Money. Money. Money.
Money makes the world go ‘round; that’s a simple fact nobody is debating.
Everything we do on a daily basis revolves around money.
Products and services are priced at a certain dollar figure. We pay and we move on.
It is a simple concept, right?
Try telling that to the elected officials of this state.
Putting a price tag on an education is becoming an increasingly daunting task.
Every year, the legislators huddle in our state capital and every year, the same people go behind closed doors arguing over this and that.
Last year, it was slot machines that nobody could agree upon and this year it’s the same slot machines that are holding up presenting a manageable budget for the next two years.
You can’t oversimplify a budget process because there is a lot more that goes into it than meets the eye.
Even a university budget is more than just tuition revenue plus state appropriations plus donations equals a functioning university, which most people think is what the equation should be.
I sat down with Angie Martin, UK vice president of financial operations and treasurer, last year for about an hour, and she attempted to explain the budget process to me. Even as an accounting and finance major, my head was spinning by the end of the hour.
One thing I did take away from that meeting, though, was the need for a state budget to be in place before Martin and UK can do any planning for the next year.
So here it is, the last week of April and the state government does not have a budget in place and subsequently neither can UK.
On Friday, when the Council on Postsecondary Education voted to cap tuition increases at 6 percent for UK, I was a little surprised.
I wasn’t surprised by the fact tuition was going up, again, I was more surprised at the CPE’s ability to set a tuition increase without knowing how much the Kentucky universities’ state appropriations are for the next fiscal year.
Get your mind around this. At this point, only four months away from beginning the 2010-2011 academic year, universities are playing pin the tail on the donkey, as far as setting tuition rates is concerned.
Why this shot in the dark? One needs not look any further than about 40 miles down the road where the people elected to run this state are continuing to twiddle their thumbs in hope of some divine intervention to fall through the sky and give them a budget for the next two years.
When students see their tuition rates going up again next year, they do not need to turn their attention to the current administration or current president (although maybe our current President could look to entities like UK HealthCare or UK athletics on how to run a multi-million dollar business), they need to look down I-64.
For it is the officials, elected by the great people of this state, who are running education into the ground while breaking the bank of parents and students all across the state.
What is going on in Frankfort is a circus, with a circus defined as, “highly entertaining, yet pointless in the end.”
Our legislators provide the entertainment by making hollow arguments and then going home at the end of the day with nothing to show for all their “hard work.”
Give me a break, state government. Give every citizen of this state a break by checking your egos at the door and doing something good for this state.
Answer this question Mr. Legislator, would you want the education of this state to suffer because you and your fellow performers couldn’t put personal pride on the back burner? Is that too much to ask?
If the people were smart, they would vote every one of the current legislators out of office in the next election.
The circus comes to town every year, but the performers change — pricing an education is the current tightrope these performers are walking.
Slip up once and you hit the safety net. Slip up twice and you may find yourself out of a job. You’ve had slip number one, what will be the act in the second?
Austin Schmitt is a finance sophomore. E-mail opinions@kykernel.com.
If anybody is interested, here’s a list of other issues that the general assembly didn’t solve, taken from an editorial in last Tuesday’s Herald-Leader:
■ high school dropout age bill
■ unemployment insurance fix
■ Interest rates on payday lending didn’t get capped at a reasonable level — again.
■ Executive branch ethics statutes didn’t get updated — again. And they won’t until the legislation’s sponsor, Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, quits trying to hold statewide candidates to a higher standard on accepting campaign contributions from potential state contractors than he’s willing to impose on legislative candidates.
■ A persistent felony offender statute that contributes to Kentucky having the fastest-growing prison population in the country didn’t get reformed.
■ Neither did legislative pension rules. So, veteran lawmakers still can bump their benefits up 100 percent or more by accepting high-paying judicial or executive branch appointments for as few as three years.
■ Juvenile courts and child abuse records will be no more transparent than they were when the session began.
■ Legislation that would have restored full funding for the safety and security measures for social workers contained in the Boni Bill enacted three years ago died in the House when abortion-related amendments were attached to it.
■ The same tactics helped kill legislation that would have removed the requirement that makes some families pay premiums for the K-CHIP health insurance program for children.
■ No budget means no authorization for covering smoking cessation with Medicaid. Meanwhile, the Senate stripped the funding from legislation creating a colon cancer screening program.
■ Independent Kentucky voters remain shut out of a crucial part of the elective process after legislation that would have given the state open primaries died.
■ And the state’s resort parks still can’t serve visitors a cocktail before dinner or a glass of wine with it.
” I Got No Expectations.” MICK JAGGER 1969.
What do you expect from a part-time, non-professional legislature? Everyone in the USA Is LOL whenever the K word is mentioned. Tuition will always increase as tax revenues decrease, the money must come from somewhere and tax payers are sick and tired of the UK Money Bucket.