Expect long lines at the DMV on Tuesday.  This week marks the first week that many state workers are on "furlough"--fancy language for being out of work for a day so that the state can cut their pay.

Meanwhile, national experts called out Kentucky for the severity of our underfunding of the retirement accounts for 84,000 state workers.  The Kentucky Employees Retirement System has a $6 billion shortfall, largely because we haven't been making the recommended deposits into that account for the last several years. 

Both the furloughs and the shaming from national experts about the state of our pension systems are two of the impacts of our leaders' neglect of our outdated tax structure.  Kentucky deserves better. 

Join KFTC's delegation to a conference and day of action focused on transition and the future of Appalachia. The events aim to advance the dialogue about current energy extraction practices, with a specific focus on ending mountaintop removal coal mining, and advocate for a renewable energy future for Appalachia on a national stage

"We envision a vibrant weekend during which thousands will learn about the challenges Appalachia faces and ways to build a movement to end the destruction and plant the seeds of a sustainable and prosperous Appalachia," said the organizers of the events.

The conference, entitled Voices from the Mountains, will be held on September 25-26, 2010. Organizers of the Voices from the Mountain conference are planning a space for regional participants to grow and connect through strategy sessions, workshops, learning, and cultural events. Topics will include both exploration of the issues facing the region and ways to move forward.

The day following the conference, September 27th, many people from the Appalachian region will gather with conference attendees for a day of mobilization and rallying on Capitol Hill. 2000 people, including movement leaders from the region, celebrities such as Ashley Judd and Silas House, and many Appalachian residents are expected to gather.

Click here to sign up or learn more.

Rural communities in Kentucky will see an expansion in their access to broadband internet service, thanks to $246 million in grant dollars that the state was just awarded last week. The grants are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the federal stimulus package. These awards are a part of the federal government's long-term strategy to expand and improve internet throughout the country. (Visit http://www.broadband.gov/ to learn more about this.)

The recently awarded round of grants includes awards of more than $125 million in far west Kentucky, and more than $80 million in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. The eight funded projects outlined plans to build broadband infrastructure in unserved or underserved rural areas. The following is a list of the awards:

Leslie County Telephone Company - $6.1 million
Salem Telephone Company - $1.9 million
West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc. - $123.8 million
Highland Telephone Cooperative, Inc. - $66 million
People's Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc. - $25.5 million
Foothills Rural Telephone Cooperative Corporation, Inc. - $20.9 million
Windstream Corporation - $950,000
Mikrotec CATV LLC - $829,000

Kentucky had already received $75 million from this broadband infrastructure fund for projects in Grant, Owen, Morgan, Menifee, Wolfe and Elliott counties.

“Not only will this funding help create jobs, it will also help bring much-needed infrastructure to our rural communities, helping them to expand their services, attracting new businesses that will bring economic growth and jobs by providing affordable access to critical 21st Century technologies,” said Gov. Beshear.

Internet access will be key to factor in economic diversification in rural Kentucky, particularly in the eastern mountain communities. Broadband access facilitates small business-start ups and connects remote areas to larger market bases.

On a related note, KFTC allies at Appalshop are working on the issue of internet access and expansion with other groups. They want to ensure that the internet is affordable and accessible to all communities. The grassroots project, called Dial-Up Rocks, is based on these principles:

-Network Neutrality: Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is the principle of open and unfiltered access to the Internet, with no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, or the modes of communication allowed.

-Universal Broadband: Universal broadband is a policy initiative to make affordable, high-speed broadband Internet affordable and accessible throughout the United States.

Free and unrestricted communication is a human right and that media is the intersection of power, social justice and all kinds of equity – gender, racial, and cultural. Media Justice is about taking control of our media environment – our airwaves, networks, and online spaces. To achieve this we must transform our relationship with media and how we want to define its structure and how our communities access media.

Dial-Up Rocks will be following the implementation of the broadband grants very closely.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been seeing more pieces of evidence that Kentucky's economic policies aren't working for our families and communities.  Here are a couple of examples:

• From the Courier-Journal, an article about the costs of utilities outpacing paychecks.  Gas has gone up 54%, electric 34%, and water 128% since 2000. Wages, of course, have been pretty much stagnant, and while lawmakers could have passed mechanisms to help make energy cleaner and more affordable, and could have passed a state Earned Income Tax Credit to help low-income working families who've been hit by the reession, they chose to do neither.
  
• From the Courier-Journal, an article that reports that more of Kentucky's kids are living in poverty this year than last.  Relatedly, KFTC members have been gathering reports and stories from our allies in the family services world, and as one service provider told us, "It's clear that we're not taking care of our kids."  Stay tuned for members' stories about the impact of chronic budget cuts on Kentucky's kids.

But we've also been seeing some good words in those papers, too, with solutions outlining a way out of this mess.  Here's an excerpt from a letter from Erik Lewis from Rowan County, published in the Herald-Leader:

'Leaders' don't lead on progressive reform of tax code

Grateful to have a state budget, Kentuckians may be too forgiving of its lousy contents and the lack of political leadership that produced it.

...

Powerful forces have long worked to turn citizens against the idea of "progressive taxation," that people should pay taxes according to their capacity to pay. Higher taxes on rich people are supposedly unfair and counter-productive. Yet there's no harm in cutting school budgets or imposing furloughs for state employees? Who among us, if and when we earn high income, wouldn't be willing and able to pay a couple of extra cents per dollar in taxes on such earnings? Perhaps if people lead, leaders will follow.

