"I was scared to death about it, but I think we would have done it," said Karen Hahn, president of the Boone County teachers union.

Oct. 27 was the date set for a statewide strike by the Kentucky Education Association. It canceled those plans after the General Assembly on Tuesday restored health benefits that had been cut by Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

"The biggest thing we had going for us was the fact that it's an election year," Hahn said.

Scrambling to avoid a mutiny, the legislature agreed to spend an extra $172 million next year to keep health costs the same or slightly less than this year for 170,000 state employees.

APPLICATIONS

The new insurance application for Kentucky state employees will be available online, at http://personnel.ky.gov, beginning today. Open enrollment starts Monday and will last for two weeks, a much shorter period than usual.

Teachers also will receive a 1 percent raise in January, in addition to the 2 percent mandated in July.

The extra money comes courtesy of new revenue projections. What happens next year - when health costs rise again and revenue doesn't keep up - is "the question of the century," said state Rep. Jim Callahan, D-Wilder.

"There's going to be a monumental problem there," Callahan said.

His prediction: Legislators will have no choice but to raise Kentucky's cigarette tax, which is lowest in the nation at 3 cents a pack.

Politically, that's the most realistic source of revenue, he said, because smoking is harmful to the health. For legislators who vowed not to raise taxes, funding health insurance by taxing smokers will be more palatable than other options, Callahan said.

For this year, at least, Northern Kentucky teachers are breathing a sigh of relief. Striking has been ruled illegal for public employees in Kentucky, so teachers risked being held in contempt of court if they walked out.

"I'm glad we don't have to see what the results would be," said Matt Engel, a teacher at Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger. "There are people I know who said, 'If we strike, I'm going. It's strong enough of a cause, and I'm going to do it.' "

Engel said that with health coverage now restored, he'll be holding off on applying for jobs in Southwest Ohio.

On average, teachers in Hamilton County earn about 29 percent more than their Northern Kentucky counterparts. They also pay about $100 a month for family health coverage, compared with at least $420 in Kentucky.

"When you think about just driving two minutes across the river and making more, it's very intriguing," said Steve Hensley, the football coach at Ludlow High School. "I don't think that has changed."

For now, though, Hensley is staying put. He's very happy at Ludlow, he said, and he has found a way to save even more on health coverage for his family of five next year.

The legislature's action lowered his monthly premium by about $20, to $480 a month. But he's figured out that by dropping his wife from the state plan and buying private insurance for her, the family will save $150 a month overall.

"I think the legislature is taking things in the right direction," Hensley said.

"But even though we're back to where we were, it's still at the bottom for teachers around the country."

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com