No PFO reform — 02/08/10 » Editorials » Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

Editorials

Discussion

February 5, 2010

No PFO reform — 02/08/10

Stumbo’s stance seems sure to keep prison costs soaring

Anonymous The Daily Independent Fri Feb 05, 2010, 06:10 PM EST

Despite being forced to cut more than a billion dollars in spending in order to balance the budget during the next two years, a fair and sensible way to curb spending in one of the fastest growing parts of the state budget — the cost of housing prisoners — has hit a roadblock that could kill the measure for the 2010 General Assembly.

So much for all the talk about overhauling the state criminal code in an effort to reduce the number of people in prison without jeopardizing the safety of law-abiding citizens. Key legislators continue to resist amending existing laws to reduce the punishment for some crimes out of fear of being perceived as being “soft on crime.”

The bottom line is this: The cost of housing inmates in the state’s prison has risen a whopping 44 percent since 2000. Only the costs of Medicaid and employee health care benefits have risen more.

University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson has repeatedly pointed to Kentucky’s stringent persistent felony offender laws as the major reason so many men and women are being housed in the state’s prisons, with many of them being convicted of non-violent offenses.

Rep. Johnny Bell, D-Glasgow, a practicing attorney who has seen first hand the effects of the state’s PFO laws, is planning to introduce legislation that would amend the law for non-violent drug offenders, but before Bell’s bill was even filed, House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, spoke out against it. And if the Speaker opposes a bill, the chances of it coming up for a vote by the entire House range between slim and none.

Despite stacks of evidence to the contrary, Stumbo said he doesn’t see the PFO laws as a contributing factor to the corrections problem. Instead, he points to the “drug epidemic.” In one way, Stumbo is right, the drug epidemic is contributing to the overcrowded prisons, but that’s mostly because the PFO laws are sending those charged with relatively minor drug offenses to prison for longer periods.

Because of the need for legislators to make such deep cuts in spending, we had hoped they would have the courage to make tough, potentially politically unpopular decisions to curb the costs of prisons and of health care benefits for state and school employees.

Stumbo’s opposition to Bell’s bill to amend the state PFO laws virtually assures that there will be no meaningful prison reform this session and the cost of housing inmates will continue to soar at a time when state revenues are dwindling.

And frankly we don’t expect any more success with attempts to curb the soaring cost of health insurance for state and school employees. The fact that the cost of that benefit has soared by a 174 percent since 2000 should be all that legislators need to make changes in the status quo. But years of experience tells us that legislators lack the political courage to anger state employees by reducing their benefits — even if the state clearly can no longer afford those benefits.

Thus, state and school employees are likely to keep their benefits while programs that benefit every Kentuckian, and are desperately needed, are cut. That’s not right, but it’s politics in our state capital.

Text Only

Editorials

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.

February 10, 2012
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.

February 9, 2012
'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.

February 7, 2012
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.

February 7, 2012
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.

February 6, 2012
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.

February 6, 2012
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.

February 4, 2012
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.

February 3, 2012
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.

February 2, 2012
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.

February 1, 2012
More Editorials Headlines

Editorials

Search Results

Discussion

No PFO reform — 02/08/10

Stumbo’s stance seems sure to keep prison costs soaring

Site Map

Contact Us