Advocacy
Gov. Beshear Signs Bill Aimed at Reducing Rate of Injuries to Infants FRANKFORT, Ky. – Governor Steve Beshear today held a ceremonial signing of a bill that provides training to strengthen protections for Kentucky’s children and seeks to reduce the threat of child abuse known commonly as “shaken baby syndrome.” “Protecting the health and well-being one of our most vulnerable citizens – Kentucky’s children – is one of my top priorities,” said Gov. Beshear. “Too many children fall victim to shaken baby syndrome, and we must do everything we can now to prevent this terrible injury. Every child deserves the chance to grow and develop into a productive, healthy adult.” House Bill 285, sponsored by Rep. Addia Wuchner, of Florence, requires training and education for child care professionals and others who have contact with infants and toddlers to recognize and prevent traumatic head injuries classified as shaken baby syndrome. This type of injury is the result of vigorously shaking or impacting the head of an infant and can lead to severe, long-term disability or even death. “I am honored to stand here today with many of you who contributed and worked alongside me until the final passage of this proactive legislation, that puts Kentucky on the offense in combating child abuse and neglect,” said Rep. Wuchner. “The tragic realities of the death of our most vulnerable of Kentucky citizens and the tiny survivors, the children who struggle daily as a result of being violently shake, and the fact that Kentucky has ranked number one in infant fatalities due to child abuse and neglect, was the inspiration for House Bill 285, sadly know as the Shaken Baby Bill. If through the awareness, prevention and education efforts set forth in House Bill 285, just one person is influenced to walk away from a crying child in moment of anger or frustration then it will be worth all our efforts.” Pediatric abusive head trauma injuries or conditions include irreversible brain damage, blindness, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, spinal cord injury, paralysis, seizures, learning disabilities and death. Head trauma is the leading cause of death in child abuse cases in the United States, and parents or caregivers are most often the abusers in these cases. The Kentucky Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) has seen an increase in reports of pediatric abusive head trauma, in part due to the enhanced awareness afforded through training and education currently to staff and the community. “It’s imperative that we reach out to our caregivers and make sure they counsel family members about the risks of these types of injuries, as well as know what to do if they suspect a head injury has occurred,” said Janie Miller, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. “Protecting the long-term health and well-being of Kentucky’s children is the single most important thing we can do to ensure a better future for this state.” During State Fiscal Year 2008, 21 cases of pediatric abusive head trauma resulted in a child fatality or near fatality. In State Fiscal Year 2009, 24 cases of pediatric abusive head trauma resulted in a child fatality or near fatality. Professionals subject to new training requirements include: Those encouraged to provide training and awareness on the prevention of pediatric abusive head trauma include:Press Release Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010 Contact Information: Kerri Richardson
Jill Midkiff
502-564-2611
For
Immediate Release
May
25, 2010
The
Kentucky General Assembly
April 23,
2010
Editor’s
note: During this winter’s regular legislative session, the LRC Public
Information Office wrote a week’s-end news column called ‘This Week in
Readers
of that column know the session adjourned April 15 without agreeing on a
spending plan. They also know time is running out on this fiscal year. On July
1—unless a special session is called and successfully enacts one –
This
shorter and more sporadic column,
LRC
PUBLIC INFORMATION
No state budget in place for the fiscal year beginning
July 1 (or the year after). House and Senate leadership still at loggerheads
over a basic matter of fiscal and political principle. A governor whose original
budget proposal based on slots revenues was rejected out of hand as politically
unrealistic, now re-engaged and insisting a budget be passed by June 1 so
millions in counted-upon savings through refinancing bonds can be realized – or
plans dealing with a failed budget can be put in
place.
Of course, sharp words have been uttered, as the
inevitable post-mortem political blame is assessed when a major bill fails.
Nothing defines ‘major’ like the budget.
And here’s where things could stand, worst-case scenario, just few
weeks down the road:
Kentucky still without a budget when the fiscal year
turns – and facing the great unknown of what that scenario will look like. Great
chunks of government, it appears, would shut down. And that’s never happened
here before.
True, Gov. Steve Beshear’s two immediate predecessors
faced the same no-budget dilemma. But Govs. Paul Patton and Ernie Fletcher
simply exercised their presumed executive authority to keep the lights on in
state agencies and the parks open for
This time, though, we have a recent state Supreme Court
ruling that limits the governor’s discretion to spend money without specific
authorization from a passed budget. So this is uncharted water. Most experts say
it’s likely public schools, prisons, state police and Medicaid would be among
the few areas to escape that spending prohibition. Most other areas would shut
down wholly or partially, including transportation, state parks, and some health
and human services programs. The distinction would seem to be whether a service
was mandated by the state constitution, or by state or federal
law.
All this brings great perceived urgency to a renewal of
House-Senate negotiations, which broke down at session’s end mostly over the
single issue of bonding for construction projects. It was basically a
disagreement that mirrored the national economic-recovery
debate.
