>> We're myself uncomfortable reply thing.

Framework will be important.

>> Senator Mitch McConnell backs the idea behind a bipartisan gun safety bill and he says gun owners agree.

>> One of the most important parts of the program has always been empowering the young artist of Kentucky to realize just that that they are indeed >> And enjoy a little song and dance as Kentucky high schoolers but their artistic skills on display.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the Kaye E T and Aument for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KETK Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION.

Today is Wednesday, June 15th.

I'm your host, Renee Shaw.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

>> We're hearing more from Senator Mitch McConnell about a bipartisan U.S. Senate gun bill that would encourage red flag laws and find more school resource officers and mental health counselors.

Yesterday Senator McConnell said he agrees with the framework of the bill.

He also thinks it's a bill Americans will back, including Americans who own guns.

>> I wouldn't that Senator an unfolding.

The in his presentation of gun owners moment just people who own gun and support for the provisions of the framework off the charge.

The overwhelming.

I think if this framework becomes a true piece of legislation, it's a step forward.

Step forward on a bipartisan basis and further demonstrate to the American people.

That we can come together, which we have done from time to time, things like infrastructure and police reform to make progress for the country.

>> The Hill reports conservatives in the House are vowing to fight the Senate's gun plan.

Laurel County will have its own school district Police Department.

The Sentinel ACA reports the school board voted 3 to one to hire 16 full-time school resource officers for substitutes and a supervisor for the upcoming school year.

Superintendent Doug Bennett told the newspaper student Safety is the priority for the district.

Regardless of the cost.

Bennett says this is necessary in order to make sure that every school has an officer.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is suing the state over its new abortion law.

Cameron says the Beshear administration missed a deadline to set up regulations for the new law which bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

And that's restrictions for minors seeking an abortion, a federal judge to block the law due to the lock of those regulations.

Cameron says state regulators should have created the rules even though a judge blocked the law.

A spokesperson for the Health and Family Services Cabinet calls Cameron suit, quote, a baseless and blatant political stunt.

Crime.

It's one of the big issues in the Louisville mayor's race as that city deals with 60 homicides so far this year, the candidates for Mayor Democrat Craig Greenberg and Republican Bill Dieruff met for formed yesterday after the form.

We asked them how they would approach Louisville's crime problem.

>> We must work together both locally and also with elected leaders in Washington to end the senseless gun violence here at home.

We can implement programs like group Violence, Intervention.

We can invest more in mental health programs to help tragedies from happening before they happen.

And at the federal level, we can encourage our elected leaders in the House and Senate to prevent some of these common sense gun legislation.

It's just been injured.

That's just by the Senate.

First thing is the police presence.

We are.

Police officer short by contract.

But we're short more than that.

We need police officers downtown.

As you heard me mention there, we need a district downtown that protect downtown and keeps it safe for the residents of police officers around both eliminates some of the crime because you know what's going on to find out what's going on at a time >> Greenberg and Dieruff are running to replace Mayor Greg Fischer who cannot seek reelection because he's term limited.

>> It will cost a little more to learn at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond on Tuesday.

The Ek you Board of Regents okay to budget for the 2020 to 23 fiscal year.

>> The Eastern Progress says its a 362 million dollar budget and includes a one percent increase in tuition, residential housing rates will also go up by 3% and faculty and staff will get a 2% raise.

The UK Board of Trustees will meet later this week to consider a budget proposal that spends more than 5 billion dollars and includes a 2% tuition hike and a raise for teachers and staff.

Has its own spending plan.

City leaders yesterday approved a 473 million dollar budget for Kentucky's second largest city.

The Lexington Herald-Leader says council members added 13 million dollars to Mayor Linda Gorton is 460 million dollar proposal.

That includes 5 million for additional pay to retain public safety employees.

Lexington will spend 15 million dollars paving roads.

Brevard County doesn't have a budget at all.

Wy MTN has reports the fiscal court failed to pass an occupational tax a Tuesday meeting, meaning some government services lack the funding to continue.

And when the judge executive called 3 emergency meetings, not enough magistrate showed up to do business.

Judge Executive Jeff Noble hopes to call another meeting today.

The state wants you to hear or wants to hear from you rather about medical marijuana.

Yesterday, Governor Beshear announced the 17 members of his medical cannabis Advisory committee.

They'll travel around the state and hold public hearings to hear people's stories and opinions.

The governor says on medical marijuana, the Kentucky has fallen behind.

>> This is an issue whose time has come so many other states having some version to provide a level of relief to the veteran with PTSD or someone suffering from chronic pain.

>> The governor says the meeting times and places will be made public once they are set.

Temperatures in Kentucky are reaching the upper 90's.

