Messenger-Inquirer

Thompson, who represents part of Daviess County and all of Ohio County, is a Realtor and builder in Owensboro and serves as the House Majority Whip. In 2011, he was responsible for moving forward important changes to the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act (S.A.F.E. Act) that protects home buyers and sellers throughout the state, the Realtor group stated.

Majority Whip Rep. Tommy Thompson Co-Sponsor of Bill

Frankfort, KY—With the goal of stopping prescription drug abuse in Kentucky, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly today for Speaker Greg Stumbo’s House Bill 1.

The legislation, one of two issues being considered in the special legislative session, is largely similar to what the chamber passed earlier this year during the regular session, which ended April 12^th.  It has the strong backing of law enforcement, prosecutors, city and county officials and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, all of who testified in support of the bill yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee approved it.  Governor Beshear, Attorney General Jack Conway and the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Rep. John Tilley, have also been key supporters.

Representative Tommy Thompson is a co-sponsor of the landmark legislation.  “House Bill 1 represents an important step for Kentucky in the war on prescription drug abuse,” says Rep. Thompson.  “We need this tough legislation to combat the scale of the drug abuse problem in our state.”

The hallmark of House Bill 1 is moving KASPER, the state’s prescription drug monitoring system, from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to the Attorney General’s office.

In addition, all physicians who prescribe controlled substances would be required to register – only about a third does now – and they could pay a maximum $50 annual fee to help cover costs if other revenue sources are insufficient.  They would then consult KASPER reports to ensure that patients are taking their medicine safely and appropriately. Doctors would use KASPER to confirm that patients are suitable candidates to receive potentially addictive drugs. The bill also calls for periodic KASPER checks on patients requiring long-term use of Schedule II and III drugs, which include such medicine as OxyContin.  This requirement would exclude such situations as hospice and emergency care.

Speaker Greg Stumbo has stated that a 2010 survey found that nearly 90 percent of physicians who use KASPER say its reports caused them to change what they had originally planned to prescribe.  The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, meanwhile, already recommends doctors take this step with every patient.

In an attempt to close down illegitimate pain clinics, Speaker Stumbo’s bill would require those in this field to be owned by a physician licensed in Kentucky, and the physician would have to be on the premises treating patients at least half of the time.  The pain clinics would also be required to accept health insurance as a form of payment instead of just accepting cash.  Together, these changes would keep the fly-by-night owners from setting up shop quickly in a community and replacing doctors who may get in trouble with the law.

All prescribers of controlled substances, meanwhile, could not dispense more than a 48-hour supply of this medicine from their offices.  This provision has been especially effective in such states as Florida, which had seen in-office dispensing skyrocket.

House Bill 1 also includes several provisions designed to increase medical oversight of prescription drugs and greater cooperation among licensing boards and law enforcement.

It calls on physician and nursing licensing boards to set standards on proper prescribing and dispensing practices, and to bar prescribing by anyone convicted of drug felonies, either here or in another state.  These boards would also set regulations on how to handle complaints – which would no longer have to be publicly sworn and notarized – and decide how to suspend licenses when public or patient health is in immediate danger.  In addition, the boards would include pain and addiction specialists, and the boards would have to establish continuing-education requirements on addiction and pain management.

For law enforcement, House Bill 1 would allow county and commonwealth’s attorneys to have access to KASPER if they are conducting an official investigation.  The Attorney General, the licensing boards and the Kentucky State Police also would work more closely to target prescription drug abuse.

Other aspects of the bill call on Medicaid officials to monitor the prescribing practices of doctors treating those enrolled in the healthcare program, and coroners would be called upon to report drug overdoses and deaths to the State Registrar of Vital Statistics and Kentucky State Police.  This will be designed to protect individual privacy while giving the public a much clearer picture of the number of those dying.  Speaker Stumbo said he suspected it is three to five times higher than the nearly 1,000 deaths now being reported annually.

“This bill will go a long way to putting a stop to a problem that has taken so many of our citizens and left a void in so many families,” Speaker Stumbo said.  “We cannot afford to ignore it any longer.” The bill now heads to the state Senate for its consideration.

