While the Consensus Forecasting Group has yet to officially release its projection concerning the revenue shortfall for the fiscal year beginning July 1, that group’s chairman, Lawrence Lynch, has said that Gov. Steve Beshear’s warning that the budget shortfall could top $1 billion “seems plausible.”
Facing a possible shortfall, that is more than double the $456 million shortfall for the current fiscal year that legislators grappled with earlier this year, already has some lawmakers calling for unspecified tax increases to avoid sharp budget cuts and Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo continuing to beat the drum in support of video gambling terminals at the state’s race tracks.
Meanwhile, Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, continues to place most of the responsibility for making the cuts to balance the budget on the shoulders of Gov. Steve Beshear.
Williams told those attending a recent GOP dinner that he did not want the legislature to authorize Beshear to spend any more money than what’s been allocated. “He’s going to have to manage his money and be responsible and tighten his belt,” Williams said.
However, regardless of the size of the shortfall, taking the necessary steps to eliminate it clearly is a shared responsibility of the governor and legislators. After all, it is the 2008 General Assembly that approved the two-year budget that makes revenue projections that are falling fall short.
While we are certain that Williams and other legislators would prefer that the governor take the bulk of the political heat for budget cuts that are sure to be unpopular, legislators must work with the governor to either generate the revenue or make the cuts necessary to bring spending in line with current revenue projects, not those made almost two years ago before the start of the recession.
As of now, no one knows exactly how much the projected shortfall will be. The Consensus Forecasting Group, the nonpartisan group of financial experts created to remove the politics from budget forecasts, is not likely to make its official forecasts for the coming fiscal year until late June.
The 2009 General Assembly doubled the state tax on cigarettes and added the sales tax to retail packaged liquor sales to help eliminate the $456 million shortfall, but there is little indication that legislators are in the mood to raise taxes again. They also dipped into the state’s rainy day fund to balance the current budget, eliminating that option for the coming fiscal year.
Stumbo insists video gambling terminals at race tracks eventually could bring in up to $350 million per year in additional revenue, but even he admits that won’t help solve the budget woes for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Even without a snag, the fiscal year will nearly be over before the first video terminals are in place, and since even Stumbo expects a court challenge to approving expanded gambling without a state referendum, it likely will take much longer before video gambling at tracks becomes a reality.
This newspaper continues to oppose expanded gambling at tracks without approval by the voters of this state. Stumbo wants to give the Kentucky Lottery the authority to add the terminals to the track, but video slots at tracks certainly were not what voters thought they were voting for when they approved the lottery amendment.
Stumbo recently met with Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives to push for expanded gambling at the tracks, but even if the speaker is able to convince the Democratic-controlled House to approve a law authorizing slots at tracks, there is little indication the Republican-controlled Senate will approve more gambling. At this point, we’d call the odds of getting what Stumbo proposes approved by the General Assembly a long shot.
The state constitution prohibits the state ending the fiscal year with a deficit. Without additional revenue, state agencies, universities and community colleges and public schools should expect even deeper cuts in their budget for the coming fiscal year — cuts that will have a tremendous impact on this state.
The changes in the budget required to bring spending in line with revenue should be approved by the General Assembly, not by executive orders by the governor.
Editorials
A shared duty — 05/21/09
Legislators should approve plan to eliminate the shortfall
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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