Some last-minute bargaining in Frankfort will help keep the county's budget on track and could prevent a rate increase for rural water users. Those same dealings also look as if they will lead to replacement of Marion's 82-year-old water main, according to one legislator.Kentucky lawmakers passed the state's biennial budget just before a self-imposed midnight deadline Wednesday.
If that doesn't sound exciting, $2.45 million in local projects were in jeopardy of being lost until both houses agreed upon a compromise that guarantee at least half-a-million dollars of those projects. And, Sen. Dorsey Ridley (D-Henderson) all but promised Thursday afternoon that $900,000 for Crittenden-Livingston Water District debt reduction and $1.05 million for City of Marion water and sewer projects would be reinstated.
"I cannot imagine it not happening," he said from his home office two counties away.
Ridley said the General Assembly will take up the funding of specific water and sewer infrastructure projects when they return to Frankfort April 14 after an 11-day veto break.
The senator and Rep. Mike Cherry (D-Princeton) returned to their western Kentucky homes Thursday after both voting in their respective chambers for the latest two-year spending plan. Neither were thrilled with the budget overall, with Cherry calling it "woefully hurting." But both were satisfied with its impact on municipal development needs in Crittenden County.
"This is very definitely important to rural legislators," Cherry said of wording added back into the state budget that spells out the specific projects to be funded with coal severance money.
As a coal producing county, Crittenden will now receive from the severance funds:
-- $440,000 for debt reduction related to the new 133-bed Crittenden County Detention Center;
-- $20,000 for the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum;
-- $30,000 for Dam 50 tourism improvements; and
-- $10,000 for a memorial park on the riverfront in Dycusburg.
Judge-Executive Fred Brown and the fiscal court have been counting on that money to keep the county afloat. Without line items in the budget identifying the specific uses for this money, the fiscal court will have to make application to the Governor’s Office of Local Development in Frankfort before spending each dollar. And, that half-million in coal severance money is intended for economic development projects, jeopardizing approval on what had been planned as next year’s payment on the new jail.
"I'm absolutely pleased with the single county (coal) money," Brown said Thursday morning learning of the House approval of the budget.
Brown said Ridley phoned him Wednesday night around 9 p.m., shortly after the Senate passed the budget 35-3. It was not until two hours later at 11 p.m., local time that the House okayed the plan 74-21. And, Gov. Steve Beshear has told The Courier-Journal he will not veto the budget.
The $440,000 now ensured for the jail will be used to help make the county's annual payments on the 133-bed facility. The judge said it will be split about evenly over the next to years to assist with its payoff of the $7.7 million jail.
But, Brown is still concerned the money municipal utilities projects, to be funded through state bonding, might go missing.
"Hopefully, the water and sewer money will be in there," he said.
Cherry and Ridley both said the prospects were good that both Crittenden and Livingston counties will be received that money once promised them.
"When we return on the 14th and 15th, I feel confident we'll get it settled," Ridley said.
That should ensure that rural water customers in the two counties will not see a rate increase due to a lack of anticipated monies to pay down debt. Crittenden-Livingston Water District Superintendent Donnie Beavers told The Press for this week's print edition that without the nearly $1 million once promised from the new state budget, as much as a five-percent increase on water rates was possible to pay for its final phase of water line extensions.
The City of Marion's planned replacement of its aged cast-iron water line along Main Street also appears to be back on, if the mid-month return of lawmakers to Frankfort sees a return of the bonding projects.
A five-term representative of Crittenden County in Frankfort, Cherry is unhappy with how the budget address social concerns.
"It doesn't do anything to help health and human services and education," he said. "At best, we tread water in education."
Under the same spending plan, higher education would see a three-percent cut in funding. Though not pleased, Murray State University Board of Regents Chairman Alan Stout shuttered to think that cuts could have been worse. Gov. Steve Beshear and the House had supported plans for a 12-percent reduction in higher education spending.
“It would be difficult for us to maintain the current level of service and programs without tuition increases,” Stout said about the proposed three-percent reduction for colleges.
Stout said the state seemed to have "taken a step back" in higher education.
Late-Thursday afternoon, Gov. Beshear expressed his displeasure with the budget, particularly in light of the latest report on the state's economy. That gloomy report showed March tax receipts down 6 percent from March of last year.
The governor said he may have to call a special session later this year to raise revenue.
Cherry said a quarter increase on the state's cigarette tax could have overridden cuts in the budget, particularly the three-percent cut to higher education. A tax on certain services that appeared in the House's version of the budget with the 25-cent cigarette tax hike was also removed by the Senate and never restored.
-- dkt