Erik L. Lewis, Morehead

Erik's last thoughts are good ones to close this post, aren't they.

Back in late June, AmericaSpeaks held town forums about the budget across the U.S.  One of them was in Louisville. People from across the state were invited and encouraged to come.

The reports from these meetings were released this week, and it turns out Kentuckians have some pretty clear ideas about what kind of nation we need, and how we can get there.

Some of the highlights from the Kentucky participants:

• Most Kentucky participants – 67% – support government action to strengthen the economy.
• Most Kentucky participants – 54% – support the recent legislation to extend unemployment benefits and offer aid to states who've been bludgeoned by the recession.
• Most Kentucky participants – 58% – support raising taxes on people who earn more than $1 million a year.
• Nearly half of Kentucky participants support raising the top corporate income tax rate by 5%.
• A whopping 61% of Kentucky participants support a carbon tax.  How about that one?
  

These numbers are telling us that Kentuckians are interested in solutions that prioritize fairness and making our communities healthy and whole. Yes, we want our leaders to be fiscally responsible.  But we also want them to do the work of finding the money that we need, and finding it in a way that's equitable and fair, to invest in creating the communities that we want to live in.

If you'd like to learn more about the AmericaSpeaks town hall discussions, or about the results from Kentucky or across the nation, go to: http://usabudgetdiscussion.org/

We've been hearing lots of ripple effects from the latest round of budget cuts.  Pay cuts to state workers, tuition increases, and foster kids getting shuffled around from programs that have worked to a program that may or may not.  One of the most chilling impacts was written about in a Courier-Journal article a couple of days ago.

The article describes a House-Senate tax force that's been formed to examine how to deal with the enormous--at least $700 million--budget gap in state funding for Medicaid, which helps 800,000 (and this number has grown consistently as more people have been impacted by the recession) Kentuckians access health care who can't afford it.

At the meeting of the task force, lawmakers entertained the idea of cutting Medicaid's coverage of prescriptions. 

Take minute and imagine a Kentucky with 800,000 people who have no access to needed medication. 

Isn't it time we simply ask the rich to pay their fair share?

"The recently enacted state budget is another step backward for Kentucky kids. And it comes at a particularly bad time – just when the state is poised to move student achievement to the next level and help lead the nation on the most important education reforms in a generation," writes Sexton, who is executive director of the Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence.

"Kentucky's governor and legislators must do two things," he continues. "They must reform our antiquated tax system so state education revenue can keep up with economic growth. And they must get control of spiraling health insurance costs while ensuring that teachers and other public employees receive fair and sustainable benefits."

Read the entire essay here.

A recent news report by the Kentucky News Connection (Public News Service) quotes Charla Peter, communications director for the Kentucky Housing Corporation, explaining the underlying cause of families' shaky housing status is often affordability.

"When the average wage in Kentucky is $10.91, to afford Kentucky's fair market rent at the average wage, a renter must work approximately 45 hours per week, every week, all year through."

According to Peter, another factor in the increase year-over-year is that many were not counted in 2009 due to the ice storm that impeded a complete survey. She adds that Kentucky's double-digit unemployment rate and overall economic downturn play into the spike, as well.

Another goal of the survey, says Peter, is to help alter the public's perception of homelessness, which is not always a person living on the street, or a person with substance abuse issues.

"It takes one incident, a job loss, a family illness or death, a change in familial status such as a divorce. It could be catastrophic to our families if they're not prepared."

The point-in-time count is used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine the amount of funding agencies will receive to assist the homeless. The Kentucky Housing Corporation receives more than $11 million federal dollars a year to serve the homeless in 118 counties.

More information and the full report can be found here.

 ...And how can we responsibly pay for it?

 This is the main question put toward participants in the AmericaSpeaks discussion, and there's one coming to Louisville.

 AmericaSpeaks is holding national town meetings around the theme of "Our Budget, Our Economy," that asks participants to have conversations around issues related to this theme with a table of 6 or so people.  Those conversations get synthesized (can't imagine how they do that!) and linked to the conversations in the other 18 U.S. cities.

It's a great opportunity for KFTC members, who doubtless have a lot to contribute.  We know that we want communities where everyone has access to a good education and quality health care, and that we want good jobs, and that we want to know that we can trust the safety of our water and air.  And we know that we can pay for what we need responsibly, through fair and progressive taxation. 

Go, speak up, get your friends to go, and help make the conversations productive!

Tonight's "Kentucky Tonight" with Bill Goodman is about tax reform.  KFTC member Senator Kathy Stein from Lexington will be on, as will Terry Brooks from Kentucky Youth Advocates, Rep. Bill Farmer and someone from Club for Growth, an anti-tax, anti-government state group.

Kentucky Tonight is on tonight at 8:00 eastern time on KET.  If you don't have a TV (or can't get KET), you can watch it online at www.ket.org/live/.

Call in with the show's 800 number (they'll show it generously during the show), or you can email in your comments to kytonight@ket.org.

       "Kentucky Tonight" is a great platform for putting forth your comments about the need for comprehensive tax reforms that are fair and adequate.  You can find more about the plan that KFTC works on on our website, here.