By Patrick Crowley
Enquirer staff writer

FORT MITCHELL - State Senate candidate Kathy Groob believes she has come up with a way to prevent a future budget impasse in the Kentucky General Assembly: Don't let legislators leave Frankfort and hold their paychecks until they get a budget passed.

"Legislators of both parties who fail to pass a budget should feel the same pain as the people who elect them," said Groob, a Fort Mitchell Democrat running against Republican Sen. Jack Westwood in Kenton County's 23rd Senate District.

"The best way to make sure they feel it is to hurt them in the pocketbook," she said.

Groob said that, if elected in November, she would sponsor legislation to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would require lawmakers to remain in Frankfort until a budget is passed.

Under the amendment, legislators would not be paid beyond the final scheduled day of the legislative session.

"I want to put real teeth into the importance of cooperation, collaboration and bipartisan, common-sense compromise," Groob said.

For the second time in three years, legislators failed to pass a budget by the final day of the legislative session in April. Each time, the state continued operating under a spending plan designed by the governor.

In 2002, the plan was put together by the administration of Democrat Paul Patton. This year Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher is overseeing spending in the absence of the budget.

Northern Kentucky is hurt by the lack of a budget.

More than $100 million in state money was earmarked for Northern Kentucky, including $50 million for an arena at Northern Kentucky University and $14 million for construction at Gateway Community and Technical College.

But there can be no new spending on major projects without a budget.

Groob has said that Westwood and other lawmakers failed their constituents.

"Kentucky needs leaders who will do the job they were elected to do," she said. "We must never again find ourselves in the shameful position of not having a state budget."

Westwood has said he is also upset that the budget was not passed, though he has put the blame on House Democrats for not accepting Fletcher's tax modernization plan as part of the budget.

Westwood said Groob's plan would be too difficult to turn into reality, according to Scott Sedmak, his campaign manager.

"The problem is that it takes a three-fifths (legislative) majority to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot," Sedmak said. "That requires more votes than it does to pass a budget."

So the same people holding up the budget could do the same to a constitutional amendment, he said.

Westwood has said he will be "willing to do just about anything" to pass a budget, Sedmak said.

But he is also concerned about "putting Northern Kentucky projects on the chopping block."

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com