Kentucky lawmakers agree health care costs are too high but disagree on the effects of certificate of need laws on cost and access to medical care. (Getty Images)

A libertarian-leaning national conservative group known for its connections to the Koch brothers and its “dark money” network is weighing in on the certificate of need debate expected to heat up in Kentucky as some seek to repeal or reform the decades-long program.?

The Koch brothers, David and Charles, controlled Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas. David Koch died in August 2019. His brother Charles still leads the organization. The brothers spent their vast fortune on libertarian causes, specifically through the use of dark money, which is a term applied when a group does not have to disclose its donors.?

Both sides of the argument — those seeking to reform or repeal certificate of need and the health care groups in favor of keeping it — have spent large sums of money lobbying Congress and the Kentucky legislature in 2023, so it could impact election and lobbying spending in Kentucky for the foreseeable future.

Speaking in Florence last week, representatives from Americans for Prosperity, which waged a similar campaign in South Carolina against certificate of need — the program that guides who provides specific health care services in a given area — told audience members that it’s one of their key policy issues.?

“Certificate of need is a hot-button issue here in Northern Kentucky as it has been in all the states that it happened,” said Liam Gallagher, the grassroots engagement director for Americans for Prosperity Kentucky.?

Gallagher noted that the group fought a 10-year battle in South Carolina, which recently passed a full repeal of certificate of need.?

“That’s what we’re hoping to do here in Kentucky,” Gallagher said.?

Kentucky is one of 35 states and the District of Columbia that operate certificate of need (CON) programs, which vary widely among the states, according to the Conference of State Legislatures. The ?laws are regulatory mechanisms for approving major capital expenditures and projects for certain health care facilities.

CON statutes, which spread during the 1970s, were designed to hold down health costs by limiting unnecessary duplication, improve quality by regionalizing procedures like surgeries in which volume affects quality, and improve access to care by preventing competitors from “cream-skimming” paying patients, leaving some providers with disproportionately high uncompensated care loads, according to the National Institutes of Health.?

How well the laws have worked is a matter of debate. Since the mid-1980s, numerous states have abandoned CON. The latest, South Carolina, repealed its certificate of need law in May with some provisions already effective, though most of the new law will not take effect until 2027, according to The Post and Courier of Charleston.

Hot topic in Northern Kentucky

In Northern Kentucky, the discussion over certificate of need reform has moved into the mainstream with legislators filing bills this past session that either would reform or repeal the program altogether.

One of those legislators, Rep. Marianne Proctor (R-Union), spoke at the Americans for Prosperity Event July 11. Proctor, a freshman legislator, said that certificate of need reform is her passion and she wants competition for health care in the area.

Originally from Texas — “… but don’t worry, we come out of the womb with the Bible and a rifle” — Proctor noted that there was no certificate of need when she worked as a speech pathologist in the Lone Star State.?

“To have competition always breeds excellence,” Proctor said. “The hospital that I worked with was top three nationwide for all the years that I worked there.”?

The legislation that Proctor filed in spring 2023 would allow any health care provider to operate in three northernmost counties — Boone, Campbell and Kenton — without first requiring a certificate of need. In other words, it would fully repeal certificate of need for the region.?

“What I’m looking to do is reduce the amount of services that are regulated by the certificate of need,” Proctor said earlier this year. “In Kentucky, we have 23 regulations that require permission from the state to open such as ambulatory care services, dialysis centers, substance abuse, mental health services.”??

St. Elizabeth says it is not a monopoly

The legislation specifically targeted Northern Kentucky because some view St. Elizabeth Healthcare as holding a monopoly over health care in the region. The health care organization argues it is not legally a monopoly but has been designated to have dominant health care status.???

St. Elizabeth CEO Garren Colvin said that when the hospital group merged with St. Luke in the mid-2000s, an analysis with the federal government ?determined there weren’t any anti-trust issues.?

“So as far as the status of monopoly, there is no monopoly,” Colvin said.

According to Kentucky’s state health plan, certificates are issued by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and there are currently 21 medical services that require certificates of need.?

In Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties, there are 109 certificates of need, and St. Elizabeth holds nine of them.?

Regarding hospitals, they hold four of the NKY counties’ seven total certificates, with St. Elizabeth Florence, St. Elizabeth Ft. Thomas, St. Elizabeth Edgewood, and St. Elizabeth Covington.

