By RONNIE ELLIS
FRANKFORT — It’s the overriding issue, the one thing on everyone’s mind and tongue. The two-year state budget, the one with a $1 billion-plus hole in it, but the budget few lawmakers claim to know much about.
Well, they seem to know one thing about it – it’s not going to be pretty.
Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said it will be a budget of “shared sacrifice.” Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown, said the sacrifice will hurt.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you this budget is not going to be painful,” Lee told a group assembled to seek protection from budget cuts for programs which serve the mentally and physically disabled. “There will be cuts to services all across the board. Human services will be included. There’s nothing I can do about that and there’s nothing you can do about that.”
Meanwhile, those who are likely to feel the pain the first, and perhaps the most, are busy telling lawmakers to find someway to ease or eliminate the pain. About 400 people congregated in the capitol rotunda Wednesday on behalf of the 874K Coalition, which advocates for the disabled, including Glenna Taylor of Glasgow. Taylor is concerned lawmakers’ plans to utilize as yet unauthorized additional federal stimulus funding for Medicaid is a sham and will result in cuts in services for those who most need them.
She said it’s unfair for lawmakers to balance the budget by robbing Medicaid funds and could risk federal assistance to the state’s Medicaid program. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said however he is confident the feds will appropriate the additional money – which will allow the state to shift some general fund dollars to other programs. If the assumption proves incorrect, he said, lawmakers can revise the budget next January and “move those dollars back.”
Stumbo House leaders are “very close” to agreement on a “global settlement,” a broad but unspecific outline of a two-year budget. Among other things, he said, it will probably include cost savings in Medicaid by seeking to implement managed care practices perhaps by expanding the managed care Passport program which manages Medicaid for the state in Jefferson and about 15 surrounding counties. He’s also said he thinks the budget can be balanced and spare the public school funding formula – SEEK.
That’s what three superintendents asked the House Budget Review Committee on Education to do Wednesday. Tom Shelton of Daviess County, Anna Craft of Letcher County and Brady Link of Christian County each said SEEK is their first funding priority.
Craft told the committee her district has had to delay school bus purchases – something which is critical in eastern Kentucky “because of our treacherous roads” – textbooks and cut back on such programs as pre-school and professional development because of state funding cuts in those areas. “But we have to have SEEK,” Craft pleaded. Ultimately, Link said, cuts to the funding formula will force school boards to reduce staff.
Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, said SEEK is the “probably the last thing anyone wants to cut, but any item that big – I don’t see how it could be untouched” as lawmakers look for a way to balance the budget without new revenue.
Lee told the 874K crowd in the rotunda that they should use the interim between sessions to lobby lawmakers for a “sustainable source of revenue” because the state’s present tax system produces cycles of up and down budgets. But he said after the rally he sees no support for tackling that controversial issue during the present session.
“After they start to feel the pain, maybe then we’ll look at it,” Lee said.
Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John Minton told another budget review committee the court system is already feeling the pain and asked for restoration of money already cut from the budget of the Administrative Office of the Courts. Minton said the courts have already cut 47 positions and left 119 others unfilled, savings $7 million. He said operating expenses have been reduced by another $2.4 million. And still AOC funding was cut in the present budget, forcing the courts to spend down fund balances as it operated on a budget which spent more than it took in.
Without restoration of about $100 million over the next two years – some of it to pay for already approved new courthouses – AOC might have to consider further personnel reductions, cutbacks in drug and family courts and furloughs of non-elected employees, Minton said.
Meanwhile, rank and file lawmakers wait to learn more about that “global settlement” Stumbo talked about. Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, said all he’s heard is that members will be briefed Thursday. As for the direction of the budget, “It would have to be painful I would think.”
Rep. Danny Ford, R-Mt. Vernon, was hoping the minority caucus will learn more about the shape of the budget late Thursday or on Friday, after House leaders brief Democrats. He said Republicans know even fewer specifics about the budget taking shape than Democrats.
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.