I know, you know, as historic heat wave is hitting much of the U.S. our Casey Parker-bell talk to Daniel Lowry from the Kentucky Utilities about how to beat the heat and conserve on energy costs.

>> We've heard about power surges in the Louisville area and other parts of Kentucky.

Is this something that's happening and why of so?

>> Well, for LG E and K you, we have sufficient generation capacity to me.

Customers anticipated energy demand even with the heat that we're dealing with.

So we haven't had.

>> Any.

>> Real problems with that.

And we've still had some outages here.

And there we've had.

A few issues not related to he.

There will always be problems with things like trees falling in the lines.

We've had that cars hit utility ball, utility poles.

So that can happen.

And sometimes you have a right to life.

Get into transformer.

So those things are going to happen no matter what.

But as far as the heat goes, we have sufficient generation capacity.

And so we're in good shape.

>> Well, that's good to hear, of course, that everybody is well aware of how hot it is outside right now.

And what does that mean?

I yeah.

What does that mean for demand for people across the state as we deal with heat waves like this one?

>> Well, the demand really goes up.

I mean, that the biggest thing for Bo says their air conditioners.

Are going to be running on some and that could be a problem.

You're a conditioner can break.

For example, you haha.

So that could be a problem.

You can have people who really the problem is that their bill was were increase because our electric systems are using a lot of energy.

HVAC are working really hard to cool down the house.

So as people look to conserve energy and stay cool and safe, what are some tips that you have for them to be able to do that?

>> Well, every every degree really matters, Casey, I mean.

Even one degree by raising your thermostat can save you as much as or to 7% on the cooling portion of your bill.

The vetting setting your thermostat.

Do the highest, comfortable setting and really how?

And, you know, for example, in my home, it's at 75.

You can also have those programmable thermostats that.

It just so if you're going to be gone, you can raise it up a little bit.

>> If you are outside the CDC has some advice for how to avoid heat exhaustion.

They say the were like loose fitting clothing to limit your time outdoors the morning evening hours for some spring.

And when your time take breaks in the shade.

>> Some good advice.

>> Some good advice there, Casey.

And on the education front.

Now.

>> Several local school districts are considering raises for educators and other school personnel.

Fayette and Jefferson counties have recently boosted teacher pay.

We talked today with the director of advocacy for the Kentucky School Boards Association Eric Kennedy about the decision some school districts are making when it comes to compensation.

Eric Kennedy with the Kentucky School Boards Association.

Thank you so very much for being with us for a few minutes of your time.

Appreciate that.

>> Thank you so much, Renee, for having us to talk about this important topic.

Yes, and that topic is, of the school districts who are giving out raises.

We've read recently where Fayette County Public Schools of guard committed to 3% raises.

And there's some follow-up stories that say that could be more for some school employees.

There's 171 school districts across the state.

What are you hearing about school districts ability to give raises and to whom are they giving them?

>> Sure.

We are right in the season of the year where in every local elected school board is sitting down to adopt sort of the second of 3 budget plans for the following year.

And this is the time period where they really start putting in the salary information as they plan for what that budget will look like.

So course, every local school board by law is in charge of adopting its own salary schedule for all of its school district employees, which is always been the case.

And so the issue of raises who should get raises how much that should be is always done primarily at the local level.

And so coming right here in the middle of that season, we have heard and seen news reports of many school boards that have adopted those salary schedules for the next year.

Many school board to giving raises.

And what we've seen is that the amounts are buried.

They are all over the board, not just in the amounts of what the percentage across the board races, but especially some boards are really taking sort of a surgical approach with, of course, recruitment and retention in mind.

We have seen some boards look at giving classified staff a different level of razor compensation, increased and certified certified staff being primarily our teachers, classified being all of our other folks in districts.

A lot of districts are looking at sort of a one-time stipend to either certified or classified or both.

I mean, all of those local decisions and all of crafting of the budget from the salary schedules locally is really been diverse across the state.

But I can say that many, if not at this point, most of the school board's we have seen have increased compensation for most or all employees to some degree.

>> And so let's talk about the General Assembly because we often hear in teacher responses to news of raises.

Well, we wanted more, but the school district is giving us less than what we asked for in May will often say if the General Assembly had just given us a direct rays outright, we be in a better position.

Explain to us if that's true or focus.

>> From our perspective for the school Boards Association, we really phrase that way.

We would say that sometimes is false.

The idea of a statewide mandate to Dre's of a certain specific amount across the board for all school district employees and all school districts.

The state General Assembly has done that in the past.

Not for a very long time.

Maybe about a decade or more since the last time that happened.

But history tells us that when that has happened in the state budget before when the state budget has had basically a sentence that says every local school board shell get a one percent raise to all for the next school year.

What often happens is that the way the funding flows from the state down to local districts to adopt those budgets, some districts will get more or less than others when this has happened.

