That's them today.

It could be us tonight.

What a new survey says about homeless students and Lexington.

This is really a pathway to help them identify that purpose in life.

How UK health care is investing in students that they say are often overlooked.

Why don't you tell and.

Let Broadway take you to a whole new.

World?

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press, Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome in to Kentucky Edition on this Wednesday, September 27th.

We're almost to the weekend.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for spending some time with us.

Don't expect a cut in the state personal income tax in 2025.

A law passed in 2022 automatically cuts Kentucky's income tax by half a percentage point each year.

If the state made certain financial conditions.

Because of that, the tax went down in 2023.

Another cut is on the way.

And 2024, as we told you a few weeks ago, this year, Kentucky failed to meet the conditions so there won't be a tax cut in 2025.

But should the state change the rules and cut the tax anyway?

Well, Monday on Kentucky tonight, we heard from State Senator Kristen McDaniel, chair of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

He says the safeguards preventing another automatic tax cut are there for a reason.

The mechanism functioned as it was designed to do and to kind of pump the brakes on this and make sure that we're in the appropriate place.

So I think that it really has been telling that, you know, like I say, it did work as intended, and I certainly don't think that I would see us going back on the measures that we put into place when we began this process.

So these are the conditions.

Kentucky has to have a balance in the budget reserve trust fund, sometimes called the rainy day fund.

That's at least 10% of general fund revenue.

And state revenue has to be greater than appropriations.

And the cost of a 1% tax cut.

The state failed to reach that second condition.

Now, in other news, a group of Kentucky House Republicans has unveiled a new plan to fight crime.

Without a doubt, we have an epidemic of crime in our commonwealth.

With Jefferson County leading as the epicenter of this crisis, in recent years, we have experienced record rates of homicides in urban and rural areas.

Carjackings are up 206% just in Louisville, and our overdose death rate in Kentucky is 57% above the national average.

Considering that the first duty of any civilized society is to protect its honest citizens from those who prey on their innocent fellow citizens, our team is taking action.

The Safer Kentucky Act, as it is called, contains 18 provisions, including a three strikes law that will require life in prison without the possibility of parole for any one convicted of a third violent felony offense.

It also requires prosecutors to seek the death penalty when evidence shows a law enforcement officer was intentional killed while performing his or her duties and allows for the death penalty or life in prison without parole for knowingly selling fentanyl or fentanyl derivative that causes a fatal overdose.

Another provision would establish a Kentucky State Police post in Jefferson County.

The lawmakers, all from Louisville, were asked where the officers would come from, since many law enforcement agencies around the state are struggling with staffing issues.

Based on our analysis of why we want Kentucky Kentucky State Police to offer resources to Jefferson County, I'll just make it very clear we by no means want Kentucky State Police on the streets of Louisville policing day to day.

We want resources that can free up LAPD officers to provide that street patrol that we so desperately need in our county.

Other provisions in the proposal include would protect business owners from being prosecuted if they are if they use a reasonable amount of force to stop a shoplifter.

It also establishes a wiretapping law for Kentucky, creates a stand alone carjacking law, and will require parents to attend their children's juvenile court hearings or face penalties.

The lawmakers did not have an estimated cost for the plan, but they say they were meeting with a budget committee this week to review it.

House Democratic caucus leaders said while they have yet to see the proposed legislation, the General Assembly, quote, has enacted bipartisan smart on crime initiatives over the years that have made a true difference, end quote.

We'll have more on the GOP anti-crime plan in a bit when I speak with public radio journalist Ryland Barton.

You're electing a new state treasurer on November 7th, along with a host of other offices.

But this job manages the state's checkbook of your tax dollars.

Michael Bowman is the Democratic nominee.

Now, he lost this race four years ago, even with a victorious Andy Beshear at the top of the ticket.

I asked Mr.

Bowman what's different this time around?

Well, I think there is a difference in the person at the top of the ticket.

This time around in terms of he's not the challenger.

He is the incumbent.

And not only is he the incumbent, he is a remarkably popular incumbent.

And I think there is a desire to send him the help in Frankfort that he needs to be able to continue for four more years.

So while there may not have been coattails four years ago, it's certainly possible that he has those now.

But I'm not relying on that.

I'm getting out across the state.

The sense I get is there is a lot of enthusiasm for ensuring that Andy remains governor and that we give him the help that he needs.

And that means electing people from secretary of state and attorney general all the way down to Treasurer and commissioner of agriculture.

So we are doing our job.

Putting that, as you said, the shoe leather to the pavement and getting it in front of those people and letting them know why I'm more qualified than my opponent and why I can lead this office and be a good partner with the governor for the next four years to ensure that we're doing the right things for Kentucky.

