Kentucky News Now – July 31, 2014

MCCONNELL BUS TOUR

McConnell to campaign in eastern Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Republican Rep. Hal Rogers will campaign with Sen. Mitch McConnell next week in eastern Kentucky.

Rogers will join McConnell on a two day, 10 county bus tour Aug. 7 and 8 through Kentucky's coal country. McConnell is running for re-election against Democrat challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in a race that has focused largely on coal-related issues.

McConnell's bus tour will come one day after former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to campaign with Grimes in eastern Kentucky.

Grimes and McConnell are locked in one of the closest Senate races in the country. The winner could help determine which party controls the Senate. Democrats have an eight-seat margin in the Senate. Republicans control the House of Representatives.

GRIMES AD-WOMEN

New Grimes ad hits McConnell on women's issues

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A new statewide TV ad from Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes criticizes Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell for his voting record on women's issues.

The ad features Ilene Woods from Lynch asking McConnell why he voted twice against the Violence Against Women Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Violence Against Women Act passed anyway. The Paycheck Fairness Act has not passed.

In the ad, running statewide, Grimes says McConnell must be forgetting that over half the voters in Kentucky are women.

McConnell did vote for a different version of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, one that was criticized for not protecting the LGBT community. He said he opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act because it eliminated the statute of limitations on pay discrimination cases.

LEGISLATURE-FOCUS

Kentucky speaker: Local option sales tax is focus

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo says House Democrats' top priority for the 2015 legislative session could be letting local governments temporarily raise taxes to pay for large construction projects.

Stumbo had previously said the House would focus on legalizing casino style gambling in Kentucky, an issue pushed by the state's formidable horse racing industry and its popular Democratic governor.

But that changed when Churchill Downs, Louisville's iconic horse racing track, donated money to a political action committee dedicated to electing Republicans to the state legislature. Democrats have an eight-seat majority in the House, one of the last Democratic-controlled state legislative bodies in the south.

The local option sales tax would let local governments impose a temporary 1 percent sales tax to pay for large projects. Voters would have to approve the tax first.

EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY

Feedback sought on education initiative in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky's Department of Education is asking for feedback on efforts by schools to prepare students for college or the workplace.

The department’s Unbridled Learning College/Career-Readiness for All Accountability Model has been in place since the 2011-12 school year. The model includes multiple measures for determining school success.

Between now and Aug. 20, an online survey will be available for stakeholder input on various components of the system and how determinations of school and district successes are made.

The survey can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UnbridledLearning.

The department says the feedback will inform the state’s education commissioner and the Kentucky Board of Education on any future action that may be taken regarding the accountability system.

FEDERAL JUDGES-HEARING

2 judicial nominees testify before committee

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A U.S. Senate committee has heard testimony from a pair of judicial nominees from Kentucky.

WKYU-FM in Bowling Green reported that Senate Judiciary Committee members on Tuesday listened as Bowling Green attorney Greg Stivers explained how practicing law for 29 years allowed him to learn from the judges he appeared before.

President Barack Obama nominated Stivers and U.S. Attorney David J. Hale to fill vacancies created by the retirements of U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell and U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson.

Hale has been U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky since 2010. He previously practiced law in Louisville and was an assistant U.S. attorney.

Stivers has practiced in Bowling Green since 1985.

The American Bar Association has given both men a rating of "unanimously qualified."

SCHOOL INSURANCE

School districts getting insurance bills

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) — Some school districts have started getting bills over the past couple of weeks to help offset insurance claims against the failed Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust.

The trust announced last year that it would disband due to financial woes and school districts would have to pay off outstanding claims of about $60 million. The trust offered insurance for worker's compensation, property and liability claims.

Johnna DeJarnett, assistant superintendent for McCracken County Public Schools told The Paducah Sun that the district has received a bill for $122,032 for worker's comp. Paducah Independent Schools got a bill for $210,834. Neither knows how much it will need to pay for property and liability claims.

Paducah Superintendent Donald Shively says the bill, on top of a state-mandated pay raise for employees, has the district tightening its belt.

LOUISVILLE GARDENS

Louisville seeks developer for dormant Gardens

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville officials are seeking a developer to breathe new life into the long-dormant, history-laden Louisville Gardens.

Officials believe the century-old one-time armory where Elvis Presley performed and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke is suitable for adaptive reuse as a combination of apartments, offices, retail or institutional purposes.

The head of the economic and community development offices, Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, told The Courier-Journal the city has received a fair number of expressions of interest in the 6,000-seat, three-story arena in downtown.

The Gardens opened in 1905 and over the decades the Beaux Arts structure was the site of hundreds of basketball, wrestling and other sporting events, graduation ceremonies and concerts.

Most of the events were phased out after city-county merger in 2003, and the building has had few uses since.

EARNS-HUMANA

Humana 2Q profit falls 18 pct on higher costs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Health insurer Humana Inc.'s second-quarter net income fell by 18 percent as investments in health care exchanges and state-based contracts along with higher specialty drug costs more than offset continued membership growth in its Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans.

The company's results, released Wednesday, matched analysts' expectations, and it reaffirmed its 2014 earnings estimate of between $7.25 and $7.75 per share.

Humana said membership in its individual Medicare Advantage business reached 2.36 million as of June 30, up 16.4 percent from a year ago and 14.2 percent higher than at the end of 2013.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based company is among the nation's largest providers of Medicare Advantage plans, which are privately run versions of the government's Medicare program for elderly and disabled people.

WESLEYAN RETIREMENT

Kentucky Wesleyan president to retire as of Sept. 15

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Wesleyan College President Craig Turner says he will retire effective Sept. 15.

The 67-year-old Turner said in a statement Wednesday from the school that he and his wife, Annette, will live in Dallas, near their children and grandchildren.

Turner became president of Kentucky Wesleyan in June 2011 and was previously president of Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, and Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas.

Board of trustees Chairman Tom Grieb said officials are already in the process of naming a successor to Turner.