House committee passes $17.1B budget proposal

State News

May 26, 2010

By Ronnie Ellis CNHI News Service The Richmond Register Wed May 26, 2010, 08:34 AM EDT

FRANKFORT — Most held their noses but all but two members of the House budget committee voted Tuesday for a $17.1 billion state budget that cuts most agencies and funds no new school construction but maintains the basic school funding formula.

“I think this is a budget of fear, not of hope,” said Rep. Mike Denham, D-Maysville. But like his committee mates, Denham said he would vote for it rather than go home without a budget. Most said the state couldn’t operate without a budget, but many probably had their eyes on November’s elections. Lawmakers are in special session to pass a new budget after they failed to do so in the regular session.

One who knew better than most about voters’ anger at the General Assembly’s inability to pass a budget during the regular session was Rep. Charlie Siler, R-Williamsburg, who was defeated in last Tuesday’s Republican primary.

“I talked to people who said we sent you there to get a budget and you didn’t get it done and you have to go,” Siler said. Siler and Rep. Fred Nessler, D-Mayfield, said the budget before them does not do enough for education. Siler said no budget is better than a bad one, he said, because you can remedy no budget but are stuck with a bad one.

"It’s probably sour grapes, but I vote no,” he said.

Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, called the budget “a setback” and “a bad budget for education.” But he said, “I realize we have to compromise although the wisdom on the other end and on the first floor wasn’t as great as ours.”

Moberly was referring to the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear both of which declined to go along with the original House budget which would have provided bonding to construct dozens of new schools and water and sewer projects, contending that would create 25,000 jobs. The Senate balked at the new debt and the two sides went home without an agreement, asking Beshear to put forth a compromise proposal.

Beshear did but it more closely resembled the Senate version of the budget although it restored funding for SEEK, the basic funding formula for public schools.

It will cut higher education by 1.4 percent in the first year and another 1 percent on top of that in the second. It cuts most state agencies by 3.5 percent in the first year and another 1 percent in the second. It maintains the school calendar at 177 days but asks local districts to pick up the cost of one of those. It cuts funding for the KERA strands, such services as family resource centers and extended school services but not SEEK.

And it cuts out funding for so-called category 5 schools, those in the worst condition, like East Bernstadt, Robertson County and Jackson County, in favor of funding a study of the condition and needs of all the state’s school buildings.

“We don’t need another study,” Denham said, while schools in his district are in dilapidated condition. But he preferred a bad budget to none and voted yes.

Committee Chairman Rick Rand, D-Bedford, said even if the budget contained the governor’s proposal to equalize or partially match revenues from new local property taxes the districts would have to pass, it would not be enough to build schools in some districts like Robertson County. He said that is not fair to those districts.

The budget includes funding for districts which have already passed what is called a “recallable nickel” of additional local property taxes in Boyd County and Glasgow. The legislature has traditionally equalized such levies and this one treats those districts no differently.

“If this is not tightening our belts, I don’t know what it is,” said Rand.

At the conclusion of the meeting Siler was recognized for his service in two stints in the legislature and given an ovation by other committee members and the audience.

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. The Richmond Register is a CNHI newspaper.

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