The House wanted to bond a statewide package of school
construction and water-and-sewer projects it called not just badly needed, but
also a ‘jobs creation program’ that would (in its original $1 billion
incarnation) save or create 25,000 jobs in the state’s recession-ravaged
economy, where unemployment is nearing 11 percent.
The Senate looked at
the same recession and said the time had come to stop the ‘debt death spiral’
that was creating a chronic structural imbalance in the state budget, while also
tightening our belts and sharing in the general sacrifice this recession will
require of business, families and government if we’re to restore economic
prosperity.
Various compromises were floated in the session’s last
week, and the chambers inched closer together. But the session ended before a
final compromise could fly. And one week after lawmakers adjourned sine die, no further progress toward
resolving the impasse was publicly apparent. No formal negotiating sessions
between chambers had been held. No movement was rumored. But the urgency to find
that last bit of common ground was palpable. The governor, who must call the
special session if there’s going to be one, was talking about deadlines, and
using words like ‘devastating’ to describe what might happen if government
largely shutters.
Speculation is he’ll call the session for
May.
But as things now stand the only thing known for sure
is, within 68 days we’ll know for sure.
UPDATE:
HB285 passed the House on 2/10/10 with a vote of 99-0. It will now go to the Senate.
For more information on how you can get involed in this process. Please click here and someone from our agency will email you with further detail. Thank you so much!
IN THE NEWS...
Thanks to each of you who contacted your Representatives serving on the House Health & Welfare Committee, encouraging their support of House Bill 285, the Pediatric Abusive Head Trauma/SBS Bill. The Bill was unanimously voted out of committee last week and is posted for passage in the Consent Orders of the Day for Wednesday, February 10, 2010.
This is the juncture at which each of you can reach out to your elected official and ask for his/her support on this piece of legislation. Click here for further information.
Panel backs bill to help detect child abuse
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill that advocates said could save lives by helping doctors, nurses, day care workers and others better recognize signs of child abuse won unanimous approval from a House committee Thursday....
Read the full article in the Courier Journal by clicking here.
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Legislation to Watch! To view House Bill 285, legislation relating to pediatric abusive head trauma, please click click here. PCAK thanks Rep. Addia Wuchner for sponsoring HB285 and to the following Representatives who are serving as co-sponsors of this important legislation:
Representative Scott Brinkman Representative Tom Burch – Chair, House Health & Welfare Committee Representative John Carney Representative Ron Crimm Representative Bill Farmer Representative Joseph Fischer Representative Joni Jenkins Representative Tom Kerr Representative Stan Lee Representative Mary Lou Marzian Representative Tim Moore Representative Rick Nelson Representative Marie Rader Representative Tom Riner Representative Susan Westrom Representative Jill York House Bill 285, the bill sponsored by Rep. Addia Wuchner regarding pediatric abusive head trauma, has been assigned to the Health & Welfare Committee.
THIS WEEK IN The 2010
LRC PUBLIC INFORMATION
“Mr. Speaker, I would move you sir that …we adjourn sine die, until the first Tuesday following the first Monday of the Year of Our Lord 2011, unless called into extraordinary session by the Governor of the Commonwealth.”
FRANKFORT -- Sine die is Latin. It means ‘without a day.’ In session-speak, it means the end.
That quaint parliamentary motion (replicated in the Senate, though addressed to ‘Mr. President’) is always much anticipated by lawmakers, legislative staff, reporters, lobbyists, and others who’ve worked a winter session’s long cold hours. And when the motion came in both chambers Thursday, the 2010 General Assembly officially ended and entered the history books.
But this year’s ‘adjournment day joy’ wasn’t unalloyed. The session went down to its last hours with its major challenge hanging unresolved. And finally it went home as it arrived -- a session without a budget. And in those final hours, the venerable adjournment motion from a past era hinted at a likely future -- being called back into special session by the governor to finish that unfinished business.
The state budget has been this session’s Holy Grail; the search for it has provided most of its narrative. And fittingly, nearing its final page, the session took a plot twist, in the form of something hitherto untried: A House proposal to pass a one-year ‘continuation budget’ to keep government operating at current funding levels until a formal budget could be agreed to, either in special session soon or in regular session next winter.
The outcome was in doubt till the very end. The continuation proposal itself wasn’t unveiled publicly until late in the session’s penultimate day. But by mid-afternoon the next day – the session’s 60th and last day -- the Senate announced it was adjourning without taking up the proposal and the suspense ended.
It was a fitting climax to a dramatic year.
Lawmakers convened Jan. 5 to face a staggering projected revenue shortfall. Some said it was $1.5 billion. Almost everyone agreed it was at least a billion. Kentucky has suffered through repeated shortfalls in recent years, hundreds of millions of dollars worth, but this was the first time anyone had used the ‘b’ word. By almost any metric, this was a shortfall unlike any we’ve seen, in a grinding recession disinclined to relent.