You'll see Michael Bowman's Republican opponent, Mark Metcalf, tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

And you can see the full interviews with them both Sunday morning at 1130 Eastern, 1030 Central on connections here on KCET.

There is a new move in Congress to replace the horse racing, integrity and safety Authority known as hisA.

Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a Republican, is introducing the race Horse Health and Safety Act.

It would give more power back to state organizations.

Higgins bill already has support from several Horsemen's associations and the North American Association of Racetrack Veterinarians.

Critics of hisA say it goes too far with arbitrary medication rules.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Congressman Andy Barr of Lexington helped push HEISER through Congress.

Hundreds of students in Fayette County are homeless, according to a new survey.

Central Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative, the Catholic Action Center and Street Voice Council conducted the survey.

The groups also announced a new campaign give kids a home to address the problem.

We speak about inner city council, how we are thriving in Lexington.

But if there is one child who is homeless that is not thriving.

The purpose of this report was to obtain a better understanding of the current conditions of homelessness in Lexington.

We found that there were.

2410.

People that we met experiencing.

Homelessness so far this year.

Since August, the 16 first day of school.

We have 453 children that are displaced in our communities.

We have 335 that are doubled up.

We have 44 currently in hotels and motels.

We have 86 that are in shelters or transitional housing.

We have unsheltered, which is inappropriate housing.

We have 18 and we have 19 unaccompanied youth that are displaced in our community.

I've done street outreach work here.

In Lexington for the last.

Five years, two years with Lexington Rescue Mission.

It's the worst I've seen since I've started.

I have personal experiences being a mother, homeless, with my child on the streets.

And so these statistics is is undeniable.

My mother.

Told me.

That if you have facts and.

Documentation.

No one can dispute that.

And something must be done in the city of Lexington.

The McKinney Vento Act is a federal law that is in the entire United States that we must address our homeless children.

We must ensure that they get the same equal education as their peers.

Our primary goal is to reduce the barriers to their learning.

And if you don't have a place to sleep, you don't have a bed to sleep in.

If you're not getting the proper nutrition, if you are not have have clean clothes to wear and that's a barrier and there's no quick fixes to homelessness.

Each individual and each family has their own story.

In the cold winter months during the snow.

Leaving people living in cars, places where.

None of us would ever want to live, the number of even temporary housing or transitional.

Housing or hotel rooms.

A lot of those programs are gone now.

And my sense that we had everything that was because of COVID.

All that impact and all that extra help which we all are aware of is gone.

We're asking the community, as we did in 20.

16 and 2017, to come forward.

This will be a simple way that.

People can.

Give funds that will go directly to housing the children of the McKinney Winter.

Program.

We are all concerned for those who are experiencing homelessness in our city, and we know that it takes all of us together to see and hear and deal with this multifaceted problem.

It's our responsibility.

And homelessness has no face because it's them today.

It could be us tonight.

This street survey shows more homelessness in Lexington than a housing and urban Development count.

Earlier this year, Mayor Linda Gordon says the two counts use different methods.

Time now for a midweek check in of some major political news this week so far in Kentucky with Rylan Barton, who's managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So let's start with the Kentucky Republicans.

Many of them have unveiled this kind of omnibus anti-crime plan, 18 points to it, 18 different provisions.

Tell us about the timing of this and maybe some of the substantive matters they want to propose.

Yeah, the timing of it, obviously, this comes right before or a month before the gubernatorial election on November 7th.

So there's you know, this has implications for, you know, all these Republican legislators are campaigning against Governor Andy Beshear and also in favor of Attorney General Daniel Cameron for for taking over that spot.

But also, this is a bit of a preview of what, you know, they're trying to lay out their priorities ahead of next year's legislative session.

Some of the things that they want to put their stamp on.

So, yeah, this is a huge sweeping bill, has a lot a lot in it.

I think one of the things that rise to the top is creating a three strikes program that would basically, if somebody is convicted of three separate felonies, then it would lead to the on that third felony would lead to life imprisonment without parole.

There's a few other.

A lot of them are just kind of enhancing charges that are already on the books to make them more severe.

One of them involving a carjacking.

If there's a fatal carjacking, that could lead to the death penalty.

Somebody kills kills.

A police officer is convicted of that.

That would would be a capital offense on its own.

These are things that are already kind of in a possibility of somebody getting charged with, but they just want to further make that stricter couple elements of this really echo what Republican gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron has advocated for earlier this summer, wanting to set up a Kentucky State Police post in Louisville being one of them.

That's something that he and the governor kind of went back and forth over whether there were the you know, whether they would take resources and away from one local law enforcement efforts and whether that means that they're going to boost just the number of active duty troopers in the state, which the state has really set aside money for that at this point.

So a big old plan.

