Worker Misclassification Drains Money from Vital Public Services
March 3, 2016
When it comes to drains on our state budget, special interest tax breaks aren’t the only thing taking money away from vital public services. Another issue is worker misclassification, which occurs when an employer incorrectly designates a worker as an independent contractor rather than an employee. This misclassification is not only unfair to the employee — who doesn’t receive protections like unemployment, workers compensation and other benefits of employment rather than contracting — but also to the state budget, which […]
March 2, 2016
For years, millions of scholarship dollars have been diverted away from Kentucky’s need-based financial aid programs to the General Fund. Kentucky has two need-based financial aid programs funded by the lottery, called College Access Program (CAP) and the Kentucky Tuition Grant. According to state law, lottery funding should be split three ways, with $3 million going directly to literacy programs, the next 45 percent going to the merit-based Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) and the remaining 55 percent split between […]
February 16, 2016
Kentucky is one of many states that operate a child care assistance program, which reimburses child care providers who accept children from low-income families. But the program is vastly underfunded, putting a strain on not only child care providers – who aren’t receiving enough to cover their services, causing many to close – but also parents, many who don’t qualify for assistance because eligibility is too restrictive. One such facility is the New Beginnings Development Center in Hazard, whose story […]
February 12, 2016
The revenue we have to invest in Kentucky almost always grows, year over year. The current forecast predicts the state will collect about $320 more in 2016 than it did in 2015. Yet when you compare the resources we have to the size of our economy – which is directly related to what it takes to maintain investments in education, health and other crucial services for thriving communities – we see that the revenue we have to invest in Kentucky […]
