CN|2 Politics

The board of the Eastern Kentucky drug task force and treatment organization Operation UNITE picked the group’s vice president, Dan Smoot, to be its new CEO. Smoot, who worked for the Kentucky State Police for 22 years, has worked as UNITE’s vice president for operations since September 2011. He served for the previous eight years as UNITE’s director of law enforcement. Smoot confirmed to Pure Politics in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon that the executive board of UNITE offered him... Read more 

Kentucky has made progress in blunting the scourge of pill abuse and overdoses, but that, in part, has given rise to an equally dangerous drug, according to a public safety expert. Lexington has seen a dozen citizens die from heroin overdoses so far in 2013 after only having one or two in previous years. Clay Mason, who oversees police, fire and emergency management departments in Lexington as the city’s public safety commissioner, told Pure Politics that those who have overdosed cut... Read more 

After meeting with a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official last week, state Rep. Leslie Combs, D-Pikeville, said she’s hopeful the agency will meet Eastern Kentucky half way by not shutting out the coal industry and by helping the region diversify. Combs and Len Peters, the Kentucky secretary of the Energy and Environment Cabinet, met on March 20 with Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, the regional administrator for the EPA’s Southeast Region in Atlanta. “She was very open and I thought very... Read more 

Kentucky mental health centers are cutting back services and struggling to assist patients the first time they’re admitted because of ongoing struggles with Medicaid managed care. At the same time, they’re losing out on federal grants because of red flags caused by their administration costs being inflated by increasing contributions to the public pension system. Such a one-two financial punch has slammed centers like the NorthKey Community Care Mental Health Center in Northern Kentucky. The agency serves eight counties in... Read more 

The Kentucky court system is moving to Plan B to try to replace it’s computer system, which Kentucky’s chief justice told lawmakers last week is not only antiquated and breaking down but is holding the system back. Chief Justice John D. Minton told the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee that the court system wants the authority to sell bonds, paid for by court fees, to cover the costs a new system. The measure is still pending in the House budget... Read more 

For many agencies, their payments into the Kentucky Retirement System are an increasing drain on their budgets. And some of them want to escape from the system — but can’t. Steve Shannon, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Mental Health/Mental Retardation Programs, told Pure Politics that the amount the centers have to pay into the retirement system has inflated their administrative costs so that now centers are having more problems getting grants. (see video below) One of the centers, Kentucky River... Read more 

The Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust estimates that it would have to hit school districts — and the University of Louisville — a total of $60 million worth of assessments as it tries to erase a deficit before it closes down this summer. The shares for each of the districts that used the trust to cover its workers compensation and/or liability insurance over the last 30 years will range from $661 for Maysville Independent School District to a high of... Read more 

Kentucky’s first attempt to simplify and unify the oversight the more than 1,200 special taxing districts won overwhelming support in its first step Wednesday, cruising through the House Local Government Committee. House Bill 1, sponsored by House Speaker Greg Stumbo, passed 13-1. Freshman Rep. Toby Herald of Beattyville was the lone no vote. Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen discovered in his review last year that the commonwealth has more than 1,200 of these entities that fall into 53 categories, which include... Read more 

The KFC Yum! Center’s debt and “unprecedented” lease with the University of Louisville are causing the arena to lose about $1 million per month and putting it at risk of default, according to a 38-page report written by Louisville resident Denis Frankenberger. Frankenberger, in conjunction with the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, told reporters in Louisville Thursday that the arena’s lease with the University of Louisville is the “primary problem.” He said it gives it too much power to... Read more 

Even though an effort to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky has bipartisan support in the General Assembly, it’s unlikely any measure will make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2013. Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, is again sponsoring legislation to eliminate the death penalty with Senate Bill 45 . For Neal his opposition to capital punishment is primarily a fiscal issue. He referred to research that shows the cost associated with judicial appeals and administration of the death penalty... Read more