Democrats say they will reject Bevin’s college budget cuts
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Employees and staff at Morehead State University learned this week how they would be spending their spring break: a mandatory, unpaid furlough for five days in order to compensate for Gov. Matt Bevin’s midyear budget cuts.
But Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo had a message Friday for University President Wayne Andrews.
“He may want to lift those furloughs after Tuesday,” Stumbo said.
The Kentucky House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a two-year spending plan Tuesday, and House Democrats plan to use their newly increased majority to push through a budget that rejects Bevin’s midyear budget cuts for colleges and universities. Speaking to reporters, Stumbo said he “can almost assure you there will not be current year cuts in the House budget.”
Bevin has proposed $650 million in spending cuts across most of state government in order to begin paying down a public pension debt in excess of $30 billion. The debt represents money the state owes to current and future retirees in state government and the public school system over the next 30 years. Kentucky’s pension systems are among the worst funded in the nation and, last week, they led to a credit downgrade of some state bonds.
The cuts affect most state government agencies, but state colleges and universities have been the most vocal in opposing the cuts.
“As far as the cuts to hits agencies, you know, we will leave them largely intact,” Stumbo said of the executive branch agencies that make up Bevin’s cabinet. “But nobody elected him to be president of the University of Kentucky.”
Morehead State Chief Financial Officer Beth Patrick said the university appreciates Stumbo’s efforts to restore the cuts. She said the university is monitoring the situation, but the furlough hasn’t been lifted.
“We’re optimistic as it comes out of the House, based on the Speaker’s comments, that it will be better for us,” she said.
Bevin has vowed he would not sign a budget that does not include his cuts to higher education. Earlier this week, he posted a video of an empty House chamber to his official Facebook page that criticized the House for waiting so long to act on his budget proposal.
“For all of their complaints about how many cuts they have had throughout the years, what have they ever done in response to those cuts besides raise tuition?” Bevin told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this week. “They’ve never had to make hard choices. They haven’t.”
As an example, Bevin criticized the University of Kentucky, where president Eli Capilouto has called his cuts “draconian.” Bevin noted the university has more than 1,900 employees that make more than $100,000 a year.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that in a budget of billions … that a $25 million cut is really destroying that situation,” Bevin said.
A spokesman for the university declined to comment. But a “fact vs. fiction” page on the university’s website notes that 79 percent of its $3.4 billion budget is restricted_including athletics revenue_limiting how it can be spent.
