By Sen. John Schickel
Special to the NKyTribune
Recently, many Northern Kentuckians took the time to visit me in Frankfort. They included members of Leadership Northern Kentucky, Northern Kentucky Chamber, the Northern Kentucky Homebuilders Association, St. Elizabeth Healthcare, and Gateway Community and Technical College.
Many of these groups sat in the Senate Gallery and it was my honor to introduce them to the members of the Kentucky State Senate. Dr. Keith Bird, Interim President of Gateway Community and Technical College, and I had a nice visit. He shared his vision for the transition at Gateway with me, and I was pleased to hear his passion for developing an educated workforce.
We passed Senate Bill 2 which would make the transactions of our state retirement systems more transparent and making these systems more accountable. We also passed bills that had to do with accountability of our county jailers and promoting computer science education in our schools.
One of my priorities has been to work on a judicial redistricting constitutional amendment that would make our court system more equitable across the state. The imbalance in our court system, which has not been adjusted for workload or population since the 1970s, is seriously unbalanced with some areas of the state receiving many more resources than others.
This especially negatively affects fast-growing areas like Northern Kentucky, and it is a constitutional matter of “equal justice under the law” for all Kentucky citizens.
Please stay up-to-date on the budget negotiations and legislative actions of interest to you throughout the session by logging onto the Legislative Research Commission (LRC) website here , or by calling the LRC toll-free bill status line at 866-840-2835. For committee meeting schedules, please call the LRC toll-free meeting information line at 800-633-9650. To comment on a bill, please call the toll-free legislative message line at 800-372-7181.
I still like the old-fashioned US Mail system. You can write to me anytime at my legislative office at 702 Capitol Avenue, Room 209, Frankfort, KY 40601.
If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call me toll-free at 1-800-372-7181 or email me at John.Schickel@LRC.ky.gov.
Senator John Schickel (R-Union) represents the 11th District in Boone County.