BY MICHON LINDSTROM | KENTUCKY
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Legislative leaders say Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has been handling the health side of COVID-19 pandemic well but are split when it comes to other aspects.
“I think we have continued to give him large amount of credit in flattening the curve and establishing protocols that are put in place,” said House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect.
That is a sentiment House Minority Leader Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, echoed.
“I think you only have to look around us to see the numbers and I think by acting very proactively and quickly we did flatten the curve and we did see further deaths than surrounding states, and I think most of Kentucky agrees an overwhelming number of Kentuckians think that he has done an excellent job with this,” Jenkins said. “There is no playbook on this and we are making it up as we go and I think acting the way he did I think we are saving lives here in Kentucky.”
Kentucky has seen fewer cases and deaths than all the surrounding states except West Virginia which has seen just 1,371 cases and 57 deaths.
While Osborne and Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, have praised Beshear’s handling on containing the speed of COVID-19 in Kentucky, they have criticized his reopening plan as too slow.
“It is past time for us to transition from talking about essential versus non-essential, to safe versus not safe and I think that’s difficult to do in a one-size-fits-all,” Osborne said. “I think people are tired of being called non-essential because those jobs are certainly essential to the people that have them, and I think there are businesses out there that can operate safely, can protect the public, can protect their employees and can continue to function as a business.”
Osborne doesn’t think the reopening of businesses and industries should be done as a “one-size fits all” approach and should be looked at individually. Stivers also wishes the economy was reopening at a faster pace but acknowledged the country is a situation no one has ever experienced before.
“There is no manual, there is no playbook, there is no turn page 44 to figure this out but I think with a little more input and maybe some discussions we have had out in our districts because we are closer to the people than the governor is, and that’s the way the process is set up,” Stivers said. “You may have a totally different set of protocols in New York City versus Louisville, Louisville versus Manchester, or whatever.”
Stivers added businesses could have been opened up at a quicker pace however Leader Jenkins is concerned to see Kentucky opened back up too quickly.
“I’m a little nervous, but I have a loved one in long-term care right now so I’m very concerned that someone is going to go the Olive Garden and bring something back to my loved one in the nursing home so that concerns me a little bit,” Jenkins said. “I hope everyone is taking the encouragement to wear a mask, to social distance, to wash your hands, all those things I hope everyone is taking it very seriously.”
McGarvey believes Beshear’s plan to reopen the economy is being done at the right pace to ensure Kentuckian’s safety.
“His goal is to save lives, to flatten the curve, to stop the spread of the disease so that we can return to a type of normal, that’s what you are seeing now,” McGarvey said. “The Governor is continuing to show concern and to continue to listen to the interested parties and move Kentucky forward at the best pace possible.”
When the economy does reopen it will be facing a steep decline in revenue, the Office of the State Budget Director is projecting potentially a $495 million General Fund revenue shortfall for the final quarter of the fiscal year with revenues continuing to fall short at the start of the first quarter of the Fiscal Year 2021. Lawmakers passed a “bare-bones” one-year budget for FY 21 using the most pessimistic numbers they had available but they not account for the shortfall in revenue that will likely be seen, however, they say it’s still too soon to say whether they will need to be called into a special session before January to rework the budget.
“We’re prognosticating, we’re forecasting as many people are doing, as what we should or should not do in the way of health versus economy,” Stivers said. “It’s hard to tell, we’ve not been on this road, we don’t have a playbook. If things open up and we bounce back and you hear the economists talk about the ‘ V-shaped’ recession versus the ‘U-shaped’ recession. If it’s V-shaped, it [the budget] probably holds if not we have re-evaluate.”
April General Fund receipts revealed a $492.9 shortfall from April 19 but 90 percent of that shortfall was from individual and corporate income as a result of the tax filing deadline being moved from April to July.
“Those tax returns from the year 2019 before COVID ever hit are still going to be filed, they are just going to be filed a little bit later so we still have to see what receipts even continue to come in for this year because they have been delayed a little,” said McGarvey. “I think some of those numbers for this current fiscal year can go up a little bit.”
Exactly how short revenue will be during the first quarter of FY 21 which begins in July is still unknown.
“There’s nothing that has ever been done based on the modeling just because it’s ever happened when a government shuts it’s economy down,” said Osborne. “We know it will recover quickly but we don’t know to what degree any of that will be, does 50 percent come back immediately and the rest of it over two years? there is just no modeling to tell us what that will be”
Despite the uncertainty of the time lawmakers on both sides of the aisle stand ready to return to work if they are needed.
“The General Assembly anticipates we may be back before January 1, 2021,” Jenkins said. “But I think we’re also still holding out hope that the Congress will act and that there will be more stimulus money.”
The Consensus Forecasting Group will meet on May 22 to formulate a new revenue projection for FY 21.
