deputy attorney general, assistant
deputy attorneys general, assistants, and special attorneys
would have permission to carry a concealed weapon at any time if
a proper license has been obtained. The only place where
concealed-carry would be limited for the attorneys would be in
jails or other detention facilities, where carrying a concealed
weapon on the premises would require permission of the jailer or
warden.
”These are prosecutors that are highly specialized, they’re in
the Attorney General’s office, and they often go into very
difficult, dangerous circumstances, and I think they deserve the
same personal protection that we give every other commonwealth
and county attorney in the state,” HB 315 sponsor Rep. Robert
Benvenuti, R-Lexington, said in committee today.
Kentucky Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown also came
before the committee to show his support for HB 315.
“I think these lawyers, these dedicated professionals, deserve
equal protection like the other people in the law enforcement
community,” said Brown.
Passing the committee on a 16-1 vote, HB 315 now goes to the
full House for consideration.
--END--
March 7, 2018
Senate Panel approves bicycle-safety bill
FRANKFORT -- Legislation aimed at increasing roadway safety for
both motor vehicles and bicyclists passed the Senate
Transportation committee today.
House Bill 33 would require drivers to keep vehicles at least
three feet away from bicyclists during an attempt to pass. If
that much space isn’t available, the bill says that the drivers
must us “reasonable caution” when passing cyclists.
HB 33’s sponsor, Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, said such
measures are needed to protect cyclists in Kentucky, which has
had 15 fatalities in the past two years due to cyclist
accidents.
The measure, which was approved by the House on Feb. 9, now goes
to the full Senate for consideration.
--END--
March 7,
2018
Finalists for Vic Hellard Jr. Award announced
FRANKFORT
-- Though their job duties varied greatly during careers at the
Legislative Research Commission (LRC), Gordon Adkins, Joyce
Honaker, and Jim Swain all now share a common distinction: Each
was announced today as a finalist for the 2018 Vic Hellard Jr.
Award, the highest honor given by LRC.
The Hellard
Award is given each year to someone who served the LRC with
skill, dedication, professionalism, integrity, and dignity. The
award alternates annually between past and current LRC staff
members. This year’s award honors a past LRC worker.
The award’s namesake, Vic Hellard Jr., was director of the LRC
staff for 19 years before retiring in 1995. He passed away in
1996.
Seven nominations were received for this year’s award before a
selection committee narrowed the list down to the three
finalists:
· Gordon
Adkins, served as the LRC’s Telecommunications Supervisor until
he passed away last year.
· Joyce
Honaker served LRC as
the Committee Staff Administrator for State Government until her
2003 retirement.
· Jim
Swain was LRC’s Chief Information Officer until his retirement
in 2016.
“The nominees for this year’s Vic Hellard Jr. Award read like an
All Star Team of LRC alumni,” said LRC Director David Byerman.
“The selection committee struggled to narrow this extraordinary
field down to these three finalists. These three finalists truly
exemplify everything that is special about LRC employees: their
love of the institution, indefatigable attitude, and commitment
to public service inspire us all.”
Additional information on the 2018 finalists, including excerpts
from their nomination letters, can be viewed online: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/pubinfo/2018HellardFinalists.pdf.
Ellen
Hellard, the widow of Vic Hellard Jr., served as chair of the
selection committee for the 2018 Vic Hellard Jr. Award. Past
award winners Sally Everman (2015), Scott Payton (2016), and
Sheila Mason (2017) served on the panel, along with LRC Director
David Byerman and LRC Deputy Director for Committee and Staff
Coordination Robert Jenkins.
The 2017 Vic Hellard Jr. Award will be presented during House
and Senate floor sessions March 22nd at
the State Capitol. All finalists will be honored at
a reception at the Capitol.
The Vic Hellard Jr. Award goes each year to someone who embodies
the values that longtime LRC Director Vic Hellard Jr. brought to
his long career: A public servant of vision, appreciating
history while finding new ways to do things, someone who
champions the equality and dignity of all, nurtures the
processes of a democratic society and promotes public dialogue
while educating and fostering civic engagement, approaching that
work with commitment, caring, generosity, and humor.