Dean Clancy, the senior health policy fellow for Americans for Prosperity, said that it sounds like semantics, and if it “looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.”?

“If there is a dominant player in these parts that lacks sufficient competition, then we should call it what it is,” Clancy said.

Clancy, who lives in Florida but works in Washington D.C., is no stranger to the health care industry. He has more than 20 years of experience working on policy in Congress, the White House, and the health care industry, according to his bio from Americans for Prosperity. He also regularly pens op-eds about health care issues.?

“Local health care monopolies are a problem all over the country, not just in Kentucky,” Clancy said. “We are trying to repeal certificate of need and enact other reforms that will basically put patients in charge. We’re very excited by this effort here in Kentucky and we look forward to seeing it succeed and replicating it around the country.”

Clancy joined Americans for Prosperity three years ago.?

Americans for Prosperity Kentucky

Known for its connection to the Koch brothers, the organization was born in the early 2000s and became one of the driving forces behind the Tea Party Movement, which advocates for limited government and has 35 state chapters.?

“We have a stated policy position in every single one of our states against certificate of need,” Gallagher said.?

The group also spends big when it comes to policy and supporting limited government issues. So far this year, it has spent $507,000 on total lobbying expenditures to Congress, according to the campaign finance website OpenSecrets. It spent $1,463,000 in 2022.?

The network with the Koch brothers also includes the Americans for Prosperity Action Super PAC and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

The super PAC spent nearly $80 million in the 2022 midterms, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

As a 501(C)(4), Americans for Prosperity is not required to disclose its donors. The group can’t donate directly to candidates, however, and can only operate for the “promotion of social welfare.” As part of that classification, it also can’t spend more than 50% of its budget on politics.?

Among other groups with an interest in health care in Kentucky, the Kentucky Medical Association spent $98,182, and the Kentucky Hospital Association spent $95,946 lobbying the Kentucky legislature during the first quarter of 2023, according to the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission.

Colvin, the St. Elizabeth CEO, says Kentuckians should be the ones making health care policies for Kentuckians.?

“I think the people in Kentucky should be making the health care policy for the state of Kentucky, and I trust that our legislators in Frankfort will do what’s right,” Colvin said.?

But Americans for Prosperity Kentucky now has six full-time and 20 part-time employees in Kentucky who are dedicated to fighting for it policy positions, including eliminating certificate of need, one of it top priority positions.?

“It is one of our priority initiatives in the scope of this session,” Gallagher said. “It will be for the foreseeable future until we see repeal.”?

This article is republished from LINK nky.

Northern Kentucky University will no longer have a diversity office, its president has announced. (Photo from LINK nky)

Northern Kentucky University’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution last week that seeks, via a statement, to improve the relationship with the university’s board of regents but also heavily criticizes the board for its role in the public university’s $25 million deficit that has led to staffing and program cuts.

“There is some criticism in that statement because the faculty feel like they bear some responsibility for what happened,” said Faculty Senate President John Farrar.

At its last meeting, the faculty senate discussed a possible resolution for a no-confidence vote against the board of regents.

Farrar said he thought a vote of no confidence — which means the faculty senate doesn’t support the governing body of the university — is extreme and a last measure. But he said the faculty is committed to ensuring the university has an open and transparent process for selecting the new president.

The faculty senate chose to call on the board to allow more input from faculty, staff, and students on the new presidential search and requests the regents rebuild trust through openness and transparency.

Board of Regents Chair Rich Boehne said that the board accepts responsibility and accountability, though the two sides might not always agree on the specifics.

“The board always accepts full responsibility, because that’s our job,” Boehne said. “I guess there’d be differences of opinion on whether the board has acted properly and decisively.”

However, Boehne couldn’t answer whether or not the university would change course and decide to have an open presidential search. Instead, the board would look at this statement and take that into consideration at their next meeting June 14.

“I would just have to honestly say ‘I don’t know’ because that would be decisions made by the search committee and their recommendation to the board,” Boehne said.

The deficit issue started in the fall when the university was found to have a nearly $25 million deficit. The university parted ways with President Ashish Vaidya under what both parties called “mutually agreed upon” terms — though Farrar said Vaidya’s departure and the budget deficit were?related.

