How Stumbo Will Steal From the Schools

House Speaker Greg Stumbo has issued a press release to attempt to defend why the state should be able to seize the contingency funds of local schools, and to explain how he would do it.

Stumbo clarifies what many had expected: rather than take the funds outright, he would off-set a local district's state funding and then tell the school to make up the difference from its contingency fund.

Stumbo boasts that because he will not take school contingency funds and use them elsewhere, this is not "robbing Peter to pay Paul." But make no mistake: he wants to rob Peter nonetheless. In Stumbo's own words:

As Governor Beshear and the General Assembly prepare for the upcoming legislative session, it is becoming increasingly clear that the state’s two-year budget will be the most challenging Kentucky has faced since the Great Depression.

Federal stimulus dollars have helped significantly, but unless Congress provides additional funds, the stimulus dollars will run out by the budget’s second year. Barring an economic miracle, there will be considerable budget gaps and no painless way to fill them.

We must also consider sky-rocketing health insurance and retirement costs, increases in a Medicaid program that already covers a fifth of our population and the growing needs of our schools and universities. Each of these areas must be adequately funded if we hope to move forward as a state.

It was with this in mind that I discussed the possibility of using a portion of surplus funds that are kept by our elementary and secondary schools for unplanned expenses and “rainy days.”

I want to make it clear that I do not believe these funds can be used for any programs or expenses outside of the school’s district. In fact, as Attorney General, I filed litigation to protect education dollars.

The surplus funds are a mixture of local and state dollars prudently set aside by the school districts for future needs and expenses. It would be patently unfair to “rob Peter to pay Paul,” but it may be time for Peter and Paul to help themselves more during these rainiest of days.

I believe all options need to be considered as we begin writing the state’s budget in the next several months. If this is an unprecedented suggestion, it is because we are in unprecedented times.

In our current budget, kindergarten through high school accounts for more than 40 percent of our state tax dollars; when you add postsecondary schools, the figure for education jumps to 58 percent. Critical health and family services and the judicial and justice systems push the total over 90 percent.

Because so much of the state’s budget goes to these areas, they are the ones most affected by cuts that have topped more than $1.5 billion during the last two years. Additional cuts are expected to exceed a billion dollars in the upcoming two-year budget. Federal stimulus dollars have helped us balance our current budget, but these are one-time funds and not a permanent revenue source.

I have no doubt that we will find a way to live within our means, but it will not be easy. My goal is to continue protecting, if not increasing, school funding. Reducing money for education would have negative effects lasting for generations. School surplus funds may or may not be part of that equation, but if they can be a bridge to better days, it is an idea that at least deserves to be discussed.

Schools have looked to their contingency funds every time the state issues an unfunded mandate -- like last year's salary increases -- or cuts funds, as it did this year with text books and professional development. Given the number of schools with dilapidated and over-crowded buildings, however, the contingency funds are an important safety net for emergencies of the sort to which old buildings are prone.

By Stumbo's reasoning, the state should dock his pay to help make up for Kentucky's dire finances. Stumbo can make up the difference from his savings account. That's what savings accounts are for, after all. It wouldn't be robbing Stumbo to pay Frankfort; it would just be robbing Stumbo. To each according to his need, from each according to his ability to pay. And by all means, lets sock it to the poor fools who thought it was responsible to save for a rainy day.

State Education Leaders Prepare to Fight Stumbo Plan

Kentucky's educational organizations for superintendents, school boards and school administrators have drafted a sample resolution for schools to protest House Speaker Greg Stumbo's plan to seize school contingency funds.

The resolution notes that the contingency funds come from local tax dollars in many districts: "taxpaying voters and property owners who reside in within the boundaries of this school system have contributed their local tax dollars to meet those local education expenses, which in turn have been incorporated both in the district’s budgeted allocations and planned contingency funds."

The point is that Stumbo does not seek to transfer state funds between state agencies, but rather to take local funds to give to the state. It's sort of like one level of government exercising eminent domain on a lower level of government.

The resolution takes a swipe at the Beshear administration for mandating schools to raise salaries -- but not providing any state money to help pay for the raise. That forces schools to use their contingency funds to pay for this and other unfunded mandates. To be sure, teachers should be well paid. But Democrats in Frankfort have dictated the timing and amount of the raises, without contributing any state money, and now Stumbo seeks punish those schools who tried to budget around his ham-fisted use of unfunded mandates.

Accordingly, the resolution criticizes Stumbo's plan to punish schools for having built contingency funds "through careful and effective financial management and effective budgeting, planned for unexpected expenses and the elimination of federal stimulus funds with conservative budgeting of reserve monetary resources."

Finally, the resolution urges citizens to contact their state senators and representatives to protest the Stumbo plan and fight to retain local "community control of this district’s vital financial resources for the teaching and learning of our children."

Stumbo is going to wish he'd thought of a different place to raid for money than local school districts. Even if he can muscle the votes, he will have bought himself a law suit. And he will forever be known as the guy who tried to steal the schools' contingency funds.

