By Austin Schmitt

The 2009 session of the Kentucky General Assembly convened Jan. 6 in Frankfort with the governor’s proposal for statewide budget cuts set to dominate the discussion.

Gov. Steve Beshear’s initial budget proposal calls for a minimum of a 2 percent cut in higher education funding, which would effect cuts at UK.

While the state is in a budget crisis, Beshear wants to protect all levels of education, said Jill Midkiff, deputy communications director for the governor, so he is looking to other areas to find savings.

“He is cutting other areas of government to try and protect higher education, elementary and secondary,” Midkiff said.

A main component of Beshear’s plan to confront the budget deficit is a cigarette tax. The plan would raise the current tax on cigarettes 70 cents, according to a news release from the governor’s office. Beshear presented a similar raise in the cigarette tax in the last legislative session but it failed to pass the House.

UK President Lee Todd supports the cigarette tax as a way of making education a priority.

“I believe the governor’s approach to balancing the state’s budget enables Kentucky to say as loudly as we can that education at all levels is our top priority,” Todd said in a statement last month. “In particular, I strongly support a substantial increase in the cigarette tax, which will help us to invest in education when times are good and find ways to protect our schools when times are tough.”

Republican State Rep C.B. Embry (R-Morgantown) doesn’t believe instituting a cigarette tax will create enough revenue to offset budget deficits.

“At best, the tax may pass somewhere between 30 and 40 cents and would only create between $80 and $85 million of revenue,” Embry said. “It’s just a smidgen of the deficit.”

Embry said he feels the concern of constituents in his district, where three of four citizens do not live in a city and are mainly farmers.

“Of all the e-mails I received last week, they were against three issues: a cigarette tax, expanded casino gambling and any type of tax increase,” Embry said.

If a cigarette tax doesn’t pass, education or other areas in the budget will be cut more, but a cigarette tax is the best way to get money into the budget now, Midkiff said.

“(Beshear) is focused on the immediate financial shortfall that he will need to make up by the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2009,” Midkiff said. “A cigarette tax is the best way to inject money now.”

The casino gaming bill, another proposal Beshear attempted to pass last year but failed to move out of the House, is not something that would help the state’s short-term financial problem, Midkiff said. The proposal would have allowed 12 casinos in Kentucky.

The budget deficit and its relation to education is a significant overarching issue, said State Rep Kelly Flood (D-Lexington).

“(Education) is really the core piece,” Flood said. “Sixty percent of the budget goes to education, 20 to health and 10 to criminal justice with the other 10 percent going toward running the government.”

Determining where higher education fits on the hierarchy of items to be cut is hard to do at this point, said Ken Winters, a Republican state senator and chair of the Senate Education Committee. Making this decision will be key in passing Beshear’s budget plan, he said.