The statement passed by the faculty senate on May 5 ties the board of regents to the budget deficit by saying that current financial issues stem from the trust the board placed in Vaidya.

Further, the statement says that the board’s primary role is as a guardian of the university’s fiduciary health, and they failed in this role.

“Therefore, NKU’s current financial crisis stems, in part, from the failure of the regents to review and act upon financial information that was presented to them in the ordinary course of business,” the statement says.

In order to respond to the university’s financial crisis, the board of regents has cut university staff and programs.

“These decisions have resulted in the elimination of one-sixth of the university’s full-time faculty positions over a period of just three years, leaving some academic programs to be taught entirely by part-time adjunct instructors,” the statement says.

Boehne said he thinks there are differences of opinion on how the board has handled the current budget shortfall and the strategies and tactics to deal with it.

“The board?has acted and been very decisive on both how we react quickly and what needs to be done in order to put the university on solid footing and continue to serve students and communities,” Boehne said.

Another part of the resolution calls on the faculty senate and the board to increase communication between the two bodies. But faculty senator and NKU Professor Kathleen Fuegen said that the board has failed in its fiduciary duties and that they might not do better when it comes to communicating.

“The board’s primary responsibilities are fiduciary,” Fuegen said during the Friday meeting. “Their primary task is to oversee the financial health of the university and at that task they did fail, so we can say all we want about improving communication, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to do a better job.”

Farrar said he hoped the statement would help bridge the gap between the faculty, staff, and student bodies, and the board of regents — noting that despite issues over the past year, NKU still has a lot of positives.

“I feel like the regents do want us to be an excellent university,” Farrar said. “But we have not always been pulling on the same side of the rope.”

Boehne said there are “gracious olive branches” in the statement and the two governing bodies of the university have a good relationship, even though there are disagreements.

This story is republished from Link nky.

Mark, Nancy and Jordan Bardgett. (Photo provided to LINK NKY)

This article is republished from Link NKY.

When Nancy Bardgett’s daughter came out as transgender, she was thankful that Jordan was able to receive the care she needed.?

In addition to having a supportive family, Jordan, a student at Northern Kentucky University at the time, received mental-health support.?

“She had supportive friends and she sought out resources and knew where to look for help,” Nancy said.

In 2022, the Trevor Project conducted a survey on the mental health of the LGBTQ community and found suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24. Further, LGBTQ-questioning youth are at a significantly increased risk.?

“You look at the American Medical Association, The Trevor project, and all the data is very clear,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. “We should be in the business of preventing teen suicides and never contributing to it.”?

Proponents of Senate Bill 150 say LGBTQ advocates are using suicide to put kids and their health in the crosshairs on this issue.?

The bill could become law March 29 or 30 if Republican lawmakers override Gov. Andy Beshear’s March 24 veto.

The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer, R-Alexandria; John Schickel, R-Union; and Gex Williams, R-Verona, bans puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery or hormones for those under the age of 18. It would also prohibit schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms and force transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Opponents of the bill say it’s one of the worst pieces of “anti-trans” and “anti-LGBTQ” legislation in the country. But proponents say it would protect parental rights.

“As far as the parental rights issue, this is something that is happening all over the country,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said. “There is a lot of concern about parental rights in schools. I think it’s partially due to COVID and all the virtual learning, and parents got a front-row seat to what was happening in schools everywhere.”

One of the challenges as a parent, Bardgett said, was understanding her daughter when she came out? — something she admits she wasn’t perfect about as she fumbled over pronouns. But she worked on it.?

“One of the things that is so horrible about this bill is it’s just this effort to not let anybody understand,” Bardgett said.?

?The bill? would prevent teachers from discussing human sexuality in classrooms in any grade level. It would also prevent any sex education for those under grade 3; and without parents first opting-in for grades 6-12.

Bardgett also said that people think trans parents indoctrinate their kids, but she and her husband, Mark, didn’t necessarily want this for their daughter. They felt it might put her in harm’s way. But they also wanted their daughter to know they support her no matter what.?

In Fort Thomas, where the Bardgetts live, Nancy feels SB 150 is not what Kentucky residents stand for.

“This isn’t the people of Kentucky,” Bardgett said, who volunteers with the Campbell County Democrats, Brighton Center and in her church. “This is certain people in the Kentucky legislature.”