Some school boards got more than enough new state money that year to cover those races that are required and many school boards did not even get that mandated raise covered, which means that school board would have to sit down and say, well, what are we going to cut out of our budget to pay for the Rays that they've required or what local we're going to have to increase to cover it.

And so because of the way, primarily the Sikh allocation Formula Works, giving more or less state money to districts based on many factors.

That is why we really don't advocate for a consistent across the board state mandated raise.

And that is also why sometimes it had winners and losers in the past.

And right now, the state, the budget this year did not do that.

It increased seek funding through the formula for all districts and encourage boards to look at giving raises.

And we're seeing that in action.

What we're saying is the local boards are able to afford more or less than others.

They are taking that into account.

So some districts may, in fact be giving a higher level of total compensation increase.

Then what state employees got in the state budget and many others will get less.

But of course, it's always important to remember that.

I believe that in 10 of the last 12 years until now, all state employees have not gotten any across the board raises.

Where is in many of those years, many school boards because it's at the local level have been able to give raises in different amounts in different years over and above the step increases that many school district employees get every year.

Yeah.

>> Well, Eric Kennedy with the Kentucky School Boards Association.

Thank you for giving us the perspective of the organization and helping us understand what's happening across the many school districts across the state when it comes to educator races.

♪ >> We each week we do a midweek.

Check in on politics with Rylan Barton, managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio and Ohio Valley Resource.

Today Rylan breaks down everything from tornado recovery to overdose deaths to medical marijuana.

Rylan Barton.

It's a pleasure to see you.

Thank you for being with my secret.

>> So let's talk about some news of the Medical Cannabis Task Force that Governor Andy Beshear has formulated of 17 folks from a real lawyers and prosecutors and concerned advocates for legalizing medical marijuana.

What can we expect from this task force and what tools are at the governor's disposal when it comes to legalizing medical marijuana.

>> The main thing that this task force is tasked with is to hold some town halls around the state to just kind of it gauge support for the concept of medical It has of actually polled very well over the years.

There's one that I saw that was well over 90% just for of the legalization of medical so that this is a popular issue in the governor's really made.

He summed it something that he wants to own, especially since the Republican led Legislature has declined to pass a pretty limited medical marijuana bill up for a few years in a row.

Now.

It is important to remember.

Well, the governor said earlier this year that he will be investigating whether he can use executive action in any way to try to legalize cannabis for for medical use.

I think a lot of there's a collective raising of eyebrows in response it's unclear.

But it's it would be very unusual if the governor were able to do that on his own of leaders of the legislature came out and said as much.

But also importantly, if you just look across the landscape of the country, a few states have legalized marijuana by referendum or through the legislature.

It's not something that an executive is really able to just go out and do on their own.

>> Right.

And that would expire after his term would end.

Correct.

So it wouldn't have it just like the statute would.

>> Sure if he was to successfully able to pull off something like that.

And yes, the the next governor could do what they please with it or even the during the next legislative session.

>> Absolutely.

So let's talk about some grim news that we received earlier this week, too, about the overdose fatalities, that those numbers are worse this time around than there were the previous year.

This is a 2021 look snapshots.

So these numbers were higher and that 35 to 44 year-old range still not getting any better.

And fentanyl is the primary culprit here.

>> Yeah, this is one of the side stories about Kentucky and about the country right There is still a rise in a drug overdose.

Just that's that's really driven by fentanyl and incredibly of a dangerous drug that often gets mixed in with heroin or other drugs that people are buying.

But yes, more than Kentucky inside in 2021 from drug overdoses, 14 half a percent increase health safety officials who are watching the say that a big part of the says was driven by the pandemic that, you know, there are people were going through hard times and also and just on set are the certainty of the Do with a big contributing factor to to this increase in deaths?

>> Yeah.

And some of options to get treatments or to have support peer support groups.

You know, they want is widely accessible.

Then during the pandemic as well.

Final topic, the Western Kentucky tornado recovery.

We've done a lot of reporting about that over the last week.

The anniversary, if you will, for the lack of a better word was was last week.

Talk to us about how many people are still and at the slow response that maybe FEMA is having to some people who are still waiting for assistance.

>> Yeah, it's hard to put a number on exactly how many people are still in temporary There are a lot of people who've gotten it, whether it either trailers are still living in temporary housing with the hotel who were living with But in terms FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management there's still a very small number of Kentuckians that haven't even gotten approved for FEMA benefits back in February is about 14%.

A federal officials promise that number would go up through the appeals process.

Looks like now as the months later, it's only to the still a lot of people waiting to get that assistance still kind of struggling to it.

This is everybody you this is going to be an incredibly long process of recovery process as soon as it happened, just because the damage was so widespread.

But it's really important for.

Everybody is paying attention to this issue in caring about other folks.