A lot of this is kind of a conversation starter, but I do think that we will see some version of this once the legislative session starts in January.

And is this all about or stem from the violent crime rates in Louisville?

Is this all about what's happening in Jefferson County, or is this really trying to take a statewide approach and answer crime that's happening all over the state?

So much of it seems to be directed towards Louisville.

I mean, obviously, there are there's so many different parts of the state.

Yeah, you can say that.

Some of them are directed statewide.

One of them in particular, north boosting charges for people who trafficked fentanyl.

If that sale ends up leading to a fatal drug overdose, then that person can be charged with a capital offense.

So and that's something that's a statewide phenomenon.

But yeah, some of that some of this is really directed towards Jefferson County, the carjacking, the carjackings have been on, or at least for a while.

We're on the rise in Jefferson County.

And so, yeah, they're trying to put the law at the center of this.

And these were Louisville lawmakers who proposed this as well.

All right.

So now let's talk about some federal action that has some major implications for Kentucky, and that's a possible federal government shutdown as we get ever closer to the end of the fiscal year for the federal government.

One program in particular could have some major implications for Kentuckians.

The work program, the women, infants and children's program.

Talk to us about the possible dangers here for that population.

Yeah, So there's there's so many things that the government shutdown would affect.

One of the reporters at Law, Public Media, Debbie Karthikeyan, did a story about how a week would be affected because, I mean, there's 120,000 Kentuckians who are receive with benefits.

And this would really create a, you know, a little bit of a ripple effect for this program as it seeks to continue providing benefits for people.

Yeah, this is one of the one of the programs that would be affected by the shutdown.

I think it's something that wouldn't happen immediately.

But as it continues to go on, this would end.

This did end up hurting both.

And we really promise it's you know, it's an important institution in supporting a program.

You know, if everybody remembers the baby formula shortage, what was that last year which played an important part in trying to making sure that there were folks who really needed it and couldn't easily access baby formula, had a little bit easier time provided that way.

So it's just another one of the, you know, fears of what would actually happen if if a government shutdown takes place, which we're getting closer and closer to.

We only got three more days left in the month.

But, you know, there's a lot of different other programs as well that would be affected.

Most notably the folks who work for the military, especially civil servants who work in the military that would be put on furlough.

There's still some question as to what exactly would happen with TSA agents, because we still need to keep planes in the sky and safe and folks going through security trainings and they would be put on furlough.

So there's there is widespread implications for what would happen if a government shutdown takes place.

So final point to mention Kentucky State University, which is the only publicly funded HBCU historically black college or university, Simmons College is another one, but it's not publicly funded.

Has been it's been found that through the US Department of Agriculture and the Education Department, that it has been underfunded.

What's happening here?

Yeah, they they released a report and send it to a few different states that have HBCUs in them.

And part of the reason the Agriculture Department's involved in this is that these are land grant institutions.

The special case was set up in the late 19th century and so the federal government has some stake in the success of these institutions, but of funding still, for the most part comes from the state.

They said that the state had underfunded KSU over the last 30 years to the tune of $172 million, which is really, really remarkable, especially when you know, anybody is paying attention to the news of KSU.

Over the last decade or so, they've really struggled with a lot of different criteria, whether it's enrollment or graduation statistics.

Then some of their financials have really, really been in trouble in recent years.

The legislature set aside a $23 million bailout for them to try and get them back on track.

Last year.

So and really how this all fits within the larger conversation of state funding of higher education, that something has dropped off significantly, especially since 20 and the and the recession then higher education was one of those, you know, biggest areas that were that that was cut from state funding.

And these institutions have relied a lot more on tuition in the in the process of doing that.

So I think that this has struck up a conversation among among lawmakers about how about the future of KSU and about how much the state needs to invest to kind of make sure that they continue to be on track and obviously that the federal government has a stake in this and they're going to be paying attention to how the state takes care of KSU going forward.

Yeah.

Well, thank you.

Roland Barton, always good to see you.

Thank you for breaking everything down for us.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

UK Health Care has partnered with Fayette County Public Schools and the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to create a project search and internship program for students with developmental disabilities.

Rick Rickett has a daughter in the program, ELA, who was one of seven students.

The program runs nine months parallel to the school year.

You feel like they're always going to need a certain level of care and they aren't ever going to be you sometimes thinking they're never going to be normal like the other kids and do what they are going to do and then when things like this come along, you you can't help but jump on the opportunity.

So often I think we limit ourselves when we think about diversity only as a racial issue or a black and white issue.

It's so much bigger, it's so much broader.

And I believe that this program is an illustration of the vastness of diversity, equity and inclusion.

And it's really about making sure that we have a table big enough to have viewpoint diversity and to have people from all walks of life, including people with differing different abilities.