‘Each session takes on a life of its own’?

In October, Thayer spoke at the Covington Business Council’s legislative preview and said the 2023 legislative session would be slow paced.

In odd-numbered years, the Kentucky legislature holds 30-day sessions as opposed to 60-day budget sessions in even-numbered years.?

In 2022, with Republican supermajorities in both the House and Senate, the legislature passed bills that banned abortion, cut unemployment benefits, reduced the income tax, and set the state’s budget for 2023 and 2024.

The 2023 session would, according to Thayer, whose district stretches into southern Kenton County, be about cleaning up some of the legislation from 2022, including further reducing the income tax.

Instead, the 2023 session evolved into one focused on passing an omnibus piece of legislation focused on limiting health-care resources to transgender minors and how gender and sexuality are discussed in schools.?

Thayer also said that while leadership expected the session to be slow, the legislature is driven by its members.

“Each session takes on a life of its own,” Thayer said.

A ‘clash of worldviews’

The legislation first appeared in the House as House Bill 470 in early March, when the House Judiciary Committee passed it. The passage came amid LGBTQ advocates lining the hallways of the Kentucky Capitol annex, chanting “shame” as legislators walked by.

After it passed the committee, and with tears in her eyes, Northern Kentucky Rep. Kim Banta, R-Fort Mitchell, said she’d worked hard to prevent conversion therapy in the LGBTQ community, and that this was another step backwards.?

“I’m really upset for families right now,” Banta said. “I’m upset because I feel like we denigrated the medical profession. I feel like we’re making people feel less than and I don’t like that.”

In 2021, Banta introduced legislation that would have banned conversion therapy in the commonwealth. Banta said she tried to approach it from the angle that it is bad therapy practice.

“I tried very hard to get people to understand that I was not trying to change their religion or their belief or their thought about being gay,” Banta said.

The bill never received any movement in the legislature.

“People were way too afraid that it was going to infringe on their religious liberty,” Banta said. “I would never try to control someone’s religious liberty.”

Banta cut parts of the bill to appease some religious members of the House but felt it would be gutting the bill if she cut it anymore. She didn’t reintroduce the legislation in 2022.

When it comes to religious liberty, no group lobbies the legislature more than the Kentucky Family Foundation — a Christian organization that spent more than $13,000 to lobby the legislature in 2022 to follow “biblical values.”

David Walls, a Texas transplant, took over as the foundation’s executive director at the end of 2021. In the last two years, Walls has appeared regularly in the legislature, not only lobbying but also providing testimony on legislation deemed important by the organization.

According to the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission, the group lobbies for legislation related to parental rights, the protection of children, religious liberty, the sanctity of human life and gambling.

During Walls’ nearly two years in Kentucky, the legislature pushed through an omnibus abortion bill and this year’s omnibus “anti-trans” bill.

When Walls lived in Texas, he worked for a company called Texas Values — a spinoff of the First Liberty Institute, an organization fighting for what it calls religious freedom and Judeo-Christian values.

“All of this desire to address this issue was at a place of wanting to protect kids and wanting to keep parents empowered and in the driver’s seat of what happens to them,” Walls said. “And part of this is just a clash of worldviews.”

Walls also said that LGBTQ advocates are using the conversation over mental health and suicide in a way that’s harmful.?

“I think it is tremendously harmful and outright shameful the way in which LGBTQ advocates and the governor and others are trying to use the topic of suicide to put kids and their health and well-being in the crosshairs on this issue,” Walls said.?

Parents who opposed the bill argue it strips them of their rights to take care of their children’s health care.

Both sides presented their arguments during the House Judiciary Committee hearing for HB 470.?

Chris Bolling, a retired pediatrician from Northern Kentucky, said the bill would make it nearly impossible for pediatric medical providers to provide gender-affirming care in the state, as the legislation would be punitive for doctors with the potential to lose their license.?

“It labels medical treatment, that is the standard of care for patients with gender dysphoria, as unprofessional and unethical,” Bolling said. “It mandates the revocation of the license of any provider who provides or refers to the care and criminalizes not reporting to minors who are referring to this care.”

Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill,? said the bill sets Kentucky back decades.

“I understand the desire to keep our kids safe from predatory actions, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Moser said. “I think this is, unfortunately, short-sighted and discriminatory.”?