Greg Stumbo Wants to Steal From Our Schools

School superintendents are beginning to push back against House Speaker Greg Stumbo's plan to raid school districts' contingency funds to make up for the state's budget shortfall.

The most outrageous thing about Stumbo's plan is that it punishes those schools that were fiscally responsible, to bail out a state government that was not.

State law requires schools to maintain a contingency fund between 2 to 5 percent of the school's budget. Some districts, on the advice of their outside auditors, maintain a little more than five percent.

Thus, a district with a Category 4 or 5 school -- that is, decrepit -- might put aside extra contingency fund money in case the boiler blows, the roof leaks or it needs to build an addition. Likewise, a school with an experienced staff of teachers should have a contingency sufficient to pay its share of the unused sick leave a teacher gets to cash out upon retirement.

And if geniuses in Frankfort or Washington decide to pass an unfunded mandate, the contingency fund is the school's safety net.

Rather than commending these schools that have scrimped to prepare for such scenarios, Stumbo wants to punish these schools by confiscating their contingency funds. He may be a little more subtle than just taking the contingency funds outright; he may reduce SEEK funds -- the State per pupil allocation to the school -- and tell schools to make up the difference from their contingency funds. But the net affect is the same. That's why schools were asked to provide information about their contingency funds last winter: Stumbo has been planning this for months.

Stumbo's tactics reflect what his party does at the national level: punish responsibility and reward profligacy. Just take from the school's who planned and saved and award a bailout to whomever Stumbo deems deserving.

Stumbo Dialing for Dollars

Oh, the life of a fat cat. Greg Stumbo has been sharing his supposedly good news with major donors around the country -- hoping that they will share their wealth with him.

Stumbles says that preliminary polling numbers show that most Democrats would pick him to run for U.S. Senate, and that in Louisville he is tied with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Given that Louisville is the most liberal part of the state, even left-wing bloggers wonder why Stumbo is encouraged.

Perhaps Stumbo was surprised at how Democratic voters responded to his personal foibles. As Mark Hebert from WHAS 11 reported:

according to Stumbo, the biggest news might be that poll respondents were unphased by the pollsters recounting of all of Stumbo's personal baggage, which would surely come up during a campaign: his refusal to pay child support for a son born out of an extra marital affair; a car crash in which Stumbo claimed he wasn't driving; the Kent Downey fiasco when Stumbo was Majority Floor Leader in the House. Stumbo says voters were told about all of the nasty things that might be thrown at him in a political race and it didn't hurt his numbers. The reason, according to Stumbo, is that the incidents are "old news" and most voters have already been exposed to them.

Here's what Stumbo told Pol Watchers that he did next:

You'll never believe what I’ve been doing today," he said to start the conversation. "I’ve been calling some of the wealthiest people in the entire world. I’m asking them to invest in me."

He said by 5 p.m. Friday he had made 41 calls to set up meetings with wealthy Democratic donors in New York and Washington, D.C. -- party supporters whose phone numbers were provided by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

With any luck, Stumbles can get a little extra to help him pay his child-support on his love child.

Meanwhile, more than 177,000 Kentuckians are about to get hit with a huge tax increase known as the Alternative Minimum Tax, because Senate Democrats keep blocking McConnell's efforts to repeal the AMT or at least provide another year of tax relief by "patching" the AMT.

Stumbo could help out Kentuckians by sharing the phone numbers of the "wealthiest people in the entire world." Then, if the Senate doesn't fix the AMT, we can call George Soros for a loan to pay our tax bills.

Please note: The postings of "G. Morris", written by John K. Bush and which end in 2016, stated his views as of the dates of posting and should not be understood as current assertions of his views. The postings, which have not been altered since they came to an end, remain on this blog to preserve the historical record. In 2017, Mr. Bush took a position that precludes further public political comments or endorsements. He will no longer be contributing to this blog.

Stumbo Stumbles on Election Law Compliance

Soon to be Former-Attorney General Greg Stumbo has spent the last four years playing "gotcha" whenever Governor Ernie Fletcher violated any provision of the law, no matter how small. But Stumbo can't seem to adhere to the same high standard that he has demanded of others.

As Captain's Quarters notes, Stumbo failed to file required forms with the Federal Election Commission that would have disclosed Stumbo's individual donors. This would have told us, for instance, whether Stumbo is drawing money from out of state (Barbara Streisand, can you spare a dime?)

Stumbo said he's "on pace" to raise $200,000 to test the waters for a senate bid. Voters are entitled know the identity of his donors. So far, however, it appears that Stumbo has not filed the required updates.

Stumbo promised "to push for election laws that protect citizens from corruption and hidden influence," and yet has not complied with exisging laws. Former FEC Chair Brad Smith, discussing Stumbo's failure to file, notes that "as is so often the case, those in apparent violation have long lobbied for more complex, more burdensome laws."

Stumbo, moreover, brought this reporting requirement upon himself when he filed papers with the FEC last July to announce an exploratory committee for Mitch McConnell's U.S. Senate seat. If Stumbo can't or won't file the FEC quarterly reports, maybe he ought to explore a new line of employment -- in the private sector.