Members of both of Kentucky’s legislative bodies traveled from their respective homes across Kentucky to converge in Frankfort for a long session of the Kentucky General Assembly.

Prior to the start of this week’s session, both of Clinton County’s legislatures, State Representative Jeff Hoover (R-Jamestown), and State Senator Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), met in Albany with a small group of local residents last Tuesday morning.

The Town Hall fashioned gathering was designed to give those who attended a brief overview of some of the issues that will face the Kentucky legislature during the current session that will last for 60 days, ending at least by April 15.

Last Tuesday’s brief gathering in the Clinton County Circuit Courtroom, had about 30 people in the audience, most of whom were local elected officials and employees of city and county offices.

Both Wise and Hoover touched on several of the same topics during their presentation, including the current underfunding situation surrounding the Kentucky Retired Teachers Fund.

On that subject, Wise, who spoke first, noted that he was “cautiously optimistic” that at least some degree of success would be realized during this legislative session toward at least solving some of the problems the fund is facing.

He said that for teachers who are currently on the job, he would hope that the current system could be made to remain the same, but he added that for teachers who are being added to the payroll across the state, there was a strong possibility that the current structure of teaching 27 years before being eligible for retirement would be altered.

“For new hires, we’re going to have to maybe look at increasing the number of years they put in before retirement, from 27 to possibly 30 or 32 years,” Wise said.

Wise also noted that he expected to be looking at changes in the Medicaid system, cuts in areas when the budget is introduced

Wise said he hoped to be able to see bills he was re-introducing to make it through this session, including a bill that would allow high school juniors and seniors to begin using the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) money to pay for dual-credit classes while they were in middle school or high school to begin using their KEES money before getting to college to earn college credit hours.

Another bill he is sponsoring focuses on veterans with a college degree and an honorable discharge, to be able to more easily become classroom teachers without having to go back to college to earn additional degrees before being granted teaching certificates.

During the last portion of Tuesday’s meeting, Hoover also pointed out the level of attention the new state budget would be receiving in the 2016 session.

“The budget is the overriding issue, as it is every two years,” Hoover said. “When I first started 19 years ago, it was about an $ 8 billion budget over two years, it’s now $20 billion over two years.”

Hoover also pointed out that the Medicaid expansion issue for Kentucky was one of utmost importance, especially from a cost standpoint.

“Medicaid in Kentucky was designed to be a system to help the most needy and to help children by providing them the most necessary medical care,”Hoover said. “Up until a couple of years ago, there were about 800,000 Kentuckians on Medicaid and that number now is about 1.2 million.”

Hoover pointed out that the state would have to begin picking up some of the additional cost that has been brought on because of that expansion.

“It’s going to cost us an additional $250 million next year and two years from now, an additional $520 million,”Hoover said.

He also agreed that the retirement dilemma surrounding both public employees as well as for the teachers’ retirement fund, would receive a large portion of the General Assembly’s attention this session.

“I’m cautiously optimistic moving forward that we can get something done,” Hoover said. “We have an obligation to current teachers to make sure their retirement is there.”

He added changes would have to be made to the system in order to make sure in the long term, as far as new teachers would be concerned with the retirement system, it had to be made more sustainable.

The representative added that he understood that the biggest issue on the minds of Clinton County residents as well as those living in the Russell County portion of his district, was the completion of U.S. 127.

Hoover said that during a recent meeting with the Kentucky Secretary of the Cabinet, who is in charge of all of the various Kentucky Cabinet Secretaries, including the Secretary of Transportation, he made sure before that meeting was over that his desire to see progress continue to move forward on U.S. 127 was clearly understood.

“We want to stay on a progressive path to finish 127,” Hoover said. “He understands that and I feel good about that.”

He also noted that he expects another significant issue would be the expansion of gaming, although he added that at this point, it wasn’t clear in which direction the attempt would go, but he also reiterated his long-term stance against the expansion of gaming in Kentucky.

“That issue has been around a long time, and you all know that I have always been opposed to that,” Hoover explained. “To me, that is not a long-term solution to solve the financial issues of Kentucky.”

Hoover said that instead of the expansion of gaming in Kentucky, he felt it would be more important to address a comprehensive tax reform in the state and a Right to Work in Kentucky that would allow our state to compete with Indiana and Tennessee for new jobs that could be coming to the Commonwealth, but are instead going to those other states

“Every single week Indiana and Tennessee are landing businesses that could be coming to the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Hoover said. “ If we had a better tax structure to attract those new jobs, then you would grow the tax base and if you grow the tax base you grow the revenue and that’s how you change the future of Kentucky.”

The meeting concluded with Hoover and Wise fielding a few questions from those in the audience about concerns, most of which were directed by local elected officials and dealt with issues including financial concerns of local government.