Eat Kentucky to remember that there's a whole lot of people still going through this and we'll still be digging out of the rubble and trying to put the pieces back for the months and really years to come.

>> And that's what we've heard.

Ron Barton, it's good to see you.

Thank you for your perspective and breaking it all down for us, as you always do.

Take care.

Changes are coming to downtown Bowling Green on Friday, July 15th, the city will launch.

>> Fountain Row calling it an entertainment destination center.

It will allow for those of legal age to carry the odot beverages out in the open between participating bars and restaurants during certain days and hours.

♪ >> Mountain Road is our entertainment destinations Center and Kentucky.

That means you're allowed to serve alcoholic drinks to go and approved cups during designated city operating hours.

So basically this is the chance for all of our downtown restaurants and bars in the Fountain row boundary offer an extension of their downtown amenities.

We're really excited about it.

>> It's a no-brainer.

I think it's nice to have the spotlight finally shift toward this end of town for one we waiting for decades for to focus on the historic downtown.

>> That's actually one of our fundraisers for soaking marketplace is the sale of alcohol beverages.

So for us, it just makes it easier for people to be able to grab a drink and experience the rest of downtown events.

This is a thing that's been in the works for Bowling Green for well over a year now there's over a dozen cities in Kentucky that already offer this.

And this is a chance for Bowling Green to finally catch up with some more progressive aspects of downtown living.

It's a great workforce development tool and an opportunity to expand all the amazing things are downtown E E news more people.

>> Which also means it's going to shy like a second home back to this turned the spotlight on a lot of businesses that people might not know about.

So I think once people see what downtown has to offer and that word of mouth spreads.

>> It's going it's going to be great for their through conversations with some city commission and the residents and downtown property owners and business owners.

We've all kind been in the learning process together.

And we have learned that this is an amazing economic development, opportunity for not just our restaurants and bars participating, which there's 19 of so far.

>> But also a great way to get foot traffic downtown to other businesses.

♪ >> I feel good about our economic growth right now in Bowling Green coming out of the You see a steady, steady incline.

>> All you have to do is walk in to any of the 19 participating restaurants and bars and to go drink and you'll get an unapproved Fountain Row Cup and you'll be able to walk around outside within the fountain row boundaries and all the public spaces all the way from Mellon mushrooms block to circus square in the ballpark and sky pack.

>> I just want to see them as many people as we can fit on the square.

>> He he did say that more people will come down.

I think that freedom will, you know, will open up more people to do more of.

And I think more businesses will get involved, you know, and that way makes it easier for a stock or nights.

When you come downtown, you have multiple things to go to.

You can take your drink around.

>> We've been looking for a good summer.

>> Each week we bring you arts and culture stories in a segment we call tapestry this week.

We're checking in on the governor's school for the Arts.

>> GSA has a 3 week summer intensive.

It's an arts program that's been around since 1987.

So we're celebrating our 35th anniversary this year.

Every you know, every upcoming junior and senior as welcome to apply for GSA, traditional schools and if I can, one of the most important parts of the program has always been empowering.

>> The young artist of Kentucky to realize just that that they are indeed our >> we find that young art as students don't really get.

>> To support that they need whether and is there really aren't the resources available to them where they're just on a lines of communication to lead them to those resources.

You know, some of our counties in Kentucky have performing arts high schools, some of our counties in Kentucky are lucky to have a piano, you know, outside of their church, so to speak.

I've gone to a theater that's at least partially like really young kids.

>> And I wanted a chance to like work with a bike rack.

Everyone could be like at my level we could all >> learn together.

>> My family background is very like academically and like based towards math and science.

And so I never thought I could do something in our and that's why also really enjoyed being here is because like it's something different that I actually enjoy.

It's really about bringing people from all parts of the commonwealth from all types of backgrounds.

It's been really cool because you can like you meet people from all over Kentucky and >> prof Mike different art forms and slick.

Our our groups are mixed together.

♪ >> It's also worth mentioning, too, that there is not a program like Kentucky GSA.

We are the only 2 wishon free 100% tuition free program.

That is the 3 parts in 10 said to every single student.

>> I'm hoping to gain more confidence in myself and making my own decisions towards what I want to do in the future.

And definitely more towards are like get more confidencein my art form.

I'm hoping to just like.

Get some new >> information from different people that have a nominee.

Got to talk to and just like really palace.

The skills that I came here with.

>> At the end of the day at, you know, how we can make the program more accessible to more students and how we can make it more impact.

And I think as we continue to build and as we continue to, I grow our supporters that we will continue to expand the program and just keep it around for another.

35 haha.

>> Here's to another.

35.

Thank you so very much for watching Kentucky edition tonight.

I hope to see you again tomorrow night at 6.30, eastern right here on KETK.