Published: April 01, 2008 04:51 pm            

A flawed process — 04/02/08

Legislators being asked to vote on budget most have not read

After more than 20 hours of intense negotiations, leaders of the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives announced Tuesday morning that they had reached an agreement on a biennium budget totaling nearly $19 billion. But the process of reaching that agreement does not serve the best interests of the people of Kentucky. As Don Fleu, finance director of the Boyd County School System, wrote in an excellent “In Your View” letter published Tuesday, there has to be a better way of putting together a document that will determine state spending for the next two years.

And there is, but don’t expect the Kentucky General Assembly to make the changes necessary to improve the budget process. It’s been broken for years, but no one in Frankfort has even tried to fix it.

Thus, when members of the House and Senate vote on the compromise budget — probably later today — it’s a certainty that the majority of the legislators will know little about the document on which they are voting. That’s because they won’t even receive the budget bill — hundreds of pages of mind-boggling numbers — until this morning, and there will be no time for them to do anything more than skim over the document before voting on it.

The process provides an excellent opportunity for members of the conference committee to slip in a few special appropriations to benefit the folks back home. When you are dealing with billions of dollars, it is easy for a few thousand dollars here and there to go unnoticed.

Think that doesn’t happen? Just ask Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, how Eastern Kentucky University always seems to manage to get a few extra appropriations in the budget. Moberly, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is an administrator for EKU.

There is no question that the House and Senate will approve this budget by a wide majority. That’s because legislators have no other viable options. Today is the 58th day of the 60-day session. If the budget is not approved today, the General Assembly will not be able to call a recess until they return to Frankfort on April 14 and April 15 to attempt to override any vetoes by Gov. Steve Beshear.

Two years ago, legislators used all 60 days just to approve the budget, giving former Gov. Ernie Fletcher the freedom to veto line items in the budget with no fear of those vetoes being overridden. Fletcher used that opportunity to veto a number of capital projects for universities.

Having learned their lesson, legislators this year will not give Gov. Steve Beshear a free hand in vetoing line items in the budget. Thus, the budget must be approved today or tomorrow at the latest. That leaves no time for any major changes or any real debate. Thus, the most important task the legislators have —indeed, the only job specifically given them by the Kentucky Constitution — will be done at the last minute with most of our elected senators and representatives voting in ignorance.

The compromise budget only cuts funding to the state universities and community and technical colleges by 3 percent instead of the 12 percent proposed by Beshear. It has no tax increases, and instead of allocating $110 million to the General Fund from the Kentucky Lottery, as proposed by the Senate, it will take only $14 million more from the Lottery than the state already receives. Teachers and state employees will receive only a 1 percent annual raise for each of the next two years.

However, we will reserve most of our comments on this lean budget, because, like most legislators, we have yet to see it. The difference between us and the 138 members of the General Assembly is no one is asking us to vote on the budget today.

We like some of the proposals Fleu made in his letter to improve the budget process, but the chances of any of them actually being approved seem slim. Thus, a flawed process will go on and on and on.

        

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