KEJA -- Debra Miller Statement 2006

Kentucky Can Do Better!

KEJA Calls on Lawmakers to Enact Fair & Adequate Tax Reform

Press Conference Statement by Debra Miller, Director of Public Policy,
Kentucky Youth Advocates:
January 19, 2006

You have heard the personal stories of how the tight state budget impacts real people in our state. Now, I invite you to make the transition with me, to the overall state budget.

This fall, the Kentucky Economic Justice Alliance released a report entitled Raising the Bar: Kentucky's Real Budget Report. In this report, we tried to make two important points –

1.The state’s structural deficit – that is the difference in our revenue streams and our budget demands to maintain our current level of services – is in the neighborhood of $2.3 billion dollars by 2010.

2. Just maintaining our current level of services isn’t good enough. We gathered together the projections made by other studies, interest groups, and government agencies of the funding needed to adequately address our citizens needs and move our state forward. We estimated that amount to be an additional $1 billion dollars.

As Angela and Ruley expressed so well, Kentuckians can’t be satisfied with the status quo. In fact, in his State of the Commonwealth address, Governor Fletcher laid out ambitious goals for the state that moved us far from the status quo. We couldn’t agree more with the necessity for better education, better health care, and better wages and incomes.

Yet, as we look at the Governor’s budget recommendations, we don’t see how progress can be achieved. Total recommended spending in 2007 is just $49 million dollars more than in 2006 – a paltry 0.2% increase. And total recommended spending in 2008 is $370 million dollars more than 2007, a 1.7 percent increase. When the Governor’s recommended budget is compared to the requests submitted to him by his cabinet secretaries, Gov. Fletcher’s recommendation for 2007 is $1.1 billion dollars less than his cabinet secretaries requested. The Governor’s recommendation for 2008 is $1.9 billion dollars less than his cabinet secretaries requested.

Notice how the requested funds closely mirror KEJA’s Raising the Bar report conclusion:

Recommended budget amounts for the K-12 schools and the Dept of Education are 4 percent and 6 percent less than requested in each year of the biennium
Recommended budget amounts for post secondary education are 3 percent and 4.5 percent less than requested in each year of the biennium
Recommended budget amounts for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services are 4 percent and 5.5 percent less than requested in each year of the biennium
Recommended budget amounts for Justice and Public Safety are 17 percent and 18 percent less than requested in each year of the biennium

My father used to say to me “You get what you pay for.” The corollary lesson is that to get more you have to pay more.

KEJA believes that Kentuckians want more for themselves and especially for their children. And we believe that there are ways to increase our revenue that are fair, that don’t discourage entrepreneurship and economic development, and that would help us reach the ambitious goals for improvement that Governor Fletcher set out last week in his State of the Commonwealth address.

We are pleased that Rep. Jim Wayne has taken up the challenge to put together such a tax reform bill – meeting the twin goals of fairness and adequacy.

Back to Pressroom