Recent editorials from Kentucky newspapers:
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April 3
Bowling Green Daily News on private prison proposals:
House Bill 303 is a bad piece of legislation that must be defeated in our state legislature.
Under a budget passed by the House, three private prisons in Lee, Marion and Floyd counties would be recommissioned. If passed, the bill would have a devastating effect on a number of Kentucky’s jails.
The bill calls for the transition of at least 650 state inmates to private prisons by 2017 and an additional 750 state inmates transitioned by July 1, 2017, with a total of 2,327 prisoners being moved to private facilities by June 30, 2018.
This is a horrible idea for a number of reasons.
The most important argument against the proposal is that it would be an economic hardship on counties. The state currently pays county jails a daily fee to house state prisoners, some of whom are Class D felons. If this legislation passes, it would deal many counties in the state a huge economic blow.
In Warren County, if HB 303 becomes law, it is estimated that there would be a $1.6 million revenue loss because many prisoners in our county’s jail would be sent to private facilities. The state could pay $12 to $20 more per inmate by some estimates than they pay the county jails. Each of the 74 Kentucky counties with a full-service jail would suffer indirect losses, in addition to decreased payments from the state.
Many county jails operate on very tight budgets as it is, so if this becomes law, some could potentially be in real financial trouble.
That is why we can’t allow this to become law.
Another reason this needs to be voted down is that Class D felons, who make up the bulk of inmates employed in work programs, would be taken out of Kentucky’s full-service jails.
If this bill becomes law, each county that uses inmates for labor - as Warren and Simpson counties do, along with many others - would have to hire workers to handle duties that inmates normally perform. In some cases, the work would just go undone.
Hiring workers would be another blow to counties because they are using money that could have been used elsewhere. In essence, it would increase the cost of labor for county government departments.
This legislation is just an all-around bad idea. It would put an undue burden on counties that would be affected financially, and it would take away labor that is needed to clean our parks and roads, mowing the grass and collecting litter. It could also be more expensive for the state.
While time is running out, there is hope in the Senate, where they have put an amendment into the bill that leaves out the passage related to recommissioning the private prisons.
The Senate got it right on this issue and hopefully will prevail.
But this is too important of an issue to ignore, so we urge our readers who agree that this bill needs to be defeated to reach out to your state legislators and urge them to vote against this misguided legislation.
Online:
https://www.bgdailynews.com/
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April 4
The Courier-Journal on the state’s environment agency:
The questions about foxes guarding the henhouse began with Gov. Matt Bevin’s appointment of coal executive Charles Snavely to head Kentucky’s Energy and Environment Cabinet, which is supposed to be guardian of the commonwealth’s glorious natural resources. Snavely said in a speech not long after taking over that he would make sure his cabinet is “not a hindrance to any industry.”
The cabinet’s early track record largely suggests it instead will be a hindrance to advocates for the environment and perhaps even to public access and understanding of critical issues.
Let’s review:
Making good on the Bevin campaign’s flogging of the Republican’s “war on coal” message, Snavely ousted the assistant secretary for climate policy and offered an out-of-the-chute challenge of federal climate regulation.
Snavely also fired and did not replace the respected executive director of the state’s Environmental Quality Commission, a decades-old body established by the General Assembly to provide independent advice, then questioned whether the commission was outdated.
We could almost overlook the sweeping of several million dollars in money paid by nature lovers for license plates to support conservation programs, since it was continuing a deceit started by the Beshear administration, except for Gov. Bevin’s disingenuous proclamation of no sweeping in his budget speech.
To its credit, the cabinet quickly acted after the Courier-Journal disclosed it learned that landfills in Greenup and Estill counties - including one near a school - were accepting fracking waste with low levels of radioactivity despite a state law prohibiting it. The cabinet sent violation notices to the landfill operators and state health officials ordered the company they say hauled the fracking waste into Kentucky to stop or face $100,000 per incident fines and potential criminal charges.
Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, called it a “good sign to see both agencies coordinating their response and using their regulatory and statutory powers to get a handle on this situation.”
Snavely also agreed to recall an oil and gas work group to see whether the state needs any new regulations to keep dangerous radioactive drilling waste out of Kentucky landfills, after having previously expressed doubts.
