Frankfort Session Starts With A Bang!

Session Chairs, Dr. Kimberly Holmes, ’07, Associate Director of Land Grant, Kentucky State University, and Tony Sholar, ’95, Founding Partner, The Rotunda Group, LLC, combined their areas of expertise to put together an interesting and insightful session for the Class of 2010 as they visited Frankfort for their second session. 

Wednesday’s golf outing for class members was hosted at the Frankfort Country Club by Ranie Wohnhas, ’07 and LKY Board member, Business Operations Support Director, Kentucky Power – AEP.  For those not playing golf but able to arrive in Frankfort in the early afternoon, a very special “Behind the Scenes” tour of the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, was hosted by Kent Whitworth, ’07, Executive Director, Kentucky Historical Society.  Many attended Wednesday’s optional activities including a visit with our men and women in gray, the Kentucky State Police. The group was welcomed by Commissioner Rodney Brewer and Lt. Colonel Leslie Gannon.  Commissioner Brewer spoke to the class about the history and background of the organization and Lt. Colonel Gannon also spoke to the group and arranged their hands-on training, which included fingerprinting and other crime scene investigation tools, as well as, the opportunity to participate in hands-on weapon training. 

Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc., hosted and sponsored dinner for the group at Serafini’s private dining room.  Debbie Clark, Jim Beam Brands, introduced the members of their group and briefly addressed the class.  A delicious meal with bourbon included as an ingredient in every course was served. Bernie Lubbers, Whiskey Professor, Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, provided the class with information on the bourbon industry, shared great stories, and a heart-felt toast entitled Drink Life Deeply that he had written. Dinner and libations were certainly a treat for our participants and we are grateful to Tony for securing this new session sponsor for the Leadership Kentucky program. 

Thursday morning we boarded buses provided by Kentucky State University and traveled to the State Capitol for our day focused on Kentucky’s Government.  Fidelity Investments generously sponsored this year’s Government Day events, including all breaks and an outstanding lunch at the Governor’s Mansion. 

Upon arrival each class member received a packet of extremely useful information prepared for them by the Legislative Research Commission.  They chose their seats in the beautiful and historic House of Representatives Chamber and Kim Holmes and Tony Sholar welcomed the class to Frankfort and the Capitol and introduced the first speaker of the day, Honorable Trey Grayson, ’02, Secretary of State, Commonwealth of Kentucky.  Secretary Grayson spoke to the class on the important topic of leadership in the government sector and how the role of Governor has changed since the end of the Patton administration.  His message also included our rural history and the current rural/urban divide and related issues.  The Secretary spoke of the role advanced technology has played in his office and the savings derived there from.  He generously bestowed the honor of Honorable Kentucky Colonel on each member of the Class of 2010 by presenting them with a certificate.

Honorable Phillip Shepherd, Judge, Franklin County Circuit Court, provided his insightful perspective of how the Circuit Court in Franklin County is impacted by being located in Frankfort and the number of cases handled that pertain to state government. 

As the day progressed we expanded on the state’s current and future financial needs.  Session chair, Tony Sholar, did an outstanding job in securing speakers to help us understand the three largest areas of our state budget – Education, Medicaid and Corrections.  He provided an overview on the topic of Legislative Perspectives on Kentucky’s Financing Needs and introduced our next three speakers. 

Representative Carl Rollins, Co-Chair, Interim Joint Committee on Education, spoke frankly about the needs of education and the accomplishments he felt had been made in the Special Session.  The “Teacher’s Retirement” legislation dealt with health benefits for retired teachers and through negotiations with all parties, the bonding was saved and a savings of $61 million dollars should result.  He stated that the Commonwealth had a very good chance of receiving a large sum of federal dollars in the next round of grants expected in the summer. 

Medicaid – an extremely complex and expensive program that was addressed by Beth Jurek, Budget Director, Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services.  Her remarks helped us understand Kentucky’s Medicaid costs as well as federal matching dollars.  She talked about the unprecedented growth in enrollment in Medicaid in Kentucky resulting from the current economic downturn.  As long as employment remains high and jobs are not being created, enrollment will continue to grow, costs will continue to grow and our Commonwealth will need more dollars dedicated to Medicaid. 

Representative John Tilley, Chair, Judiciary, talked with the class about the current corrections budget and, particularly, its unsustainable rates of incarceration.  Despite being one of the safest states in the United States, we are incarcerating our citizens at a faster pace than any other state.  Much of our jail overcrowding is due to an outdated and failed “War on Drugs” and the need to re-tool the criminal code and reinvest correction funding.  A great deal of the annual budget is invested in the correction system and is simply not sustainable. 

