Tagged: Kentucky General Assembly

Kentucky’s General Assembly is heading down the stretch in the 2012 legislative session.

Lawmakers have ten legislative days left to pass budget and road plan bills, in addition to any other matter.

Many important topics that were priorities for some lawmakers—like raising the dropout age, fixing the state’s problems with Medicaid Managed Care Organizations and drug abuse legislation—has yet to pass both chambers in the same form. This means for the bills to become law, legislators will have to form conference committees and reach an agreement.

It’s been another busy week in the Kentucky General Assembly. On the agenda: the budget, drug testing and prescription painkillers. To summarize what happened and why,  Kentucky Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Kenny Colston talks politics with Rick Howlett.

Kentucky’s General Assembly session continues in Frankfort, where lawmakers continued talks on regulating pseudoephedrine, raising the high school dropout age and Medicare’s Managed Care Organizations. Kentucky Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Kenny Colston speaks with Rick Howlett about latest developments in Kentucky’s State Capitol this week.

The Kentucky House has approved legislation that would raise the school dropout age to 18. House Bill 216 would require all school districts to have the dropout age at 18, unlike a bill that passed the Senate Feb. 8 which let local school boards decide the age. The bill's sponsor, Democrat Jeff Greer says allowing children to drop out of school when they're 16 or 17 is costly to them and the state. They earn less and are more likely to be on public assistance or be incarcerated for crimes. The bill would raise the dropout age to 17 in 2016 and to 18 in 2017.

A bill that would make pseudoephedrine available only by prescription in Kentucky has cleared its first legislative hurdle.

PSE is commonly found in cold medicines and is also used to make meth. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard another hour of testimony on the issue from law enforcement officers and former meth addicts today before passing the bill out of committee.

Before the vote, sponsor Robert Stivers promised to continue pushing the measure regardless of its eventual fate.