by Kevin Wheatley – FRANKFORT — Officials in Kentucky’s Department for Medicaid Services have weathered a loss of federal funds for a program meant to provide health insurance for children in low-income families, and they told lawmakers on Wednesday that they expect Congress to refinance the program. Stephen Miller, the department’s commissioner, told the Medicaid Oversight and…
by ADAM BEAM, Associated Press – FRANKFORT, KY. — Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general says his efforts to sue companies that make powerfully addictive opioid-based painkillers have been stymied by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration. Andy Beshear’s office had awarded a contract to four law firms to assist with his plan to file multiple lawsuits against companies that…
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The number of foster care cases related to drugs is ballooning as use of heroin and other opioids soars across the U.S. New foster cases involving parents who are using drugs have hit the highest point in more than three decades of record-keeping. New federal statistics show some 92,000 children entered foster care…
As state legislators debate what changes will fix Kentucky’s debilitated pension system, state and local police are scrambling to recruit officers. Louisville Police Chief Steve Conrad said nearly 100 officers left LMPD this year. Sixty-three of those, he said, are officers who retired because of Kentucky’s looming pension reform, prompting him to try to recruit…
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 12, 2017) – Gov. Matt Bevin today made the following appointments to Kentucky boards and commissions: Cynthia Elaine Elliott has been appointed to the Statewide Advisory Council for Vocational Rehabilitation. Cynthia Elaine Elliott, of Frankfort, is an attorney and consumer ombudsman for the Kentucky Client Assistance Program. She will represent the Client Assistance…
FRANKFORT — An updated analysis of Kentucky’s poorly funded public pension systems by PEW Charitable Trust indicates previous reforms of the system enacted in 2013 put the systems “on track to full funding provided the state continues to stay on the course charted in 2013.” The report’s authors also express reservations about the short-term costs…
It appears that local legislators are not as high on the idea of medicinal marijuana as Kentucky’s Secretary of State. Alison Lundergan Grimes has recently made a push to legalize marijuana for the purposes of alleviating various health conditions, seeking to have it given the green light by next year. According to an article published…
Berea mayor Steve Connelly and representatives from Congressman Andy Barr’s office and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office were among the dozens of people who gathered Wednesday morning to celebrate a recent expansion at Novelis, an aluminum recycling company in Berea. Despite the cold, attendees gathered outside the Berea plant as company representatives spoke of the company’s…
FRANKFORT – Kentucky’s ethics laws, passed in 2014, which states a member of the legislature can take nothing of value from a lobbyist, has been struck down as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman, who ruled in June 2017 that the laws were too vague to be enforced and violated lobbyists’ freedom of speech, issued a…
Kentucky GOP House members are asking Republican Gov. Matt Bevin not to call a special legislative session on pension reform before the end of the year. The Courier Journal reports that a large majority of House Republicans sent a letter making the request Wednesday. House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne said the letter expressed the lawmakers’…