The cabinet also jumped to action on the issue of lead in water, though with some prodding from an EPA requirement that every state report within 30 days its plans for addressing a growing concern highlighted in a recent USA Today Network. That investigation, which followed the public health crisis in Flint, Michigan, found that about 2,000 U.S. drinking water systems had tap tests above the EPA’s “action level” limit of 15 parts per billion.
The state agency combed through records of all 409 Kentucky public water systems subject to the federal lead rule and found that over the past four years, utilities had tested and reported approximately 10,380 water samples for lead at households and businesses. Only about 1 percent exceeded the EPA action level.
And the cabinet’s water division director, Peter Goodmann, bravely- considering Kentucky’s official disdain for the EPA - told the CJ that EPA rules for lead in drinking water were not sufficient.
The cabinet created a work group on lead to review existing regulations and potentially recommend changes, but its first meeting last week was held without public notice in apparent violation of Kentucky’s open meetings law. The cabinet initially told the CJ that future meetings also would be closed to the press and public but eventually declared they would be open.
We may not see any action to clear Kentucky’s air of coal-fired power plant emissions soon, but let’s clear the air of the smog of secrecy and disdain for public involvement.
Online:
https://www.courier-journal.com/
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April 5
The Lexington Herald-Leader on Sen. Thayer blocking transparency:
If “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, then Sen. Damon Thayer must be brilliant.
This session, Senate majority leader Thayer put the brakes on House Bill 438 to improve transparency, reporting and oversight of the state’s 15 area development districts, known as ADDs, which annually administer over $175 million, almost entirely public funds.
Certainly some ADDs deserve praise. But Rep. Susan Westrom’s HB 438 is a response to serious problems unearthed at others, including the Bluegrass ADD, which was the subject of a devastating state auditor’s report, is now being investigated by a federal agency, and was just told by a state agency to repay almost $900,000 that was improperly spent.
Or the Barren River ADD in Bowling Green. A state department demanded it return almost $83,000 in staff bonuses, and the local chamber of commerce has criticized its workforce training as ineffective.
HB 438 prohibits ADDs from paying bonuses, requires them to advertise executive director jobs and obey state and federal purchasing and conflict of interest laws.
It also requires state agencies that fund ADDs to annually report how much each received, amounts spent on administration and actual services, and the services provided. These reports would give legislators a way to compare performance among ADDs.
It passed the House 92-6 but is hung up in the Senate, apparently because Thayer doesn’t like the bill or Westrom, a Lexington Democrat.
But this session Thayer led a witch hunt against the Kentucky Horse Park. He railed about a $6,000-a-month consulting contract for the gift shop, saying he doubted it grossed much more than that. In fact, it grosses about $108,000 a month, and profits have increased dramatically under the contract. Thayer waved a letter on the Senate floor calling it a “smoking gun” about improper contracting and accounting at the park. When the smoke cleared, the controversy appeared to be about incorrectly coded expenditures not misconduct.
Contrast that over-hyped, and ill-informed, vigilance over tax dollars with Thayer’s laissez-faire attitude about the ADDs, which are major conduits for federal workforce and elder assistance grants.
Whatever the problems between Thayer and Westrom, his indifference is puzzling, considering his focus on the Horse Park, and past advocacy. Thayer sponsored legislation to intensify oversight of the Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Association of Counties, and to require governors to disclose non-official use of the mansion and state aircraft.
“My constituents are very mad about any government waste, fraud and abuse. They want the legislature to have more oversight,” Thayer said in 2010.
Now, he’s more worried about giving the ADDs a break: “I’ve heard there are good reports about self-correction about some of the ADD districts, and we ought to give them some time to work that out.”
Maybe we ought to know for sure which ADDs are doing a good job and which aren’t. We are talking about $175 million for important services each year.
This isn’t the first time Thayer has seemed at odds with his own philosophy. While championing transparency in 2012 he balked at revealing clients of his racing consulting business who could benefit from the casino gambling he was advocating, although he did ultimately release the names. Perhaps his consistency is more telling than his inconsistency.
Online:
https://www.kentucky.com/
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