The House of Representatives approved a budget for the state last week and Owen County is set to receive a chunk of change — if changes in the Senate don’t take it away.
The House’s approval came in late afternoon March 7 and the bill includes $6.33 million in line-item projects for Owen County.
Those projects include $5 million for the natural gas line project, $400,000 for a sewer line extension from Carroll County, $500,000 for the city of Owenton’s water intake project, $200,000 in items from federal Homeland Security monies and $234,000 to make the debt service payment next year on the gas line funds.
“I’m pleased with the budget,” said Rep. Royce Adams, Owen County’s representative in the House. “I went over there with one goal in mind and that was to make sure the gas line was funded once and for all.”
Royce said the project has been in the works for some time and prices continue to rise.
“It was time to do something, that was quite evident,” he said. “Now, it will be a question of whether they take it out.”
“My plan is to work hard to keep the gas line project in the budget,” said Sen. Damon Thayer, Owen’s senatorial representative. “That’s my number one priority. I’ll do the best I can to keep as much of that money as possible.”
The gas line project has been in the works since about 1990, according to Frank Downing, chairman of the Owen County Industrial Authority. Over the last few years, it was bid three times, with each one coming in higher than the last, and much higher than the available funding.
The latest bid was $5.2 million, Downing said, with expectations that the cost would climb to about $5.5 million by the time it is rebid again. With the $5 million in the state budget and a $300,000 line item in the federal budget secured by Sen. Jim Bunning, the project would still be underfunded at that bid level.
“But I believe we can make up the difference,” Downing said. “But we’ve got to keep all that we can in the state budget.”
“This is huge for us. It takes care of 95 percent of the bill.” said Owen County Judge-Executive Billy O’Banion during last week’s chamber of commerce meeting.
Downing, O’Banion and Owenton Mayor David “Milkweed” Wotier reopened negotiations with Cynergy in regards to the project. The current price estimates are based on the city of Carrollton handling the project that would bring natural gas to the Owen County Industrial Park as well as Actaris.
Cynergy would charge the city $3,000 a month to connect to its gas line and the city would have to hire two people to handle connections to the line and meter reading. But, connecting to Cynergy’s line would cut out about 4 miles of pipeline associated with the project as opposed to utilizing Carrollton’s services.
Under the Carrollton proposal, those who hooked onto the line in Owen County would be treated as Carrollton customers and the Carrollton system would handle connections and maintain personnel to do so.
“It looked like it would cost about $100,000 a year more with Cynergy,” Downing said, “but we’ve asked them to take a look at it and see if that’s the best they can do.”
Adams said he doesn’t think some people realize the importance of the gas line project to the economy of the community or the bargaining power that having all the funding in place can give the industrial authority.
“With the money in hand, they can look at this project in a different manner,” he sad.
There are currently three prospects looking at the industrial park’s speculative building. Two of those prospects are local and a third would require natural gas to the site in order to locate there.
Thayer, however, indicated that Owen isn’t likely to get the entire $5 million when the final budget gets approved
“My understanding is that the budget is significantly out of balance,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do. It will be very difficult to retain that amount.”
In addition to the gas line money, Owen is set to get about $200,000 as a result of federal Homeland Security monies. That amount includes $100,000 for a four-wheel drive vehicle; a $40,000 county-wide accountability identification system to provide the ability for an incident commander to track all personnel and equipment at a scene; $30,000 worth of fixed repeaters, towers and possibly radios to improve communication ability; and a $30,000 upgrade of all computer equipment for agencies.
Adams said the goal was to get funds in the state budget for all counties.
“I’m pretty confident Owen will get some money from that pot,” he said, adding that he’s also confident that the city of Owenton will get something for its water intake project in addition to the $500,000 already there. That amount was set aside during the last budget cycle for the project and should remain, Adams said, adding he thinks there could be additional money for the project too.
Wotier, during his State of the City address last week, said the project is expected to run about $2.35 million with $1.36 million of that already secured.
O’Banion also requested $2 million for the continuation of water line construction projects and $10 million for the beginning phases of a new Hwy. 22 from the entrance to the Owen County High School to the Grant County line.
Overall, the budget gives state employees a 3.2 percent annual raise and adds $20 million to the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System. It funds the first two years of a plan to raise; teacher pay to the level of those of teachers in the seven states surrounding Kentucky. It adds $34 million to Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s proposal for kindergarten in 2008 and $8 million for preschool over the two-year period.
Teachers would receive a 2-percent salary increase in 2006-07 and a $3,000 salary increase in 2007-08. Classified school employees would receive a 2-percent raise in 2006-2007 and a 5-percent increase in 2007-2008.
School systems would have an additional $96 million in SEEK funding available for certified salaries.
“I truly believe that this is the best budget for education Kentucky has seen since 1990. We’ve increased teacher and classified employee salaries. We’ve increased funding for full-day kindergarten and technology in our classrooms. And we’ve increased funding for construction of new schools,” Adams said in his weekly column.
The budget also spends an additional $3 million each year of the biennium to expand aging services such as home health, personal care attendants and adult day care. It provides $935 million in additional funds for Medicaid benefits over the biennium to continue current services. And it provides more than $105 million in each fiscal year to continue the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program (KCHIP) for 50,000 children.
Thayer said the budget would be heard by the Senate committee this week and then should move to a full vote next week.
“But I imagine there will be quite a few changes, so it’ll have to go back to the House committee for final approval,” he added. “We still have a ways to go.”

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