A sales tax refund of up to $6,000 will be available for each building.  Receipts showing the sales tax paid are required when applying to the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet for the refund.  Property owners are urged to make sure that they have receipts for the sales tax paid on materials purchased to repair their property whether those repairs are made by themselves or by someone with whom they have a contract to make the repair.  The refund is available to the property owner, not the contractor making the repairs.

Application for the refund will be made through the Division of Sales and Use Tax in the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet. Officials with the Revenue Cabinet are nearing completion of the forms and instructions to be used to apply for the refund.  These will be accessible on the Revenue Cabinet web page at revenue.ky.gov.  Representative Thompson will ensure that more specific details regarding the application procedure and contact information, which are expected to be completed by the Revenue Cabinet in the next few days, are promptly made available to the public.

FRANKFORT – When the General Assembly wrapped up much of its work at the end of last month, there was only one day left in this year’s legislative session.

Traditionally, this time is spent just considering any vetoes the governor might issue on the bills making it through the House and Senate.  This year, however, there was still some unfinished business that had to be addressed, with the most pressing being the state’s road plan and a budget for the Transportation Cabinet.  The agenda also included a major initiative to curb prescription drug abuse.

Because time truly was of the essence due to constitutional constraints, legislative leaders began meeting early last week to hammer out agreements, which they tentatively reached just hours before dawn and the start of the veto day on Thursday.

One of those agreements – the far-reaching road plan with $4.5 billion worth of projects over the next two years – did make it through the General Assembly.  Unfortunately, the cabinet’s budget never left the Senate, and without it, the cabinet literally cannot open its doors when the fiscal year begins in July.  That would leave the road projects on the drawing board, as well as such things as bridge inspections and other highway safety measures, something we cannot afford to let happen.

Kentuckians have every right to be upset that we have to have a special session to fix this, but it could have been avoided if only the Senate had voted on the already agreed-upon budget for the cabinet.  Instead, that chamber never took it up.

Senate leaders say they stopped the process because they worried Governor Beshear might veto some of their road projects without the legislature being able to override the vetoes, or that he might veto the entire plan and be able to approve road projects without any legislative input, which would have been very unpopular politically.  They also voiced concern that the House decided not to override any of the relatively minor vetoes Governor Beshear issued in the budget that runs every other aspect of state government.

Nevertheless, I am hopeful that cooler heads will return this week, and that we can build on some of the true accomplishments made this year.

That would include a far-reaching law to limit prescription drug abuse.  The hallmark of this bill is moving the state’s monitoring program from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to the Attorney General’s office, which will help law enforcement be much better prepared in spotting and then stopping “pill mills” and doctor shopping by abusers.  Other states such as Florida and Ohio have taken action to crack down on this abuse in recent months, and if we don’t follow suit, the epidemic we are already seeing will get much worse.

As always, please don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts or concerns about this issue or any other affecting the state.  Should you want to write, my address is Room 315, Capitol Annex, 702 Capitol Avenue, Frankfort, KY 40601.

You can also leave a message for me or for any legislator at 800-372-7181. For those with a hearing impairment, the number is 800-896-0305.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance.  It is a privilege to serve you in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

I hope to hear from you soon.

FRANKFORT— With the final day of this year’s session fast approaching (a veto-override day April 12), lawmakers on Friday gave final passage to a $19 billion state budget agreement that will reduce spending by over $300 million over the next two years while holding down bonded debt, preserving funding for critical areas like Medicaid, Corrections and Medicaid and protecting base funding for our public schools.

It took about three days in a special budget conference committee composed of both House and Senate leaders to hash out the agreement in House Bill 265, which will hold down new state debt over the next biennium to less than half of the $968 million proposed in the governor’s budget in January. The agreed-upon budget also requires the governor to come up with another $80 million in savings to help bridge a $742 million gap between state revenues and spending for fiscal years 2012 through 2014. Other revenue measures to deal with the shortfall include fund transfers, fund lapses and a tax amnesty plan found in HB 499, which was still awaiting a Senate vote early Friday.