While many Kentuckians advocated against the bill, primarily out-of-state speakers touted it during the 2023 legislative session.?

Luka Hein, a Wisconsin resident who travels the country testifying to state legislatures, explained she once identified as transgender, changing her pronouns to he/him. When she was 16, she said she received a double mastectomy and hormone therapy before detransitioning later in life. She urged the committee to vote in favor of the bill.

“I was affirmed on a path of medical intervention that I could not fully understand the long-term impacts and consequences of, nor fully consent to use it with my age and mental health,” Hein said.?

Dr. Christian Van Mol, who serves on the boards of Bethel Church of Redding and Moral Revolution — a California megachurch that gained notoriety for something called “grave sucking” where members would lie on the graves of dead revivalists and believed they would absorb the dead person’s anointing from God — testified during the House Judiciary Committee meeting.

“Transition affirming medical interventions actually imperil at-risk and gender dysphoric youth,” Van Mol said in the committee meeting.

After the bill passed the committee, legislators ushered the bill to the House floor and quickly took up a vote.

As advocates chanted outside the House chamber, members voted to pass the bill by a vote of 75-22.

Moser’s statement on the floor noted that the eyes of the world were on Kentucky.

“I would like to say to the rest of the world that’s watching Kentucky — we are not complete neanderthals,” Moser said.

In addition to Moser and Banta, Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, provided the only Republican no votes.

Bardgett regarded those no votes as acts of kindness from legislators.?

“I will tell you some of my heroes in this, and what I keep saying to people, are some of the Northern Kentucky legislators who voted no,” Bardgett said. “Because they were listening to their hearts and to their constituents, and not to their party leaders.”

A February Mason-Dixon Poll found that 71% of Kentuckians opposed any such law, with 83% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans in opposition. The poll showed that most Kentuckians would rather leave that decision up to parents.

Northern Kentucky lawmaker takes center stage in push to pass bill in Senate

After the bill cleared the House, it appeared in the Senate, and Sen. Gex Williams took a central role in the strategy to push HB 470 through the upper chamber of the Kentucky legislature.

Standing on the Senate steps near 11 p.m. on March 15, the Wednesday night before the veto period, Williams strategized with David Walls, the executive director of the Family Foundation, Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, and Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, about how to push through the bill.

The impromptu strategy session came moments after Williams motioned to table the bill to the Senate clerk’s desk — a temporary strategy to delay the vote and give the Senate time to get enough votes to pass the legislation.

The motion came after Williams filed two amendments — one early in the evening and the other later in the evening — that mirrored a law passed in South Dakota and signed into law by Gov. Kristi Noem in February that bans puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery and cross-sex hormones.

The amendments provided exceptions for those who must take hormones for health reasons but would ban gender-affirming surgery or medication.

Less than 12 hours later, the legislature quickly moved to pass the legislation by putting the language from House Bill 470 into a committee substitute and put it into Senate Bill 150 — a bill that initially gave teachers the option to use the pronouns of transgender students’ choosing.

The move to pass the bill started in the House when a surprise House Education meeting was called during lunch the day before the veto period on March 16. There was one agenda item — Senate Bill 150.

The move gave legislators on the committee and in the House little time to read and understand the bill.

Republicans then rushed the bill to the House floor, where a vote quickly took place, but not before Democrats spent nearly two hours trying to stall it.

“This shouldn’t be a trust exercise,” Beshear said, criticizing the maneuver. “Every legislator should have the time, as should the public, to read anything that’s coming up for a committee or for a legislative vote.”

Rep. David Meade, R-Stanford, who carried the bill in the House, cited a statistic that 66% of Kentuckians want this legislation.

But Meade wouldn’t cite the source for the statistic, and House Communications staff didn’t respond with where Meade received the numbers.

Beshear vetoed the bill on March 24, but Republican leadership in both chambers indicated they would override the veto when they return from the 10-day period on March 29.?

On the Senate floor after voting yes on the passage of SB 150, Williams said the bill was about love and concern from rising suicide rates over what he deemed to be issues with transgender people taking drugs to change their biological sex.

“When you introduce drugs, and you try to fight 30 or 40 trillion cells in your body, using drugs, the outcome is not going to be good,” Williams said.

