The Beshear administration is touting a budget surplus for this fiscal year and claims that roughly $100 million will be deposited into the rainy day fund. This is a bit misleading, no? When a state has billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities in public pensions and has to borrow $97 million from a future year’s…
Charles George, manager of public affairs for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, tweeted from the Kentucky Chamber Business Summit and Annual Meeting where state representative Greg Stumo was speaking: Defined contribution is certainly something that needs to be talked about. Why? Simply put, public pensions, as they stand now, are breaking the backs of cities, counties…
You think it’s hard to cut spending in Frankfort? This short video I produced with Austin Bragg helps explain the trouble with the federal government’s “multi-year budget cuts.” They’re just not very credible projections. Here’s a Jim Waters op-ed on the challenge of cutting spending from the Herald-Leader.
Yesterday, Gov. Beshear hosted a press conference announcing the move of Kentucky’s Medicaid population to managed care. The state has selected three new companies to manage the commonwealth’s Medicaid population: CoventryCares, WellCare, and Centene Corp. Each has signed a three-year contract. Meanwhile, the state renewed Passport Health Plan’s contract for one more year. In a…
The Lexington city council decided not to override Mayor Jim Gray’s line item vetoes that helped to curb wasteful spending in Lexington. Read the Herald-Leader’s report here. We wrote quite a bit about this and applauded the mayor for fighting for spending cuts BUT this should be viewed as just the first step. There are…
At least according to Gov. Steve Beshear… He seems remarkably calm about an issue that is actually very serious. We do need pension reform. h/t: cn2 Politics
Lexington taxpayers have wasted $50,000 (and counting) paying former Councilman Steve Kay to “consult” on some silly thing called Destination 2040. This has been mentioned before, but it gets worse the more you look at it. Time to take a look…
There is a not-so-funny joke economists tell about being stuck on a deserted island with a bunch of canned foods and deciding that starvation would be averted by “assuming a can opener.” It’s also not very funny to see a House actuary try to calm widespread fears about the insufficiency of HB 1 by saying:…
Gov. Steve Beshear actually sent out a press release announcing that he gave $412,500 in Master Settlement Agreement money to a company in Kuttawa, KY to build a pork processing facility. MSA money is supposed to be used to pay health expenses related to smoking. It’s fitting, though, because after the government runs tobacco producers…
The favored buzzphrase in Frankfort this year has been about “tightening our belts” with a tough budget situation. An LRC source gave me the following information in exchange for a promise that his/her identity would not be divulged (seriously!). It’s the official authorized bonding limit for the 2009-10 budget years. You won’t believe it. We…