That said, the budget as negotiated includes many provisions that were unchanged from the governor’s original plan: No state-employee salary increases or retiree cost-of-living increases are forthcoming in either year of the next biennium. There’s an additional 8.4 percent in cuts to most state agency budgets. More funding is rare, in only a very limited number of areas like social services.

Debt restructuring would be curtailed over the next biennium. And we agreed to beef up the “rainy day” Budget Reserve Trust Fund that helps the state meet eligible “necessary” expenses that aren’t part of the approved state budget.  Last fiscal year’s budget surplus (owing to an improving economy) allowed the Commonwealth to deposit $121 million—the largest one-time deposit ever—into the fund after more than three years of shortfalls.

The operational budgets for the Legislative and Judicial branches would also suffer 8.4 percent cuts. Like HB 265, the budget bills for those two branches include no salary increases for employees, and no COLAs for retirees.

Agreement was also expected this week on the state’s two-year Road Plan and corresponding Transportation Cabinet budget bill, although final passage of both measures was still hanging in the balance early Friday.

Any loose legislative ends left after this week can be tied and knotted on April 12, which is both the next day that we meet and the last day of this 60-day 2012 Regular Session. Between now and then, the governor will have 10 days (excluding Sundays) to consider vetoes to bills we passed in recent days, during the constitutionally-mandated “veto recess” that ends at midnight on April 11.

It is worth noting, however, that while we can pass last-minute bills on April 12, doing so will forfeit any chance the General Assembly would have to override vetoes of those bills. We passed the budget bills—and the Road Plan and other key bills this session—before we left town on Friday specifically to ensure that we can resuscitate those bills on the 12^th, should the governor strike all or parts of that legislation down with his veto pen.

You can guess that one of the “other key bills” alluded to is SB 3, a bill that would fight the growing illegal methamphetamine trade in the Commonwealth. Makers of street meth purchase, or send out others to purchase, dozens to hundreds of boxes of pseudoephedrine tablets in products like Sudafed that are required to concoct the drug. But action expected to be finalized by lawmakers this week would make it harder to get the amounts needed to produce the drug and sell it on the street.

The House of Representatives received final passage on Wednesday for SB 3, which would further limit legal purchase amounts of over-the-counter cold and allergy tablets containing pseudoephedrine without a prescription from 9 grams to 7.2 grams monthly, without limiting the purchase of gel caps or liquids (which aren’t converted easily to meth), or drugs dispensed by valid prescription. Block lists would keep the tablets from being sold to methamphetamine offenders, while pharmacies would be required to keep detailed electronic, rather than just written, records of buyers of the over-the-counter meds.

Legislation to crack down on fly-by-night clinics that hawk addictive pain killers for profit, with little or no regard for patient safety, was also expected to receive final passage on Friday after some last-minute details were worked out in conference committee. Provisions in HB 4 designed to curb the clinics—known as “pill mills”—would require that pain clinics be owned and operated by physicians licensed to practice in Kentucky who have special training in pain management. The bill would step up use of the state’s electronic drug monitoring system, known as KASPER, by requiring pharmacies and prescribers of narcotics to use the system when prescribing and dispensing Schedule II or III drugs like morphine, while turning over control of KASPER to the Attorney General’s Office.

Dozens of other bills, as expected, cleared the General Assembly and made it to the governor’s desk in the session’s last full week. Some of those bills included:

• HB 390, which will fight metal theft by restricting the sale of specific items made of copper or other valuable metals;
• SB 32, which will set up a statewide dragnet, called Blue Alert,  to help catch suspects in cases involving the killing, harm or kidnapping of a law enforcement officer;
• SB 58, which will allow a law enforcement officer to arrest or cite someone for committing misdemeanor assault in a hospital ER with probable cause, even if the officer did not witness the offense;
• HB 328, which will allow someone with an intermediate driver’s license to apply for a motorcycle instruction permit;
• HB 344, which will prohibit the intentional release of a feral or wild hogs or pigs into the wild, and set misdemeanor penalties for violation;
• HB 398, which will allow PVAs to use a variety of methods to determine fair cash value while requiring that appraisals for tract and subdivision developments meet specified minimum standards;
• HB 421, which will make it harder for unscrupulous roofing contractors to defraud homeowners by giving homeowners a five-day grace period to pay or cancel a signed roofing contract, if their homeowner’s policy doesn’t cover the repair work , and;
• HB 449, which will require certified family child-care homes to have a written plan for evacuation in case of a threatening situation.