So this is very important and a very, very important step, not just to demonstrate the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to include people that I believe oftentimes are overlooked.

Ella has a rare genetic condition.

It's led to some developmental disability for her.

And they had come to me as a parent and said, We think that was a really great fit for this new program that we're doing at UK health care.

And in terms of vocational rehab.

Ryan and his team has been able to provide us with skilled coaches and these individuals are very instrumental in helping the students and meeting them where they are, but also making them feel very comfortable in the respective areas that they're doing their internships here in the hospital.

All right.

I believe that the skills that the students will walk away with would really equip them to go anywhere.

And it doesn't even have to be in health care because it's a very broad range of skill sets that they're being exposed to that can be applicable to any industry.

Thing that I would like for people to know about this program is that truly we believe that it is a pathway to unlimited possibilities, and we believe that as a society so often we get in a rut of deciding or determining people's worth based on what they cannot do, as opposed to looking at what they can do.

And we believe that these students all have promise.

They have purpose.

And this is really a pathway to help them identify that purpose in life and have that that mean.

Take any opportunity, the opportunity that you can for your child.

They can do more than you probably think they can.

Even I can say that as a parent, sometimes we have our reservations about what our kids can do.

But when somebody else comes up to you and says, Your child can do this, do it, trust them.

Because these children, just like all other children, are different outside of your home and they have a lot of other abilities that maybe you don't know about.

Just different, no telling.

Young actors would love the chance to act with Broadway talent.

Well, it happened in Jessamine County as theater director Austin Yale brought Broadway star Christina Albano and two other actors to Kentucky for a benefit concert with local talent ranging from elementary school to college and beyond.

Take a step into the spotlight for this week's Tapestry.

Indigo Queen.

That thing closes and you realize you didn't know anything.

We have some good talent here in Lexington, and I was very impressed.

And I'm very happy to be singing with them and sharing the stage.

Outside with a stranger.

So I met Austin, Amy.

I came and worked with the Company of Mean Girls.

Was happening here in Jackson County in the summer.

And to be here with these students that were so excited about learning and about doing the show and I just felt super connected.

And I reached out to Austin.

We were like, Let's try to do something else.

This your consulate to benefit or to raise money?

Arts funding is so, so important and it's a huge passion of mine and this county and this area is so supportive of the arts in that way.

And so I just felt like this would be such a good opportunity for us to do something for the community and for the arts programing here in this.

County and this concert in particular is benefiting just me, the arts, a program that I have worked alongside of pretty much since my eighth grade year here at West of the Mill school.

And yeah, it's just a great way to help support local theater.

I think it is good for everybody to at least do one theater production in their lifetime.

I think it is just a great experience.

There's really nothing else like it and just being able to stand up on stage and just express yourself and just put yourself out there is just the best feeling ever.

Y Oh, I really think it's important to support your local community artists and your local community theaters because they're sort of the gateway.

Especially if you don't get a chance to travel as much, You can bring the world to them and you can sort of experience what it's like to be a part of a different culture.

For example.

A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view.

No one to tell us no where to go.

Or say we're on the train.

The first I was I was really nervous, but very excited.

And then I was really nervous last night when we all rehearsed gether and then we all saying the other name was awesome and they were great.

It's incredible, man.

I think I got most of the nerves going.

Yesterday singing in front of them already.

There.

They're so supportive and so sweet, so they easily get all the jitters away and they whether you're a student who's going to go on to become a Broadway actor or a stage manager or something totally unrelated, you're going into nursing, you're going into athletics, like theater teaches you the art of cooperation and a public speaking of confidence of work, it's not about getting them to this place.

It's not about you should want this, or your kids can be on Broadway.

That is a goal for some people and not for others.

The thing that they should want is to watch their child be on stage in a community safe atmosphere that is encouraging them to share their voice that is beneficial no matter what the goal is for them to just keep showing up to things like this.

They don't have to want to be a Broadway star.

They don't have to want to turn it into a job.

It's just a chance to think creatively.

It's so vital, so.

Wow, what an incredible experience.

Jessamine County Arts hopes to Make Love Broadway an annual event.

Competitive swim teams are worried about new state lifeguard regulations.

It's going to hurt more than it's going to help.

You know, you're basically shutting down lesson programs or are you going to price them out of the range of people can afford them?

One lifeguard is now required for every 2000 square feet of water.

Some coaches say that's too much.

More on this Thursday on Kentucky edition, which we hope you'll join us for at 630 Eastern, 530 Central, where we inform, connect and Inspire.

We hope that your subscribe to our email newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at Ket Dawg.

Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen, Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop.

I'm Rene Shaw.

Thank you for joining us tonight and hope to see you right back here again tomorrow night.

Take good care.