By RONNIE ELLIS
FRANKFORT — While lawmakers wait for leaders to signal which way they’ll move to shore up a broken state budget, two committees passed bills Thursday in response to a prison riot and revelations of lavish spending at two quasi-government non-profit groups.
The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, to require the state provide food services for inmates. The state now pays Aramark $12 million a year for the service and the Department of Corrections estimates it will cost $5.4 million more to provide the service itself.
Some prisoners and guards at Northpoint Training Center in Burgin and a DOC report have pointed to food quality as an underlying cause of a riot that erupted there last August. But the state maintains a controlled movement policy at the facility prompted the outbreak.
“Food was the cause and genesis of the riot,” Yonts said.
House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, later said he supports a review of all state privatization of prisons or prison services by state Auditor Crit Luallen. He said in the case of Northpoint, the privatization may have saved money on the front end, but in the long run will cost much more as the state pays to repair damage caused by the riot.
The Senate State Government Committee passed out a bill by its chairman, Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, which incorporates many of Luallen’s recommendations from scathing audits of the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo) and the Kentucky League of Cities (KLC).
Those audits found hundreds of thousands of dollars of questionable spending – some on things like lavish dinners, escort services, Christmas gifts, cars, and parties. Her investigations were spurred by a series of stories in the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Thayer’s bill would require KLC and KACo to follow state open records and open meetings laws, adopt ethics policies, and follow state procurement codes.
House Democrats met in caucus Wednesday afternoon but Stumbo said they wouldn’t take up budget proposals because they weren’t ready. He’s asked budget committees to come up with several alternative plans for dealing with the state’s more than $1 billion revenue shortfall.
While those don’t include new revenues, Stumbo said that doesn’t mean the possibility of tax reform is dead. He asked a group of lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, and budget expert Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, to continue working. And he said the decision by Republican Rep. Bill Farmer to drop out of the group isn’t a killer, either.
Wayne has proposed legislation to make the tax code more progressive, extend the sales tax to some “luxury services,” and offer the working poor a state earned income tax credit beyond the federal credit. Farmer wants to eliminate income taxes and extend sales taxes – at a somewhat lower rate – to most services. But he said Tuesday, Democrats wanted to raise significantly more revenue – causing him to drop out of the group.
Wayne hasn’t entirely given up on the bill in this session.
“It’s early,” Wayne said. “We haven’t held hearings yet on how bad the blood letting is going to be” without new revenues to help balance the budget.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.
