Surprise, surprise, surprise!

In the words of Gomer Pyle, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!".

A follow up to this morning’s post PolWatchers has a post on how Steve Beshear will deal with the short fall. In a 2:00pm Friday press conference, Steve Beshear directed state agencies:

To slash agency spending, Beshear has asked departments to:

• Reduce the state workforce by attrition and limit new hires to "crucial" positions only.
  
• Review state contracts for savings. "All new contracts, including personal service contracts and leases, must be justified as essential to the delivery of services and must demonstrate that the service cannot be provided with existing personnel," Beshear's budget reduction order says. Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller will be assigned to review all other contracts, as well.
  
• Cut amount devoted to travel expenses. That includes making the state's vehicle fleet more efficient (something Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration did by purchasing hybrid vehicles), as well as increasing the use of video conferencing.
  
• Reduce printing budgets in every agency, especially by encouraging use more electronic data transfers.
  
• Place a moratorium on furniture and equipment purchases and selling off surplus property.
  
• Reduce discretionary spending. "No area of spending is immune," the administration's press release says.
  

So what does this mean in real terms?

Here’s the message to state workers.

Turn the heat down and the lights off. Bring your own pens and paper. Use your own car at your expense to travel or don’t travel. Your chair broke, go buy your own. Too bad your computer died, there’s an adding machine in the backroom. If the management can think of anything else to cut we will. Do not expect a promotion or to replace anyone who leaves because of the working conditions, unless they have political connections.

As one state director told a group of us employees, "Just be damn glad you have a job."

In other words we have the standard, predictable entrance of a new administration cooking the books on the backs of state employees.

No Cohones

I’m going to separate one of the Herald-Leader’s legislative issues out to talk about.

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW: Issue 5: Immigration

Foes of illegal immigration are hoping that the high-profile attention the issue has gotten in the U.S. presidential race will translate into legislative victories in the upcoming General Assembly session…….

State Rep. Rick Nelson, D-Middlesboro, said the presidential race has kept the illegal immigration issue in the news. He said a growing number of people want the state to curb illegal immigration.

"I feel a growing concern and anger among the citizens," Nelson said. "I feel like there is a growing concern that they're about to get overwhelmed with illegals. I think the cork is about to pop off the bottle."……..

But Nelson acknowledges that his bill is not likely to pass. He said he has not received the support of House Democratic leaders, and he expects the measure to be controversial among urban lawmakers.

This bill makes Rick Nelson look like the same kind of pandering, self-serving xenophobe as Stan Lee. Notice in the quotes the key words are “I feel”, it’s all about Rick, not immigration. The “growing concern that they're about to get overwhelmed with illegals” makes great fodder for politicians who lack the cohones to take on the real issues facing the state.

Immigration is a national issue, the only purpose for Nelson’s bill, which he agrees won’t pass, is to play to the bigotry of his constituents. Rick gets to look tough by beating up on Latinos.

What a waste of time and effort not to mention our tax dollars when a legislator does this kind of grand standing.

Legislative Preview

The Herald-Leader has been running a series of articles about the upcoming legislative session.

Links to the articles are below.

Steve Beshear promised a lot of things when he was running for governor; every candidate does the same thing. While Beshear was promising a brighter future Ernie Fletcher was spending state money like a drunken sailor on shore leave trying to buy the election. Beshear won Fletcher lost.

But the responsibility for the current, and ongoing budget mess, lies with the General Assembly. In the last budget cycle the rocket scientists in the legislature approved spending about $9.4 billion dollars this year. This caused a structural imbalance in the budget. They used one time money they won’t have again to pay recurring costs.

Let’s make an analogy here. Suppose I buy a new house with a 30 year mortgage. The house payment is a thousand dollars a month and the only way I can make the payments is to use money in a savings account. The savings account will be empty in a year, but I have a plan.

Here’s the plan:

I get a better job making more money, (the Kentucky economy will get better and taxes will increase) or a rich uncle will die (Casino Gambling), or maybe I can cut back on things like food (slash and burn the existing programs to make up the short fall).

So what’s going to happen?

First, Beshear will balance the rest of the current fiscal year short fall, from now till the end of June, on the backs of the state workers. He may carry this on into the next biennium, but he doesn’t really have a choice, most of the expenses of state government go to personnel costs. Since he has already exempted the educational establishment from the pain, no one will really give a damn if state workers get screwed again.

To be fair to Steve Beshear, this is the traditional method of coming up with money. Previous governors and legislatures have repeatedly used this method of revenue enhancement and it is one of the reasons that the Kentucky Retirement Systems is in the mess it’s in today.

Second, the Universities will increase tuition. That little tax on students and their families will pay for their part of the short fall.

Third, forget all the campaign promises, at least for this legislative session, there is no money to pay for the major promises.

Fourth, an amendment to approve Casino gambling will be on the ballot. If it passes, Casino gambling will at best be a temporary band-aid to stop the financial bleeding. Casino gambling will not solve the problems but it will postpone them for a few years. Since most of the members of the General Assembly have a two year point of view that’s good enough.

Links to some of the Herald-Leader articles:

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW: First in a series

If forecasts are correct, taxpayers and cigarette makers will plunk about $9 billion into the state's main piggy bank in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Even though that's a $250 million increase over this year, Kentucky's checkbook will still be a bugger to balance, according to those who will dole out the proceeds for education, prisons, pensions and hundreds of other uses in a legislative session that begins Jan. 8.

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW Issue 3: Health and welfare

One or more unlikely things must happen before Gov. Steve Beshear can honor his campaign pledge to extend health insurance to tens of thousands of Kentuckians.

The national and state economies must improve so much that extra tax revenue gushes into Frankfort. Or Congress must overcome President Bush's repeated vetoes of an expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program. Or Beshear must not only cover the state's current Medicaid deficit -- $389 million for the rest of this fiscal year -- but he must find money on top of that so he can afford to add people to the program.

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW: Issue 4: Pensions

Senate President David Williams uses scary words like "crisis" and "quandary" in talking about money problems of pension funds for state retirees and teachers. If the problems are not solved, he says, the operative word that will strike fear in the hearts of state retirees will be "bankrupt."

Kentucky has an estimated $18 billion shortfall in the retirement systems that affect 432,000 state employees, teachers and retirees.

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW: Issue 6: Transportation

Senate Minority Leader Ed Worley bristled when he learned in 2006 that money for the Louisville bridges project would mean considerably less for other state road projects, especially in rural areas.

The Richmond Democrat said he did not think the Louisville bridges are so important that the rest of the state is driving on "red-dog roads."

Such hard sentiments are typical between urban and rural legislators when big-ticket projects in the cities take huge chunks of available transportation dollars from the state's coffers and leave rural areas wanting.

LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW: Issue 7: Ethics

As a candidate for governor, Steve Beshear repeatedly pledged to lead an effort to pass a constitutional amendment limiting a governor's pardoning powers.
Now that he has won the election, Beshear might not even mention the issue when the 2008 General Assembly convenes Jan.