Gov. Steve Beshear was first out of the chute with a plan to deal with it, when he delivered his Budget Address to a joint session in the House Chamber in January. It featured spending cuts, savings and economies across state government, some borrowing, and some plain optimism. But its $17.5 billion in spending also, unfortunately for its chances, counted on $780 million in projected new revenues from legalizing electronic slot machines at state racetracks.
By the time the chamber lights dimmed that night, it was clear from leaders’ reactions that slots were politically impossible in this Legislature. And so was the governor’s budget. By sundown the next day, lawmakers had set about writing their own spending plan from scratch.
As the Constitution requires, the House went first. Its budget contained no slots revenues. But it did include some short-term tweaks in the business-tax code that would raise between $200 million and $300 million (estimates varied widely) in the two-year budget cycle. It also made some headlines by cutting two instructional days from the school calendar, although it preserved basic SEEK funding for schools. It cut agency spending pretty much across the board, counted on yet-undeclared federal stimulus money for Medicaid, and called for cuts in state political and contract hiring.
It also specified something that would set the stage for future impasse – a billion dollars in bonded debt to build new schools to replace aging ones, plus water and sewer projects statewide.
The Senate, in its turn, cut government spending more deeply than the House, dumped the business-tax changes as unacceptable tax increases -- and said no to House bonding for projects. Senate leaders said piling on more debt with state finances stretched water-thin and the economy in grim recession would cause a ‘death spiral of debt’ in coming years.
And so, in late March, began the semi-annual conference-committee dance between the two chambers -- give some, take some, as conferees tried to find a common-ground compromise budget all could live with.
First indications about the negotiations were optimistic. Specific spending details seem to have been resolved, or were at least resolvable. But finally, negotiations derailed irresolvably on a point of basic principle: Would taking on significant new bonded debt for badly needed school- and water-and-sewer construction projects be an economic boost, essentially a ‘jobs bill’ to put Kentuckians back to work in construction and speed the recovery? Or an irresponsible deepening of public debt by a state already in perpetual financial uncertainty because of a chronic structural imbalance in its budget? House leaders argued for bonding. There was $1 billion of it in their original proposal, although the total came down dramatically as various compromises were floated. Most of the money would go to replace dilapidated schools. House leaders said their original package would stimulate the state’s recession-ravaged economy and create 25,000 jobs for out-of-work Kentuckians. State unemployment has risen past 10 percent, and is certainly more if you count the thousands of ‘discouraged’ job seekers who’ve just quit looking.
Senate leaders pointed to that same recession and countered that piling on $1 billion in new debt would send the state into a ‘debt death spiral.’ They said the time has come to seriously belt-tighten government, share in the recessionary pain business and families feel, and address the chronic structural imbalance that has plagued Kentucky’s budget too long. To do otherwise would just perpetuate and worsen the underlying problem, they said.
Despite various good-faith efforts by both sides to reach compromise over the veto recess and as the inexorable session clocked ticked down, the chambers finally threw in the towel on the session’s penultimate scheduled day. By that point, just as a practical procedural matter, a new bill could not be printed and prepared for a vote before the mandated April 15 adjournment. The House’s 11th hour proposal for a continuation budget never flew in the Senate
So now, what?
Almost certainly, the governor will have to bring lawmakers back to Frankfort for a special session – what the sine die motion calls an ‘extraordinary session’ -- before July 1 to pass a budget for the coming fiscal year. But at least one key leader has already warned Beshear not to do so unless and until the chambers have a compromise agreement in hand.
It should be noted this is potentially ‘new’ history being written. While a couple of times in recent years a budget wasn’t in place when the new fiscal year began, in those cases governors kept government going by executive order.
But recent court rulings have limited the governor’s authority to keep a budgetless government operating to certain essential functions, like corrections. ‘Non-essential’ services like parks would have to shut down. Basically, people will notice, unlike in past years. It would be uncharted waters.
So one hundred and seven days after the 2010 General Assembly convened Jan. 5 in great uncertainty, its session is over. But the great uncertainty remains, the full story is not yet told, and it may be weeks or months unfolding.
As they say in TV when the season ends with a cliffhanger:
To be continued.
Governor’s Budget Reduction Plan: DCBS Spared
Governor’s plan! For the first time in the now 6 budget reductions of this administration, DCBS was not cut at all. Below is a link to the Press Release announcing the Budget Reduction order. At the bottom you will find a link to the actual document for your review. Thanks to the Children’s Alliance for this information. http://governor.ky.gov/pressrelease.htm? PostingGUID={51F3F564-874E-48B3-A194- C90AEE864A3F} Landrieu amendment opens door for reforming foster care-financing system
April 13, 2009 The United States Senate recently approved a foster care financing reform amendment authored by Senator Mary Landrieu. The amendment to the Senate's budget would allow for reforming the foster care-financing system to shift resources to promote safe, stable and permanent homes for foster children. It represents another example of Sen. Landrieu's fight to improve the government's support for foster care children and families. |
