Reasons for making contract reform part of tax reform Part II | Bob Heleringer

Nearly 50 years ago, Republican Gov. Louie Nunn pushed through the Kentucky General Assembly a sales tax increase (from 3 cents to 5 cents on the dollar) to finance reforms in higher education, improve state parks, pave roads in counties that had never seen an inch of blacktop (because they were “Republican” counties in a Democratic-dominated state) and, most notably, rebuild state mental hospitals that were inhumane hovels and dungeons.

Gov. Matt Bevin has equally vexatious problems on his hands — a public pension system that is the worst-funded in the nation and a critical need to improve social services to address the drug epidemic devastating thousands of commonwealth families. To resolve those issues, he, like Nunn, will ask for a tax increase sometime later this year in a special legislative session. Before any legislator risks their political future by voting for a broad-based tax increase — a real job-killer in the electoral sector — they must first aggressively target the tens of millions of dollars this state wastes every year on personal services contracts for thousands of well-connected people.

As promised two columns ago, here are just a few of the more questionable deals that were consummated in the current fiscal year. These and other boondoggles can be found at lrc.ky.gov/statcomm/contracts/psc_new.htm. Follow the money trail every month on contracts. As the enormity of the spending sinks in, you might recall Mark Twain’s earthy observation he attributed to the bride after her wedding night: “Well, I expected it, but didn’t suppose it would be so big.”

The Department of Education is spending exactly $194,712.58 for one year for one “Orientation and Mobility Specialist.” The same department spent $400,000 to renew contracts with multiple “vendors” to conduct “management reviews in the areas of financial management, governance, personnel, and school facilities,” work that is supposed to be done by existing state employees.

How much could be saved if we could just stop our universities from blowing millions of dollars on out-of-state recruiting firms? The University of Kentucky is spending $150,000 to find a dean of fine arts, $237,333 to get a chief quality officer, $360,000 to hire the next executive vice-president for health administration, $90,000 to fill the vacant executive director position with the UK Alumni Association (I kid you not), another $90,000 to land a senior director of philanthropy for the college of engineering, and $50,000 to locate an associate development director of the college of pharmacy — why not let the current director hire the associate director from online applications?

More:No tax reform without government contract reform Part I| Heleringer

The University of Lousiville, certainly no stranger to profligate spending, is wasting $795,000 to find a new president, among other worthies, who presumably won’t write her/his own bonus paychecks, on the side and in secret, from foundation money.

Eastern Kentucky University is lavishing $67,600 on a search for a provost. I’ll bet I could spend 24 hours on that campus — for nothing — and find a decent, serviceable provost. EKU is also spending $30,000 to search for a single, as in one, person to add to its alumni and donor engagement team. Morehead State went all the way to Topeka, Kansas, to find a consultant, for $57,000, “to develop and facilitate” its “online math courses.” Is the school’s math department so bereft of talent that no one can be found to “facilitate” online math classes? Did they even look?

Northern Kentucky University is spending $30,000 for a consultant to teach the school’s associate vice president of marketing and communication and its director of public relations how to interact with one another. I suppose having coffee together at Starbucks would be too plebeian for these two individuals who communicate for a living. With political correctness all the rage, who cares if UK pays a Silver Spring, Maryland, company $400,000 of our tax dollars for “ongoing” (a very expensive word) expertise and consulting to ferret out “unconscious bias” and to “organize diversity and inclusion initiatives” inclusive of all “benchmarks?”  Here’s the existential question of the day: How does one substantiate the existence of “unconscious” bias?

The Department of Military Affairs appropriated $75,000 to hire a man to “change the culture” at the Kentucky National Guard. With a $38.7 billion dollar pension funding deficit, couldn’t the Guard just use its current “culture” a while longer? And, lastly, the athletic trainers at EKU must be on strike. How else to explain the school giving $5,000 to Remedy LLC to pay for “deep tissue and athletic massages for EKU student athletes?”

Is it more important to spend money on any of those contracts or to use those funds to shore up the public pension system and make sure families in crisis get the help they need?

In the shadow of the wire: In my next and final column on this subject, I will outline some reforms that would save millions of dollars every month. Then it’s “on to Richmond” where I will pay for the first round of deep tissue massages.

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville attorney who served in Kentucky's House from the 33rd District from 1980 to 2002. He can be reached at helringr@bellsouth.net.

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