FRANKFORT — The latest round of budget cuts announced by the Patton administration Friday will hit welfare families, the mentally ill and cut money some school districts had been expecting.

        Other cuts will hit an area of particular importance to Northern Kentucky — housing juvenile offenders.

        And Budget Director James Ramsey warned that revenue receipts early in the fiscal year could make the estimated shortfall for the year even bigger than the $326 million that has already been cut.

        “I think it is likely we will have another round of cuts,” agreed Cabinet Secretary Crit Luallen.

        While the cuts do not go to the heart of state aid to local schools, there are some cuts in education-related funding.

        Mr. Ramsey said schools will get the per-pupil funding that had been promised in the budget, but $50 million that had been appropriated will not be forwarded.

        Northern Kentucky superintendents brainstormed this week at their monthly meeting about where such cuts might be least harmful, with the suggestions ranging from rewards money for schools to textbooks and curriculum.

        School officials and some legislators have complained loudly that withholding the money amounts to a cut and a broken promise from Gov. Paul Patton, a great advocate of education throughout his campaign and term in office, who said he would hold education harmless in the budget cuts.

        “This is not having any programmatic, classroom impact on education,” Mr. Ramsey said.

        Kentucky School Boards Association spokesman Brad Hughes said the extra money would have been put to good use, but he agreed that holding the funding would not amount to a cut in education spending.

        “It's really splitting hairs because we've got some folks who definitely needed it and used it the last three years and were planning on spending it,” Mr. Hughes said.

        Budget officials mollified school leaders earlier in the week when they agreed not to cut about $10 million from local school funding that pays health insurance and other benefits for some workers who are otherwise paid with federal funds.

        Other moves announced by Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Luallen include delays in opening state juvenile detention centers and cuts in contract amounts paid to house juvenile offenders; reductions in mental health and mental retardation programs and reductions in overtime for prison facilities.

Local impact
        Though he is still waiting to hear specifics, Boone County Administrator Jim Parsons said Friday that cuts in funding to house juvenile offenders will likely come from the reimbursements the state pays to counties.

        Most counties, including Boone, don't house juvenile offenders. Instead counties pay facilities, such as the Juvenile Detention Center in Newport, $90 a day to incarcerate juveniles.

        Under the current system, the state eventually reimburses counties $80 of that fee.

        “But if there are going to be cuts I would expect they would be in the reimbursements,” Mr. Parsons said.

        Welfare programs will be among the hardest hit in the latest round. The basic state welfare program will be reduced by $5.9 million, a welfare-to-work program will be cut and an education center will be closed.

        “I wish we could say we could cut $326 million out of the budget and there would be no pain and no impact. But we just can't do that,” Mr. Ramsey said.

        Money will also be saved from school construction and other capital projects. But Mr. Ramsey said the savings are a result of dramatically lower interest rates and no actual projects will be delayed to accommodate the shortfall.

        The state had earlier announced it would take $120 million from its budget reserve and take money that was targeted to improve the financial condition of various funds to pay bills this year.

        The budget reductions cut a wide swath across the executive branch, and the legislative branch took a proportional hit of its much smaller budget.

        The judicial branch will be cut only about $1 million. A proportional cut of about 3.2 percent from the judicial budget would have meant a cut of about $6 million from its $185 million budget. Officials with the judicial branch did not return phone calls for comment on Friday.

        Mr. Luallen noted that the executive branch has no authority to order cuts in other branches of government, though budget cuts have been shared in the past.

Coping with less
        Many individual agencies will save money by not filling vacancies, reducing operating costs and delaying maintenance or purchases. The Department of Libraries and Archives, for example, will delay buying two new bookmobiles. Grants to the Mountain Arts Center and the Blue Apple Players will be reduced.

        The budget cuts are from a spending plan put together by the 2000 General Assembly based on revenue projections made in January 2000. Revenue estimates also fell short last year and a preliminary forecast from the group of economists who make Kentucky's official revenue estimates indicate there could be another $60 million shortfall from the original plan this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2002.

        “It isn't getting any better,” Mr. Ramsey said. “In the back of our minds and on scraps of paper, we're trying to figure out where to cut another $60 million.”

        August receipts to the General Fund were slightly below the receipts for the same month a year ago. The General Fund must grow by 3.5 percent for the year to meet even the lowered budget and through the first two months of the year there has been no growth at all.

        Mr. Ramsey said a looming problem is putting together the budget for the next two fiscal years, which will be presented to the 2002 General Assembly in January.

       Enquirer reporter Patrick Crowley contributed to this report.
       

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