Legislative Report
Rep. Jill York, 96th District
March 25, 2016
Budget headed to conference committee says York, House DUI and dog fighting legislation now in Senate
We’ve gotten to the point in this legislative session where we can more easily count the time toward our constitutionally imposed deadline in hours than in days. Around 96 hours of legislative time remains and several priority issues, including the budget, remain to be resolved.
This is not to say that a great amount of work hasn’t been expended trying to create a workable budget for our Commonwealth for the next two years — because it most assuredly has been our primary goal.
The budget workgroup I served with racked up over eighteen meetings over the past two months and hammered out a Minority budget plan to offer in contrast to the House Majority budget document. That means that there are four budget bills available for consideration this year, the first by Governor Bevin, the House Majority plan, the House Minority plan and the Senate plan.
It’s unfortunate that even though there are great parallels and similar strategies in these plans – not a one of them will be embraced and accepted by both the House and Senate together.
The actual budget document will be the product of a committee comprised of House and Senate leaders. The assembled Conference Committee will debate the differences of the plans and seek ways to forge compromises and deals – drawing from the components of all the budget bills.
This “find the best parts and make it work” part of the process always reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein at work in a laboratory taking bits and pieces of dead matter, reassembling it and trying to bring it back to life.
It is, in essence, exactly what will be going on as those legislators argue the strengths of their different approaches. There’s lots of ways to assemble the “Franken-budget” but to be successful, it has to do more than sound good it must be sustainable and address a solution to our state’s pension troubles.
The eventual stitched-together plan will most likely have started out as House Bill 303, the Executive Budget. The race to reach a compromise on HB 303 began in earnest on Wednesday when the Senate passed its version of the bill, putting back in agency cuts and other language proposed by the Governor and removing additional funding proposed by the House. That triggered a budget conference committee of lawmakers who will work day and night toward resolving the chambers’ budget differences.
Meanwhile, HB 1, which addressed teachers’ retirement by requiring that state employers pay 100 percent of the additional contribution rate needed to fund the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System at a fiscally sound level cleared the House with a vote of 86-11.
As I have always been a proponent that the state should honor its promises to our retirees, I voted in support of this measure. Similarly, a component of the Executive Branch budget pledged over $1 billion to fully fund the KTRS ARC, or “actuarially required contribution” over the next two years without adding debt for the state is included in the House version of the Executive Branch budget bill. Just exactly how much funding the system will receive—and how the ARC is funded—is subject to change as differences in the House and Senate versions of the budget are worked out in the session’s final days.
In other legislative news of note, Senate Bill 56, the so-called “DUI Lookback” bill passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support. This initiative, which is headed to the Governor’s desk for his signature, expands the sentencing look-back window for prior drunk driving offenses from 5 years to 10 years.
This is important because drunk driving is not considered a felony until a person is convicted of their fourth offense. With this legislative change, the look backward to determine if a DUI arrest notes a persistent – and dangerous pattern – is lengthened and may prohibit such drivers from getting behind the wheel and putting other citizens in danger.
Other important pieces of legislation that encountered overwhelming support in our chamber were HB 428 and HB 129, which both passed unanimously and are at present making their way through the Senate.
House Bill 428 would make dog fighting in Kentucky a Class D Felony, while HB 129 would update our State’s parental rights laws in order to further protect the well being of our families. I was proud to vote for both of these pieces of bipartisan legislation.
These last couple of weeks have been extremely hectic and that’s to be expected as the session begins to wind down to a close. With active committees, meeting with citizens, action on the House Floor, trying to keep up with correspondence and calls, prepping my bills and testifying for them before legislative panels – it has certainly been a whirlwind of activity!
As always, visitors from home make the days brighter. That means I’m so grateful for the wonderful young people I’ve had to assist me as Pages on the House floor, the school groups passing through and the lovely friends who made the trip to tell me what was on their minds. I just wanted to reiterate what a blessing such visitors are and how long the joy of having seen you guys lingers for me.
I remain so appreciative to you all so much for sharing your ideas and concerns with me this session. Please contact me by e-mail at jill.york@lrc.ky.gov, or call our toll free number at 1-800-372-7181 to share your thoughts about what is important to you.