Jobless & Education Bills’ Fate are Unclear with 2 Days Left in Session
April 15, 2010
When legislators return Wednesday for the final two days of the 2010 session, they will try to salvage high-profile bills that include two major education initiatives, a measure to shore up the state’s depleted unemployment insurance fund and another to strengthen domestic-violence laws.
However, many of the bills still in play could end up taking a backseat to the top priority – passing a roughly $17 billion spending plan for the two-year budget period beginning July 1.
Legislative leaders are scrambling to reach a deal this week so they can pass the budget before the session ends.
"If we get a budget and we get a jobs program, and some reasonable funding restored to Medic aid and education, I think it will be a pretty good session, given the (tight budgetary) times," said House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg.
The key sticking point on the budget is the insistence by the House to float hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to pay for school and other construction projects – an idea the Senate opposes as unwise at a time of fiscal austerity.
The last time the General Assembly was unable to pass a budget in the regular session was in 2004, when House Democrats refused to go along with then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s plan for tax reform. That led Fletcher to implement a spending plan on his own until the legislature approved a budget the following year.
Since then the courts have said the governor has no authority to appropriate money. In effect, many state services would now be shut down in the absence of a new budget.
The budget aside, House and Senate leaders and Gov. Steve Beshear are expected to make a final effort to revive a number of key bills stalled in one of the two chambers.
Education measures
Two major education initiatives – one establishing charter schools and another raising the dropout age from 16 to 18 – are in jeopardy.
Stumbo said he doubts House Bill 109, as amended by the Senate to allow local school districts to authorize charter schools, would get through the House.
A charter-school bill died in a Senate committee early in the session after Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said he didn’t think it would be necessary to help the state win up to $175 million in federal education dollars through the Race to the Top program.
Holliday and Senate Republicans, however, led a late push to revive the measure after Kentucky failed to win money in the first round of the compet ition, in part because it doesn’t allow charter schools.
Charter schools get taxpayer funding but aren’t held to many of the rules and regulations that apply to regular schools. In exchange for the increased autonomy, the schools must meet specific academic goals. They are held accountable by a sponsor, usually a school board or a university, which can cancel the contract and close the school if academic goals aren’t met.
The Kentucky Education Association and many local superintendents oppose the concept.
Stumbo said the issue could be taken up in a special session. Beshear said Wednesday that, while it is too early to discuss a possible special session, he is open to examining the issue.
Meanwhile, another major education initiative – HB 301, which would raise the dropout age from 16 to 17 in 2015 and to 18 in 2016 – appears dead in the Senate because there’s "a lot of opposition to it," Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said last week.
He said in an interview that the opposition stems in part from the lack of funding necessary to do the academic preparation that would keep at-risk students in school longer.
"It would appear that many of the problems that cause young people to drop out would be handled with better instruction, more accountability," he said.
Holliday has said raising the dropout age also would help the state’s chances of receiving Race to the Top money in the next round of funding.
Beshear said during his State of the Commonwealth address in January that the dropout bill was one of his main priorities this session.
He said Wednesday that he still hopes HB 301, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, will pass.
Child abuse bills
A bill designed to train doctors, child-protection officials, day care workers and others who work with children to better recognize signs of abuse faces uncertain prospects.
HB 285, sponsored by Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Burlington, is on the Senate’s consent calendar – a spot reserved for bills with no opposition and subject to routine approval with no discussion.
If it passes the Senate, the House is expected to agree to minor changes made in a Senate committee, which would send the bill to Beshear.
The Courier-Journal reported in a December series that nearly 270 children in Kentucky have died from abuse or neglect over the past decade – and more than half had come to the attention of child protection authorities before their deaths.
HB 285 would require training for those who routinely come in contact with children to help them better recognize signs of abuse.
Jill Seyfred, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, said her Lexington-based group supports the bill and knows of no organized opposition to it. But she added that she is concerned it hasn’t passed with just two days left in the session.
"We have not been able to discern where the kink is but clearly there is one," Seyfred said. "At this late date it would be unrealistic to say that it’s not in trouble."
Two related bills – one opening a handful of Kentucky’s family courts as a pilot project and another creating a panel to review reports of children killed by abusers – appear unlikely to pass this session.
The Senate never took up the House-passed pilot project bill, and the review panel measure was derailed in the House by an effort to attach an anti-abortion amendment to it.
Unemployment insurance fi x
HB 349, which would save Kentucky businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes over the next 10 years, is also stalled in the Senate. Williams said last week he’s not sure if it will be taken up this session.
"We might very well consider that bill this time, but we have a lot of things that are going on right now, a lot of bills that are on the floor," he said.
HB 349, sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville, is the compromise result of months of negotiations between labor and business leaders who served on a task force appointed by Beshear.
The goal is to shore up the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, which faces a deficit of nearly $732 million.
Under the proposal, the wage base on which employers pay state taxes would gradually increase and maximum benefits would decrease.
Business leaders agreed to the increase because they expect to be hit with a more painful increase in federal payroll taxes if the state continues borrowing money from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits to jobless workers.
Williams said the legislature could take up the bill next year because none of the changes would take effect until 2012. Clark, however, said labor leaders agreed to the terms for this session and the deal is off if HB 349 doesn’t pass.
Beshear said last week that the measure remains one of his top priorities.
Leaders’ favorite bills
Two measures considered priorities for Stumbo and Williams also are pending.
Stumbo said he is talking to Senate leaders this week to try to reach a deal on HB 1, known as "Amanda’s Bill," which would strengthen the state’s domestic violence laws.
&# x0A;
The measure is named in honor of Amanda Ross, 29, who was fatally shot outside her Lexington townhome on Sept. 11, 2009.
Former state Rep. Steve Nunn of Glasgow, who was previously engaged to Ross, is charged with her murder and could face the death penalty.
The bill would allow judges to require some people accused of domestic violence to wear electronic devices to monitor their whereabouts.
"I am confident that we will have a bill," Stumbo said.
In addition, Stumbo said he plans to try to revive one of Williams’ priorities – Senate Bill 4 – which would update state law related to organ donations.
The bill would bring Kentucky into a national network of organ donors and expand the list of relatives who may authorize a donation upon a relative’s death.
House leaders moved to kill the bill after what they later said was miscommunication from the Senate that suggested Amanda’s Bill was dead.
Reporter Stephenie Steitzer can be reached at (502) 875-5136. Reporter Deborah Yetter contributed to this story.Board preserve the integrity of the infrastructure to support special needs students," an interim report concluded. "The investments in our special needs students are a benefit to all Peel students."
In 2009/10, the Board has $151.8 million in special education expenditures, but $135.6 million in government grants for those costs. The gap, according to the Board, is about $16.2 million, which must be found from other spending areas.
When the Board approved its operating budget last June, finance staff estimated the Board must now find $838 for every pupil in its schools to cover the gap between real expenses and government funding.
� A;