The Class walked to the Governor’s Mansion for a group photograph and a lovely lunch at the Mansion.  In the absence of Governor Beshear, Ann Evans, Executive Director, Governor’s Mansion, welcomed the group for lunch, gave them a brief overview of the Mansion and encouraged them to tour after lunch.  The dining room was beautifully set and fresh flowers from the grounds made each table elegantly festive.  After an excellent meal and touring the group returned to the House Chamber for the remainder of the afternoon.  Joining the class for lunch were LKY Board members, John Malloy, ’09, Pam Helton, 04, and Sandy Dunahoo, ’08, along with Mike Helton. 

Our last speaker of the day, Mike Helton, President, Government Strategies, spoke to the class on “Financing Kentucky’s Future”.  “We are currently operating with a state general fund budget that is as much as 12% less than the previous year  . . . and we could approach a billion dollar deficit in the next biennial budget.”  Mike’s presentation was full of extremely relevant and insightful information about the state’s current and ongoing financial crisis.  Mike left the class with the message that only when we address taxation comprehensively will we be able to depart from the patchwork quilt of taxation that impedes our competitive stance in national and global markets. 

Following Mike’s presentation the class broke out into groups for discussion on Financing Kentucky’s Future with Tony Sholar serving as moderator.  Each group pondered the question of how to finance Kentucky’s future, choosing from three alternatives, with the group leader reporting their choice, the group’s vision of how their choice would move Kentucky forward, and providing three specific steps they would choose to successfully implement their choice. 

After a day of listening to presenters the class was delighted to board buses and head to Woodford Reserve Distillery in Versailles.  Hosted and sponsored by Brown-Forman Corporation, our class members were entertained by the distillery tour, tasting the wonderful libations offered, and having a beautifully prepared meal in the Visitor’s Center on the rolling bluegrass grounds.  Board members Barbara W. Jones and husband, Rick, Tim Mosher, and Ranie Wohnhas joined the class for the evening at Woodford Reserve.  Our guest speaker for the evening, David Adkisson, ’92, President & CEO, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, was introduced by Barbara Jones, ’01, LKY Immediate Past-Chair.  David’s presentation The Leaky Bucket provided further information on the three major areas of government spending – corrections, Medicaid and public employee health benefits – and outlined the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s potential solutions to decreasing the amount of government dollars spent on those three areas. 

On Friday we switched gears to focus our learning efforts on media.  Laura Knoth, ’07, Executive Director, Kentucky Corn Growers Association/KYSGGA, filled in for session chair, Dr. Kimberly Holmes for the day.  Back with Leadership Kentucky for his 23rd class presentation, public speaking guru Arch Lustberg presented Dealing with the Media & Public Speaking.  Mr. Lustberg’s career has been unique and intriguing and his client list is a who’s who of business leaders, association executives, elected officials and top professionals in every field.  2010 Class members, Bob Owen, JJ Jackson, John Cullen and Amanda Ingram, did an outstanding job in assisting Arch with his message through their willingness to volunteer.  Bob and JJ presented portions of speeches they had given in the past, and John and Amanda played the role of innocent victims as Arch conducted interviews in his famous hostile investigative reporter mode. Everyone leaves his presentations with a tremendous amount of knowledge, having had an enormous amount of fun while learning. 

After lunch and time for Arch to talk with and sign books for class members, our attention turned to Our Changing Media.  David Hawpe, ’85, Retired, VP/Editorial Manager, The Courier-Journal, spoke to the class about the changing role of media today and the various sources where we now receive “news” and other information. 

Responding to a question from the class he talked about the public’s expectation of objective journalism and other related topics.  Renee Shaw, ’07, Producer/Host, Kentucky Educational Television (KET) continued the discussion of changing media.  She talked about the loss of funding for KET and other public television outlets, the reduction in staff at KET over the past few years and how that impacts local programming. Renee also talked about KET’s leadership in the area of GED training and how that programming is used by public television stations across the U.S.  Kentucky has a wonderful history of being a standout in the public television industry and will continue to do so. 

The last two speakers of the session, Shirley Mason, Legislative Record Compiler, LRC, and Ron Weber, Public Information Officer, LRC, provided a great deal of information to us on Citizens’ Access to Legislative Information. There is an amazing amount of information compiled by the LRC and available to all Kentucky citizens.  Information is provided by LRC through the Peggy King Legislative Reference Library, informational publications, educational materials and on the web at www.lrc.ky.gov.

Thank you June Session Sponsors:

Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc.

Brown-Forman Corporation

Fidelity Investments

Honorable Trey Grayson

Kentucky Historical Society

Kentucky Power - AEP

Kentucky State Police

Kentucky State University

Legislative Research Commission