A Weekly Legislative Update from the Kentucky Rural Water Association

No Budget — No Projects!

The 2010 Session of the Kentucky General Assembly has come to a close. Unfortunately, the House and Senate were unable to agree on what Kentucky’s next two-year budget should look like. For many KRWA members, no budget means no water and sewer projects. The current state budget will end on June 30, 2010; however, it should be noted that both previously passed House and Senate budgets relied on savings by restructuring debt by June 1, meaning the governor will need to call a Special Session in May.  Look for this session to be called soon after the primary elections on May 18^th.  The Senate has indicated they are unwilling to go into Special Session without a budget agreement in advance in an effort to limit the additional daily cost of another session.

Both the House and Senate budgets, passed in their respective chambers, included substantial savings in the area of public health benefits, Medicaid savings and some effort to reduce corrections costs. In the end, both budgets were very close, but the House wanted to fund a number of construction projects by issuing bonds. Arguing that now is the time to issue bonds while interest rates are at an all-time low and construction costs are consistently below engineers estimated costs. Senate members argued that, in these tough times, the state could not afford to go any further into debt.

As we approach a Special Session within the next six weeks, you will need to continue to keep your legislators informed of your project needs. The Kentucky General Assembly has been very good to KRWA’s membership in past budgets. Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done in providing the basic necessities of affordable water and wastewater services to the public. Thanks in large part to KRWA members contacting their legislators, we were able to stop or change several pieces of negative legislation this session. Thank you for your continuing support and participation in the democratic process.

Only seven (7) out of thirty-nine (39) bills and resolutions that we were tracking during the 2010 Session passed both the House and Senate. Some bills have already received the signature of the governor, thereby becoming law. The governor still has eight more days to veto bills before things are final, but none of the seven that we were watching seem to be in any jeopardy of the governor’s veto pen.

The Bill Tracking sheet has been reduced to the seven successful bills with summaries of their pertinent changes to existing law.

We have abandoned our traditional legislative tracking sheets in favor of a simpler method of tracking the activity of the General Assembly. Each issue will be available in pdf format and will contain summary information for each bill that we track with a section that details the most recent activity with the bill. We will continue to highlight timely legislative news that is important to our members in each issue. If you would like to suggest that we include a bill for tracking, please contact KRWA. Here are the bills that have been pre-filed and those that have been introduced thus far that affect our members:

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Keeping up with the Legislature has never been easier! The state has updated its Legislative website: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/legislation.htm. From this site, you can view all bills and resolutions, contact legislators by email and check on legislative committee schedules and calendars. You can reach a legislator in person by calling 502-564-8100 (not toll-free).

The toll-free meeting schedule information line is 1-800-633-9650. The toll-free message line is 1-800-372-7181, to leave a message for a legislator or an entire committee. The TTY message line is 1-800-896-0305. En Espanol, el nombre es 1-866-840-6574. The toll-free bill status number is 1-866-840-2835.

Every issue of e-Liaison will contain summary information for each bill that we track with a section that details the most recent activity with the bill. We will continue to highlight timely legislative news that is important to our members in each issue. If you would like to suggest that we add a bill to the e-Liaison for tracking, please contact KRWA. By clicking on the bill number it will link you to the bill summary on the LRC’s website.