More action will be ready to report when we return for our final day of the session on April 12, as discussed. Until then, you can always stay informed of all the action by logging onto the Legislative Research Commission website at www.lrc.ky.gov or by calling the LRC toll-free Bill Status Line at 866-840-2835 to check the status of a particular bill or resolution. For committee meeting schedules, please call the LRC toll-free Meeting Information Line at 800-633-9650. Or, to comment on a bill, please call the toll-free Legislative Message Line at 800-372-7181. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance.  It is a privilege to serve you in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

FRANKFORT— As the Senate works toward putting its own stamp on the budget we sent them more than a week ago, we turned to other matters for now, including the anti-substance-abuse agenda we’ve been pursuing since session’s start. This week, we tackled a growing synthetic-drug problem that has emerged all across the Commonwealth, from the Appalachians to the Mississippi River.

This came hard on the heels of our action  last week to deal with the state’s growing problem with “pill mills”—those fly-by-night clinics that make large profits by prescribing and/or dispensing narcotic pain killers with virtually no questions asked— in the form of House Bill 4, passed and sent to the Senate.

Similar legislation to HB 4 (though with some key differences) has since been vetted in a Senate committee, and hope runs high that a compromise combining the best of both the House and Senate legislation can be agreed upon by session’s end.

But this week our focus was on a new form of non-prescription drugs: synthetic drugs including so-called “bath salts” and synthetic marijuana found in convenience stores and head shops that specialize in drug paraphernalia.

HB 481, which passed the House 96-0 on Tuesday, addresses this emergent problem. News reports have been rife with stories of people exhibiting psychosis after ingesting synthetic drugs, including a woman who abandoned her toddler in the middle of a Western Kentucky highway because her bath salts-induced psychosis convinced her that the child was possessed.

It was these very kinds of stories that led us to pass earlier legislation addressing the synthetic drug problem during the 2011 Regular Session. The 2011 laws worked by banning specific compounds of synthetic drugs. But, after a time, underground manufacturers of the drugs got around the law by altering a drug’s ingredients just enough to create new, technically legal ones.

Now, almost exactly a year later, HB 481 has fixed that loophole by banning entire classes, not just compounds, of synthetic drugs. The bill also extends seizure and forfeiture laws to retailers who sell these drugs, makes selling them a felony crime for second and subsequent offenses, and makes simple possession a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to 30 days in jail.

What’s more, HB 481 prevents lawmakers from having to come back and tweak the synthetic drugs laws year after year by giving the Office of Drug Control Policy authority to request that state enforcers ban new synthetic drugs as they come on the market.

The House also turned its attention to another problem this week—the alarming number of abused and neglected children who have fallen through the proverbial cracks of the state’s child-protection system in recent years.

HB 200, which we cleared 96-0 Tuesday and sent to the Senate, would address the problem by creating a statewide external expert review panel to thoroughly investigate the death or near death of a child from abuse or neglect, and determine if the state took reasonable measures to save that child or prevent his or her injuries (if the child was under protective services at the time). The bill also expands the statutory definition of child abuse to include abuse by a sibling, and creates an independent office to oversee Kentucky’s Child Protective Services agency.

In other major legislation, the House voted to keep our businesses from paying a potentially steep penalty tied to unemployment insurance.

Two years ago, business and labor leaders and the General Assembly came together to formulate a plan to pay off the nearly $1 billion dollars that the state’s unemployment insurance fund had to borrow from the federal government to cover benefits.

There wasn’t a deal at the time, though, on how to pay for the interest on that federal loan. If no plan to pay this interest is put in place, our businesses could lose a federal tax credit, which could cost them up to $600 million.

