FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Kentucky's social workers would have more workplace protections, while adult education spending would be cut under a state spending plan being reviewed by a key House committee on Tuesday.
The Appropriations and Revenue Committee pored over the approximately $17.5 billion spending plan for the next two-year budget cycle, which begins July 1.
Meanwhile, a Senate committee began reviewing a House-passed measure aimed at generating more than $300 million in additional revenue in the coming two years to help balance the next budget. Lawmakers faced a more than $1 billion shortfall when crafting the spending plan.
The revenue measure would not raise tax rates, relying instead on such steps as suspending a business tax break, speeding up sales tax collections and capping some tax credits.
The spending plan under review by the House panel included an extra $10 million for adult and family protection services, much of which would go to improving safety for social workers.
The goal, supporters said, is to improve communication links with social workers when they make house calls and to bolster security at their offices.
"We would hope that that goes a long way in providing a feeling of security that folks out there need," said Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown.
Social workers have called on Kentucky lawmakers to fully fund the "Boni Bill," which was passed in 2007. The measure was passed after the murder of social worker Boni Frederick during a welfare check at a western Kentucky home in 2006.
The spending plan, crafted by House Democratic leaders, also included an additional $2 million for "meals on wheels" programs in Kentucky.
The spending plan assumes another round of federal stimulus funding for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program that covers about 790,000 low income and disabled Kentuckians. The higher federal Medicaid match currently lasts only until the end of the year, unless Congress approves a new round of support.
Without a six-month extension through June 2011, the state faces a $256 million hole in the Medicaid budget, Lee said. But he expressed confidence the extension will be forthcoming.
The budget doesn't assume any additional federal aid for Medicaid in the second year of the next budget. Lee said the state faces a potentially huge Medicaid deficit in the second year.
"The hole is large enough that it looks like the black hole in space," he said.
Meanwhile, the spending plan includes a 3 percent cut in adult education, which would trim about $675,000 each year of the biennium.
Rep. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington, said budget writers looked for the least harmful savings. But he said the cutback "is going to hurt adult education."
The spending plan also calls for a 1 1/2 percent spending cut for public universities and colleges in the first year and a 1 percent reduction in the second year.
Simpson said the budget plan also fails to help the universities cover rising maintenance and operating costs. He said those costs will be borne by the schools' existing budgets.
"By our failure, we have created a path where they're going to have to take from the students and their operations," he said.
House leaders have said the plan includes about $1 billion in bonds for school construction, water and sewer projects and road building. The flurry of construction projects is aimed at creating thousands of jobs.
The House committee planned to resume its review of the budget plan later Tuesday.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
