The Boyd County Fiscal Court has just done the impossible: It has unanimously approved a $22.2 million county budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 without a word of public discussion.
That tells us that one or two things had to occur:
--Commissioners Marvin “Coach” Meredith, David Salisbury and Carl Tolliver and Judge-Executive William “Bud” Stevens approved the budget without ever discussing what the priorities of the county should be and without ever questioning whether a single line item in the document was too much, too little or just about right. Shoot, for all we know, they never even read the budget prepared by Treasurer Billie Zellers and simply rubber-stamped her work. If so, they are guilty of voting in ignorance and neglecting their responsibility as caretakers of the county’s spending, their primary job.
--The three commissioners and judge-executive discussed the budget at length in closed-door sessions. That’s tantamount to playing the game in secret and coming out to announce the final score. It’s also a clear and blatant violation of the Kentucky Open Meetings Law and a disservice to the people they represent who deserve a voice in the spending decisions of their elected officials.
Sadly, secrecy is a disturbing pattern with this fiscal court. After all, earlier this month the court rejected a tax proposed by the Boyd County Soil Conservation District without ever discussing the request or taking a public vote on it. Too often this court seems to think what they do is none of the people’s business.
Contrast the way the fiscal court approved its budget to the way the Ashland Board of City Commissioners is arriving at its budget. As they do every year, city commissioners are meeting in a series of budget meetings where they go over the spending proposals line by line. Such meetings often are so long and tedious that it can be a struggle to stay awake during them. But they are also necessary, and a clear sign that mayor and four Ashland city commissioners take seriously their responsibilities as watchdogs over the public coffers.
Did the four people who make up the legislative body of Boyd County ever discuss the budget before approving it. If not, then they are foolishly irresponsibIe. If they did, they did it in secret. Either way is wrong.
Editorials
Without debate — 06/18/09
Court’s quick action on budget carries negative possibilities
- 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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