Pharmacy school funds to get court test

Over $150 million in state funding for local projects survived Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s veto pen Monday, but the fate of an $11 million pharmacy school at the University of the Cumberlands is still in limbo.
In an address explaining his decision to leave funding for the pharmacy school in place, all the while cutting $370 million from other parts of the state budget, Fletcher said he would let Kentucky’s courts decide the legality of funding a project for a private, religious school.
“The fact remains: Kentucky has a shortage of pharmacists, particularly in Southeastern Kentucky. Also, the tax dollars to build this school come from coal severance tax and not directly from the taxes you pay,” Fletcher said. “This is a difficult issue and one where there is no definitive case law establishing the legality. I believe we need to answer once and for all in Kentucky the legality of funding private faith-based institutions for public purposes. For that reason I will not veto this project. However, before any money is released to the institution, I am asking the courts to determine the constitutionality of such projects.”
Already, the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group based in Frankfort, has filed a lawsuit over the issue in Franklin Circuit Court Tuesday challenging Fletcher’s decision. Christina Gilgor, Executive Director of the KFA, said the organization did not want to wait for the governor to test the case in court because he would not “be a proper plaintiff.” KFA contends that funding a pharmacy school at the University of the Cumberlands violates the state constitutions because it is a private, denominational school that discriminates against some students.
KFA had urged Fletcher to veto funds for the school.
Debate over the project became heated after Jason Johnson, a sophomore from Lexington, was expelled for revealing on an Internet site that he is homosexual. University policy prohibits students from engaging in any pre-marital sexual activity or having an openly alternative lifestyle.
Johnson and the school recently agreed on a settlement that would allow him to finish course work for the year, but calls that funding for the pharmacy school be cut have intensified.
State Senate President David Williams, whose six-county district encompasses Whitley County, said leaving funding in place was a good move.
“I am hopeful that the courts will find a legitimate public purpose in educating pharmacy students in an area that has been historically underserved,” he said. “There is no public university in coal-producing counties and the funding for the building is not general fund dollars, but money from the coal-severance tax.”
Eighty-Second District Representative Charles Siler (R-Williamsburg) said he is optimistic pharmacy school funding will survive a court test.
“The same type of arrangement was made with Pikeville College’s school of osteopathic medicine a few years ago,” Siler said. “The situation here is not precedent setting … a program was established there.”
Siler said Fletcher’s decision to await a legal ruling before releasing funds was wise.
“If it’s obvious that this is going to wind up as a court decision, the sooner you get it into court the sooner you can have a resolution on it. I think it is a smart move.”
University of the Cumberland’s President Jim Taylor said the school plans to move quickly to get a pharmacy school up and running.
“We are delighted for the opportunity to provide a service to our region and to the Commonwealth,” he said. “The plans are to move forward with considerable dispatch and we look forward to the day we have a fully ACPE accredited pharmacy school.”

Other funding
Though $8 million for the Kentucky Parks renovation pool was vetoed, other park projects, including a $10 million golf course at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park and $5 million to improve the campground area, essentially survived.
Fletcher, while technically vetoing the General Assembly’s ability to designate which projects the funds go toward, left funding in place and will allow county fiscal courts to decide how it is spent.
Siler said the veto is basically “an argument over semantics” and added it would not likely imperil the golf course or campground project.
“He’s kind of put us in the position of doing it the way the statutes were written as opposed to the way it’s developed over the years,” Siler said. “He said the fiscal court should designate those projects instead of the representative.”
Siler said he’s kept in close contact with county officials over funding priorities for the area, and said there is agreement on how the money should be spent.
“It’s not really a big deal to me,” he said. “They [the fiscal court] are the requesting agent anyway. I am just the messenger … I don’t expect the county judge to jump up and go to Frankfort every time he needs to get something straight.”
Much off the $370 million Fletcher vetoed came from projects state universities had planned. Siler said the issue of higher education funding for the projects is contentious anyway because it was never made clear to the General Assembly if debt incurred by bond issues from the schools affects the state’s credit rating.
Other projects, most notably a $17.5 million plan to renovate locks and dams on the Kentucky River, would likely have won approved on an override from the legislature if only there were time left in the session. Siler said lawmakers might have made a mistake not allowing time for vetoes.
All told, the vetoes reduced the state’s bonded indebtedness from 7.01 percent to 6.8 percent.