Transparency has been in the news a lot this year in Kentucky. Most recently, it appears there is a battle brewing in western Kentucky about the issue of closed trials. A newspaper (The Paducah Sun) is arguing that the trial regarding a dorm fire in 1998 at Murray State University cannot be a closed trial…
Rep. Jeff Hoover has some thoughts on why the Kentucky General Assembly had to be called into special session (courtesy of cn|2 ): When you don’t follow the rules, when you do things behind closed doors, not out in the open, when you don’t involve the membership that should be involved – it is failed…
It’s a great thing when you can write about how helpful and responsive a public entity has been regarding an open records request. Jessamine County Schools is a great example! The request for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 spending data in an electronic format was acknowledged and filled within three business days. This chart is…
(…It also might offer some clues about why the Williams/Farmer ticket got beat so soundly in the November election. It certainly isn’t because the incumbent had great ideas to move Kentucky forward.) This from today’s (Louisville) Courier-Journal (emphasis added): FRANKFORT, KY.— The Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture…
Jim Waters, President of The Bluegrass Institute, sat down for a conversation with the Heartland Institute about recent transparency troubles in the Kentucky General Assembly. Listen here. This is particularly timely as the Lexington Herald-Leader praised the General Assemblyfor how open its budget negotiations were during this session. Jim accurately describes why that is not…
The Lexington Herald-Leader’s most recent editorial is titled “Kudos to legislature for opening budget negotiations“. Unbelievable. For the record, budget negotiations for the 2012 General Assembly were not open — unless you consider the presence of one lone public-TV camera as a great example of transparency. In fact, the paper says all you need to…
Here are a few notes for this Tuesday – The Lexington Herald-Leader thinks that the recent General Assembly budget negotiations were open and transparent. We disagree here and here. It appears an effort to further limit the amount of certain cold medicines Kentucky citizens can buy is moving forward. We posed this question on our…
It is no secret that Kentucky’s public pension system is in crisis. Today, initial steps toward solving the crisis were taken. The Kentucky General Assembly passed a resolution to: Establish the Kentucky Public Pensions Task Force; provide that the purpose of the task force is to study issues regarding Kentucky’s state-administered pension funds and to…
This is the scene outside budget discussions this morning in Frankfort. Does this send the message of transparency and openness?
For immediate release Tuesday, March 27, 2012 Contact: Jim Waters 270-782-2140 (FRANKFORT, Ky.) – The Bluegrass Institute called on the state’s political leaders today to increase access to the room where critical budget negotiations are being held today. The hallway leading to Room 131 of the Capitol Annex, where the state budget conference committee is…