Hellard was known as a champion of legislative independence who
played an instrumental role in the modernization of the
legislative institution and nonpartisan staffing. Serving nearly
two decades at the helm of LRC, he was known not just for his
contributions to an independent General Assembly, but also for
his wit, appreciation of history, and his mentoring of hundreds
of young people who now serve the people of the Commonwealth and
carry on his legacy.
--END--
March 6, 2018
Disabled parking placard bill goes to Senate
FRANKFORT—Legislation designed to limit misuse of disabled
parking permit placards in Kentucky moved a step closer toward
final passage today.
House Bill 81, sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville,
would limit eligible individuals or organizations to one free
permanent or temporary disabled parking placard while requiring
$10 for each additional placard. Unique decals would replace
handwritten permit information on the placards upon renewal,
making them harder to alter, said Miller.
Those most in need of the placards would be able to keep a
permanent placard for six years instead of the
current two before having to renew the permit while others would
find it easier to get a temporary placard, said Miller.
Temporary placards could be attained via a statement attesting
to the disability by a physician assistant, physical therapist
or occupational therapist for the first time under the law, with
other providers also being able to provide required proof.
“The intent of the bill is cut down on fraud that we obviously
have, make it easier to get temporary (placard) stickers, and
allow those who really need them to find parking places,” Miller
told the House.
Miller said the legislation is needed mainly because of a
10-year-old court case that led to the removal of all fees for
disabled parking placards in Kentucky. He said the number of
placards issued in the Commonwealth grew from around 32,600 to
over 298,000 in the aftermath of that case.
Rep. McKenzie Cantrell, D-Louisville, who voted in favor of the
bill, praised a provision that would set the expiration date of
the placards in the permit holder’s birth month, instead of on
the date that the permit was issued.
“That was one of the suggested changes that my constituent
(made),” Cantrell said. “So I do think that it will streamline
the process and hopefully make it easier for these people who
are truly in need.”
HB 81 passed the House by a vote of 85-10. It now goes to the
Senate for its consideration.
--END--
March 6, 2018
House receives bill encouraging palliative care
FRANKFORT – A measure designed to encourage the widespread
adoption of palliative care to those who need it passed by a
vote of 36-0 today in the state Senate.
Known as Senate Bill 149, the legislation would establish the
Palliative Care Interdisciplinary Advisory Council within the
Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The groups would make
recommendations on how to improve and expand palliative care and
educate patients about their options.
“It is focused on providing patients with relief from the
symptoms, strain and stress of a serious illness,” said sponsor
Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville. “Research points to
palliative care results in extending survival. It is appropriate
at any stage and any age of a serious illness and can be
provided along with curative treatment.”
She said recent studies indicate that palliative care can
provide substantial reductions in medical costs by closely
matching treatments with the patient’s goals.
“When pain and stress are alleviated, the length of stay at
hospitals can be reduced,” Adams said. “Having a team determine
what services are truly needed can also reduce costs. And
developing a transition plan for safe discharges results in less
readmissions, translating to less costs.”
Sen. David P. Givens, R-Greensburg, spoke in support of the
measure. He said the goal of SB 149 is to maximize the
effectiveness of palliative care initiatives in Kentucky by
ensuring comprehensive and accurate information is available to
the public, health care providers and health care facilities.
“It is a difficult conversation, but it is one everyone should
engage in,” Givens said. “The dignity that we want to give to so
many also needs to be given to people who are dying – and it is
a hard thing to do. It is a hard thing for our society and
culture to accept, but it is something we are all going to
face.”
SB 149 now goes to the House for consideration.
-- END --
March 6, 2018
Fertility treatment coverage bill goes to House
FRANKFORT – Men and women facing infertility because of cancer
treatments would find new hope under a measure approved by the
state Senate today.
The legislation, known as Senate Bill 95, would require health
insurers of cancer patients to cover fertility preservation, the
process of saving or protecting eggs, sperm or reproductive
tissue so that a person can use them to have biological children
in the future.
“Many young adults who undergo chemotherapy, radiation and other
harsh treatments often compromise their fertility as a result,”
said Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, R-Lexington. |