Projected budget shortfall

A new projected budget shortfall was released today by the state Consensus Forecasting Group. The new number is $456 million.

First, if we are in a crisis, why is the Governor giving political cronies a $20,000 raise?

Second, anyone can identify a problem. That is not hard. I would like to help the Governor with a solution:

• Suspend the prevailing wage law for this budget cycle. We would be better off if it was repealed in its entirety. However, maybe it would be more politically palatable by suspending it through June 2010. Estimated savings- $150 million.

• Suspend the water and sewer projects put into the budget at the last minute. Now, this is also going to be hard to do. Heck, I don't want to give up the $1 million in water lines that I got for Campbell County residents. If these projects are suspended, they should sit at the top of the list if the budget turns around, or for the next budget cycle. Off the top of my head, I think those projects were for $250 million, so that is the estimated savings.

• Allow grocery stores to sell wine. First year revenue, $20 million, and $10 million every year after that.

So, I have just come of with the first $420 million of the $456 million projected shortfall. This would tide us over for a least another 10-12 months, where we can then see if the projected deficit gets better or worse. In another year we will be in the beginning of a new budget session, where we can clean up anything else.

Mortgage help

Everyone is familiar with the mortgage problems facing America. Kentucky is not immune of course. As I knocked on doors, I came upon plenty of foreclosed homes.

One of the successes of the 2008 session was an overhaul of the mortgage process in Kentucky. That bill set up the Kentucky Homeownership Protection Center. If you or someone you know needs help staying in their home, contact the KHPC.

Thank you

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the voters of the 69th District for putting their faith in me for another two years as your State Representative. This is a tremendous honor and a responsibility I take very seriously. As I mentioned during the campaign, this is the best job I have ever had.

This blog will continue and the pace of posts will pick up now that the campaign has ended.

Gaming in Kentucky

There is a lot of talk in Kentucky about whether or not we should have expanded gaming. Whatever your opinion on expanded gaming, you may not know how huge gaming is in Kentucky right now. On Friday I attended a Licensing and Occupations Committee meeting where we received an update from the office of Charitable gaming. I was surprised at how much was wagered in 2007;

About $485 million was wagered on charitable gaming.

About $470 million was wagered on horse racing (yes, charitable gaming is larger that horse racing).

About $740 million was wagered on the Kentucky Lottery.

Now, I am putting these figures down from memory, so they are probably off a little here or there. But I do remember adding it all up at the committee meeting, and it was over $1.7 billion in 2007.

I found this very interesting and wanted to share it.

47% raise?

Yesterday the director of the Legislative Research Commission was given a 47% raise. Mr. Sherman is a great person who does an excellent job in a demanding position. Apparently this was done in order to keep Mr. Sherman from retiring.

I appreciate Mr. Sherman and the work he does. However, it is difficult to justify a 47% raise for anyone at anytime. It is even more difficult when every state employee is getting a 1% raise. According to media reports (which is where I learned this, just like everyone else), this was done because Mr. Sherman is "indispensable". I don't believe there is anyone who is indispensable. I disagree with this decision and I hope it is revisited.

Kentucky in the spotlight

The past week Kentucky had the chance to be in the international sporting spotlight last week with the Ryder Cup. For those of you who are uninitiated, the Ryder Cup is a golf exhibition pitting the best players from the united States versus the best players from Europe. It is played every 2 years and moves from continent to continent. This year it was played at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville.



The tournament went great. The US team had 2 Kentucky players on it, and they were integral to the big US win. Kentucky received a lot of the attention in the international telecasts. The fans were great, everyone commented on the graciousness of the Kentuckians. I had the opportunity to go to the event on Saturday and talked to a French television reporter and he said how well he had been treated here.



Why is this important to Northern Kentucky? Because the more positively Kentucky is viewed by the world, the more people will want to visit the state and spend some money. Tourism is an important part of the Kentucky economy, and whatever can be done to increase it benefits everyone.

Everyone should be proud of their state after last week.

I've been a bad blogger

Or more accuratly a non-blogger. But I am going to try to get back in the swing of things. Fact of the matter is that there is limited news to post from the Legislative branch, and it is campaign time and that takes up all my free time. However, the postings will begin again!

Pension reform moving forward

The House today passed pension reform 98-0. It now moves on to the Senate where it is expected to pass easily on Friday.

I would like to expand on comments I made in my last post about double dipping. We received a briefing on the pension reform legislation on Monday. In the meeting I asked about allowing double dipping if you become a legislator. Apparently everyone is being treated the same, and here is the explanation:

Under this bill you cannot double dip in the same retirement system. Now there are several different systems, KERS (mostly state employees) CERS (county, city, and classified school employees) KTRS (Kentucky Teacher Retirement System) SPRS ( State Police) and the Judicial retirement system (Judges and Legislators). So future employees cannot double dip in the same retirement system. However, future employees can get multiple retirements from different systems. Here is an example. Joe Smith is a police officer in CERS. Joe retires with a full CERS pension. Joe can go back to work for an agency that is attached to CERS, but cannot collect another pension. However, say Joe then went on to become a teacher. Then Joe can begin working on a second pension with KTRS.

My primary concern was that everyone is being treated the same, and it looks like they are. Just wanted to clarify that issue now that I am more educated on it.

Special session is on

The first (and hopefully only) special session of 2008 begins Monday. The topic is the pension system, which is currently $26 billion in the hole.

This desperately needs to be done. Overall the plan is a good start. We are taking some steps to stop the bleeding. However, this is akin to putting a band aid on a head wound. This will not fix the problem. It will slow down the rate at which we fall behind. But it must be done. Local Governments and school boards will be beneficiaries of these changes.

The Governor deserves credit for getting the issue moving again. The Senate President David Williams deserves credit for repeatedly saying that more needs to be done. Both the House and Senate leadership deserve credit for getting together and working this out.

That said, there are a couple issues I have with the legislation as I understand it. All I have seen thus far is a summary of the changes. First, it eliminates double dipping for all employees (which is good), except for Legislators (which is bad). Translation: If you are a current public employee, you can retire from your job with your full pension, come back some time later and start working on your second pension. This bill will eliminate that for future employees, and you can only have the first pension, unless you come back as a legislator or a Judge, then you can have that second pension. I think that is wrong and sends the wrong message. Perhaps this was an oversight in the summary, or I missed it. But I don't think so. Update- See above post for more information on this topic. The second issue I have is that there will be a schedule for the state to make the actuarial correct payment amount to the retirement fund. The percent will go up every year until the state makes the proper payment amount in 2025. That is 17 years from now. Not making the necessary payments is part of what has gotten us in this situation of the years. I would rather see this schedule accelerated.

Comprehensive bills like this always have little issues that every legislator can complain about. You have to consider if the bill does more good than bad. This bill is about 99% good. I look forward to voting for it.