The House plan would keep that from happening if it becomes law. It has the support of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, the Kentucky State Building and Trades Council and several other prominent organizations.

In another dose of good news in this area, we learned this month that Kentucky’s unemployment rate has dipped to a level not seen in three years.

A few days later, that was followed up with the news that state revenues were up nearly four percent in February when compared to the same time last year, with most of that due to increased consumer spending. So far, this fiscal year’s growth has significantly out-paced what was projected last year, and our Road Fund is doing even better.

The General Assembly will wrap up much of its work at the end of this month, meaning a lot of work remains in the short time we have left. Your contributions to this process are vital.

If you would like to let me know what you would like to see us accomplish, please don’t hesitate to write to me at Room 315, Capitol Annex, 702 Capitol Avenue, Frankfort, KY 40601.

You can also leave a message for me or for any legislator at 800-372-7181. For those with a hearing impairment, the number is 800-896-0305.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance.  It is a privilege to serve you in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

The House budget contains $325,200 for each of the two budget years. The budget also contains language saying the Madisonville office cannot be relocated or closed during the two-year budget cycle, which starts in July.

Sen. Jerry Rhoads, a Madisonville Democrat and chairman of the Western Kentucky Caucus, said keeping the office open in necessary, because the office saves money and time for the 25 counties that use its services. But a spokeswoman for the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet said officials have tried without success to fill the vacant medical examiner’s position in Madisonville since Medical Examiner Dr. Deirdre Schluckebier retired in May.

Medical examiners are state employees who perform death investigations and present findings during criminal trials. Since Schluckebier left the Madisonville office, autopsies for western Kentucky counties formerly served by the office have been performed in Louisville.

In a Feb. 24, letter provided by Rhoads’ office, Schluckebier wrote that closing the office could delay criminal investigations.

“If no Medical Examiner is available in the region, one would have to come from Louisville … The wait could be potentially over four hours. Those first few hours of investigation are crucial, and this excessive time delay could have a serious negative impact on the investigation,” Schluckebier wrote.

Daviess County Coroner Jeff Jones said having to send bodies to Louisville for autopsy is more costly than going to Madisonville.

“There’s an additional cost in transportation,” Jones said. “You also add to it the travel time of the deputy coroners and officers. That’s an hour and 15 minutes on the road, one-way.”

Jones said sending autopsies to Louisville have not resulted in longer waits for information about causes of death. “I can’t say we’ve seen any additional time in getting the results,” Jones said.

Rhoads said far western counties such as McCracken County have seen their transportation costs increase dramatically since the closure of the Madisonville office.

“McCracken County people say it would cost them in excess of $20,000 with transportation” to send autopsies to Louisville, Rhoads said. “More importantly (the wait) created anxiety on families who have lost loved ones, and you can’t put a price tag on that.”

Jennifer Brislin, spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said the decision to close the office was made after officials tried for months to find a qualified medical examiner to fill the position.

“For almost a year they’ve been without,” Brislin said. “Since that time, we’ve been trying to recruit a medical examiner to go to Madisonville and have been unsuccessful.”

Brislin said, nationwide, there are fewer than 400 certified medical examiners practicing full time. “The other challenge is in Kentucky, quite frankly, we cannot pay what neighboring states can pay,” Brislin said. “We’re far below the national average” in medical examiner salaries, she said.

According to Feb. 22 story by the Kentucky New Era, state medical examiners in Kentucky make between $97,000 and $144,000 annually.

“You have few people to choose from, and they have a lot of choices,” Brislin said. “We’re not closing a functioning office. That office has been nonfunctioning for the past year.” The only viable candidate for the position during that time took a higher-paying position in West Virginia, Brislin said in an e-mail.

“(Pay) ranges are set by the Personnel Cabinet, with a maximum salary associated with each position; we have no control over that amount, nor any ability to increase the compensation,” Brislin said in the e-mail. “… This is not a decision we take lightly, or without an appreciation for the additional burden it places on everyone involved — families, coroners and law enforcement, as well as forensic pathologists in the Louisville office who have an increased caseload and wider geographic area of coverage and trial commitment.

