FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Democrats in control of the Kentucky House passed a $20 billion budget plan Thursday evening over Republican objections, closely following the governor’s recommendations in putting forth their spending priorities for the next two years.
Issues wrangled over during the heated three-hour-plus debate could extend into the fall campaign, when the GOP makes a push to win control of the House.
Next up, the Republican-led state Senate will put its imprint on the two-year budget plan. The spending plan ultimately will wind up in a House-Senate conference committee, which will try to iron out differences in the waning days of the 60-day General Assembly session, which ends in mid-April.
The House version backed pumping more money into the state’s main funding formula for kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms. It proposes more money for textbooks and preschools but at lower amounts than Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear recommended.
The House proposal includes pay raises for state employees, teachers and other school workers. There’s also funding to hire more social workers.
“I believe (with) this budget, and a yes vote on this budget, today you can go home and say that we have done some good things and that we are changing peoples’ lives,” said House Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chairman Rick Rand, D-Bedford.
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Democrats and Republicans in the Kentucky House sparred over President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul on Thursday in an hours-long budget debate that Republicans hope will help flip the House in November.
This is the first Kentucky budget since Democratic Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear expanded the state’s Medicaid program in 2012 and opened a health insurance marketplace under the federal Affordable Care Act. Thursday’s vote was the first time Kentucky lawmakers could go on record voting for it or against it. It was a tough vote for many Democrats who face contested elections in November. GOP officials hope those elections will turn over control of the House to the Republicans for the first time in nearly 100 years.
Republicans had 46 votes, but fell short of the 51 they needed to force debate on an amendment to the $20 billion biennial budget that would have shrunk the state’s Medicaid rolls and eliminated funding for Kentucky’s health insurance marketplace - where people who don’t have insurance through their job can shop for discounted plans from private employers.
Many Democrats skipped the vote.
Of the 29 Democrats who did not vote, 12 face Republican opposition in November. Democrats have an eight-seat majority in the House.
“The bathrooms were really busy when those votes were taken,” state Rep. Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, told his colleagues from the floor. “Either you were in the bathroom or the hallway or you’re sitting here afraid to vote to have a discussion. The people of Kentucky need to understand and they need to know about that.”
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Gov. Steve Beshear on Thursday signed a $100,000 contract with a private law firm to represent him in appealing a judge’s order for Kentucky to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries.
Beshear announced the deal with the 11-member Ashland firm of VanAntwerp, Monge, Jones, Edwards & McCann, which also has an office in Frankfort.
State Attorney General Jack Conway announced he wouldn’t appeal the decision that overturned parts of a 2004 state constitutional amendment barring recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. That’s when Beshear stepped in, disagreeing with his fellow Democrat about the appeal.
Unless a federal appeals court halts U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn’s ruling, the state will have to start allowing same-sex couples to change their names on official identifications and documents and obtain any other benefits of a married couple in Kentucky on March 20.
The contract with the law firm, obtained via an open records request by The Associated Press, limits the firm’s work to same-sex marriages cases in Kentucky and expires June 30. But it does allow the governor to renew the deal for two years at a time.
Under the terms of the contract, partners in the firm may be paid $125 an hour, associates can make $90 an hour and paralegals may make $40 an hour. Total payments under the contract are not to exceed $100,000.
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Fewer Kentucky children would be locked up in juvenile detention centers under a bill proposing far-reaching changes to Kentucky’s justice system for minors that won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
The measure aims to keep kids out of detention centers for skipping school or smoking. Its reach would go further, allowing youths accused of misdemeanors or lesser felonies to avoid detention time, unless they committed sex or weapons crimes or had three or more prior offenses.
Instead, the bill would steer more young offenders toward community-based treatment as an alternative to detention centers. Treatment could include behavioral health, mental health and substance abuse services.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Whitney Westerfield, the bill’s sponsor, said that approach is much more likely to turn around the lives of troubled youngsters at a much lower cost than locking them up.
“I think we’ll see it work,” he said. “I think we’re going to see (detention center) populations go down and caseloads go down.”
Westerfield, a Hopkinsville Republican, said his bill represents the most sweeping changes to juvenile justice in a couple of decades in Kentucky. He projected the changes could reap up to $24 million in savings over five years, he said.
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