Thanks to the House Speaker Greg Stumbo and former Governor Paul Patton to bring attention to the future of Eastern Kentucky and the need for a college education an affordable are desperate.
All Kentucky should be concerned about this because all Kentucky pay to areas of poverty and lack of opportunities. We pay our taxes go directly when to support the people and places that are able to support themselves. And we pay directly when potential investors looked at Kentucky demographics and shies away.
We don’t know if changing the Pikeville Kentucky University to the ninth private University, like Patton, Stumbo and proposed is the best way to fill those needs are not met. Many questions must be answered before the other four-year institution added to the system are already underfunded.
But Patton and Stumbo has hit on an idea denied good: using a severance tax revenues now set for the development of regional economy in order to educate the residents of mountain coalfields. (Will not be a bad idea in the Western coalfields, either.)
State severance tax when collecting coal, natural gas, oil and gravel extracted and processed; money is divvied out to a number of State and local funds. Coal severance expected to generate $ 326.7 million this year.