“However, given the current budget outlook, we must consider every avenue to reduce costs, and since our nearly yearlong efforts have been unsuccessful, it would not be prudent to fund this office at the expense of fully functional ones,” Brislin’s email said.

Rep. Tommy Thompson, a Philpot Democrat and a Majority Whip in the state House of Representatives, said leadership decided to include funding for the Madisonville office in the House budget because “that office and their functions are so important to the whole region.”

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to (include) it in the Senate” when senators produce their budget, Thompson said. “If they don’t, we’ll have to work on it in conference committee.”

Rhoads and Thompson said they believed a qualified medical examiner could be found to staff the Madisonville office.

“We’re starting to get some pretty good leads from people who could be interested,” Thompson said. “We’ve just got to try to track (applicants) down, because it’s worth the effort.”

To read the full article, click here.

 The event is free to the public and will begin at 6 p.m. (Central Standard Time), Monday, Jan. 16, at Harvest House Church located at 911 Oakwood Drive. The theme for the event asks, “Is the American Dream in Jeopardy?” The event is sponsored by Harvest House Church with its pastor Bishop Robert L. Randolph. There will be special music presentations by choirs and soloists from throughout the region and the church will hold a reception afterward. For questions about the upcoming event in Hartford, call Bishop Randolph at 270.313.5328 or 270.775.2871.

Hartford and surrounding towns in Ohio County lie in Kentucky’s Supreme Court 2nd District, which is represented by Kentucky Human Rights Commissioner Alma Randolph Patton on the commission board. She will participate in the Harvest House service. “The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is excited about this year’s celebration of the life of Dr. King, and we encourage everyone to attend,” Randolph Patton said.

She is available to the press for interviews about the Hartford event and can be contacted at 270.316.4118. She will also give greetings for the state human rights commission at the Owensboro Human Relations Commission King commemorative march at 10 a.m. (CST) on Tuesday, Jan. 17. The community’s march is from Owensboro High School to Brescia University.

Bishop Robert Randolph of Harvest House said that several officials will participate in the Hartford service where Human Rights Executive Director Johnson will speak. “Kentucky State Rep. Tommy Thompson of Owensboro, Ohio County Judge Executive David Johnston, Hartford Mayor Charlotte Hendricks, and Beaver Dam Mayor Paul Sandefur are some of the officials who will attend in addition to people from all over our region,” Bishop Randolph said. “We look forward to the proceedings and to welcoming our speaker John Johnson,” he said.

John J. Johnson has been the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights executive director since 2007. Johnson began his leadership in civil rights, when at the age of 18, he became the youngest president of any NAACP Chapter. Before joining the commission, he spent 20 years in Baltimore, Md., as an official of the NAACP national headquarters. He served as chief Programs officer for many years and directed a wide variety of initiatives, including Armed Services and Veterans Affairs, Voter Empowerment, Economic Outreach, Labor, Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, the Prison Project, the NAACP library, and many others.

“Anytime you make a change, there are always adjustments,” Thompson said in a phone interview during a break from a legislative session Wednesday. “Obviously, this system has only been in place since last November, so everybody is still, so to speak, feeling their way through it.

“We’ve gotten a number of inquiries from folks about payment problems and paperwork, and so forth, and as these concerns are expressed to us in our Frankfort office from constituents, we’re immediately contacting the Cabinet (for Health and Family Services) and conveying those concerns to them and asking that they address them as quickly as possible.”

Medicaid is a program that provides health care coverage to eligible low-income Kentucky residents. It covers families with children and pregnant women, medically needy individuals, the elderly and people with disabilities. An MCO is a health plan that coordinates all of someone’s health care, including medical and behavioral care, and, in some cases, dental care.

Kentucky has contracted with three MCOs to provide Medicaid insurance — Kentucky Spirit Health Plan, WellCare of Kentucky and CoventryCare of Kentucky. The MCO model has been adopted by several states and replaces the former model that was funded by taxpayers.

Click here to read the full Messenger-Inquirer editorial.

Click here to read the 2011 KY Lottery Corp. report.