| House Passes Budget: Water/Sewer Projects Trumps Teachers, Education and State Employees |
Ivan C. Potter
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House Passes Budget: Water/Sewer Projects Trumps Teachers, Education and State Employees
With unusual rancor, the House passed a stripped down Executive Branch 19 billion dollar budget by a 73-21 vote at 11:18 p.m. Wednesday night. Moments later, the House leadership rammed through House Bill 410 which approved a supplemental budget bill that earmarked somewhere between 150 million dollars to 300 million in new bonded pools for water/sewer projects, Louisville bridges and county roads.
The deal had been cut. Water/sewer projects had won out over teacher pay and educational needs. State employees were also singled out by Senate President Williams. Earlier in the day, Williams had said that state employees were a privilege class of people who should have to endure the pain of a budget crisis.
What the house passed late on Wednesday was a patched together budget that had been originally designed by Governor Beshear’s team with server budget cuts of up to 12 % for schools, colleges, and many human services agencies.
Beshear had presented the austere budget with the hope of new monies being generated from future casino revenues. That plan failed to catch on in the house earlier in the budget hearings.
As the governors’ casino plan died, House A&R chairman, Harry Moberly took charge of the Executive budget and offered a new plan to fund it. He suggested a 25 cent new tax on cigarettes.
The budget passed by the House and sent to the Senate had been built upon new revenue sources such as the cigarette tax. However, Senate President Williams refused to accept any new taxes to fund the budget. He instead choose to accept Governor Beshear’s budget draft with its severe cuts for ongoing programs and services.
Without any new revenue sources such as the proposed 25 cent cigarette tax proposed by the house A&R committee, the House budget was doomed. The senate budget bill shocked many House members as to its direct attempt to take over the power of the budget away from the more traditional House budget process.
By mid afternoon many House members were talking of voting no on the budget because in the Senate version most of the water/ sewer projects from coal counties had been stripped out.
Late into the day, House leadership worked to stop a possible budget vote defeat. Rumors of Greg Stumbo working with Senator Williams to cut a special deal for projects surfaced just before the House went into session at 4:00 pm.
At 9:41 pm eastern time, House bill 408 (Kentucky Judicial Budget) was offered up for a vote. By a vote of 81 to 14, the Judicial budget was passed. However, the discussion for this bill set the stage for the anger and frustration to be vented by many members over the e “broken budget process.”
Derrick Graham (Frankfort) Harry Moberly (Richmond) Joni Jenkins (Louisville) and many others gave passionate speeches as to why this was a bad budget for the people of Kentucky.
“The budget process is broken. It has become a very dysfunctional process. It will hurt the kids of this state. It will hurt the teachers. It will set us back many years in education.”
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," said Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, who called the budgeting process "dishonest."
"I'm tired of one individual making decisions for 138 representatives and senators who have been duly elected," said Graham.
Moberly spoke against the budget bill -- of which he was the prime sponsor.
Moberly has just taken the floor to say that House negotiators allowed Sen. President David Williams to intimidate them and then walked out before the two sides could resolve differences over the size of the Transportation Cabinet Secretary's contingency fund.
Reducing the size of the fund minimized the role of the secretary and the governor, Moberly said. "That is what they've done. That's what we're letting them do."
And he said the Senate is buying off members of the House by giving them a few projects -- and punishing teachers who oppose Williams plan that would do away with CATS testing in schools. "That's what the president of the Senate wants to do."
He said the House members are like "puppets on a string" controlled by Williams and he accused members of the House of "selling out" if they vote for the budget.
"You are selling out the children of this state and the teachers of this state for water and sewer projects," he said.
He called it a "diabolical deal with the devil" and said the House should have gotten more out of it if it planned to roll over for Williams.
He accused the House of being ready to "trade a few projects for the future of the commonwealth."
Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, said the budget will insure that our citizens will "get sicker, be less educated ... and drive on unsafe road systems." He went on to say that the budget would insure that some people die.
"Tonight, storm clouds are hovering over our Commonwealth. These clouds have been moving in our direction for at least five years. Tonight, they are threatening our schools and universities, our health and mental health services, our public safety and court systems, our transportation networks and other essential government functions that our citizens demand."
He called on the state to pass comprehensive tax reform.
One of the most moving statements defining the frustrations over the budget was made by Joni Jenkins when said, “Our moral document with the people is our budget.”
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