‘Purely political vantage point’

The lone Democrat in the Northern Kentucky caucus, House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, didn’t mince words when speaking about this legislation.

“I don’t think it’s just the worst anti-trans bill in the country,” Roberts said. “I think this is one of the worst anti-LGBTQ bills in the country.”

Roberts also said the bill is a political move in a gubernatorial election year, as Republicans try to oust Democrat Andy Beshear from the governor’s office.

Outside of Beshear, Republicans control every branch of Kentucky’s government, including both chambers of the legislature and all the state’s constitutional seats — attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state, state auditor, agriculture commissioner.

“I think the push for this is coming from a purely political vantage point,” Roberts said. “It’s a calculated messaging strategy on the majority party side that they think is going to help them win elections this year and the constitutional seats that are up for election, and that will be part of their messaging.”

SB 150’s sponsor is Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, who is the running mate of Republican Kelly Craft — a former United Nations ambassador appointed by former President Donald Trump who is running for governor this year.?

When Beshear vetoed the bill on March 24 and said, “I believe Senate Bill 150 tears away the freedom of parents to make important and difficult medical decisions for their kids,” Republicans across the state, including Wise and Craft, immediately attacked Beshear.

“As governor, I will fight any attempt to sexualize our children and rob them of their futures,” Craft wrote in a statement. “It’s time we dismantle the Department of Education and start fresh. Governor Beshear doesn’t have the leadership to do it, but the Craft-Wise Administration will deliver on that promise.”

Roberts argued that the “anti-trans” message is the one that will replace the abortion message — after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 triggered a law that banned the procedure in Kentucky.

“They needed the latest shiny penny thing that they could try and rally voters around, and tragically that seems to be them targeting some of the most vulnerable children in our community,” Roberts said.

While the bill played out politically in the Kentucky statehouse and in this year’s gubernatorial race, it has real world implications for trans Kentuckians. Jordan, who now attends graduate school in Illinois, has questioned whether she’ll return to the commonwealth when she finishes her studies, according to her mother, Nancy Bardgett.

Worse, Bardgett said, is that this bill will have a major impact on school aged children, with some parents starting to question whether they will move out of state.

“I think right now parents, some of them, can’t even fathom the long term implications of this bill,” Bardgett said.

Northern Kentucky University will no longer have a diversity office, its president has announced. (Photo from LINK nky)

This article is republished from LINK nky.

When Northern Kentucky University announced former President Ashish Vaidya’s sudden departure in November, representatives said it wasn’t due to the large budget deficit found in the last half of 2022.

That’s not the case, according to Faculty Senate President John Farrar. He said Vaidya’s departure relates to NKU’s more than $24 million budget deficit.

“I think you can’t really deny that the sudden change that happened is directly related to the budget,” Farrar said. “I’m not going to say that’s the only thing, and I don’t know what the details are, but it seems pretty obvious to me, they’re connected.”

That’s not the stance NKU and its Board of Regents Chair Rich Boehne initially took in November. At the time, Boehne said that Vaidya’s departure came down to a difference in vision for the university, and the two parties mutually agreed to part ways.

“Time is now for a leadership transition as the university embarks on a multi-year repositioning effort in response to changing market and financial pressures impacting all of higher education,” the board said in November.

Boehne said after the meeting that Vaidya’s departure was unrelated to the budget. He also said he felt like the university has a handle on the financial situation.

“I think we saw it differently: Two sides had come to that conclusion, the board and the president, then, at the end of the semester, it was probably a very logical time to do it,” Boehne said at the time.

Boehne is still adamant that the president’s sudden departure isn’t due to the budget, instead saying it was a symptom of a “relationship moving toward its conclusion.”

Boehne also doesn’t agree with Farrar’s comments that Vaidya’s departure is related to the budget.

“I guess I’m saying, if the question or somebody is thinking, ‘Oh, we saw what we saw happened on the? [Nov.] 9 and that was it,? I mean, you know, gosh, look at these numbers. And we’re done,’ that’s not the case,” Boehne said.

Boehne points toward issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as enrollment and financial aid.

“Those two items right there had the real impact on the budget,” Boehne said.

When NKU released its 2023 fiscal year budget in mid-June 2022, there was no mention of any shortfall. The university approved its $271.5 million budget, an increase of $7 million.

One month later, the university hired a new chief financial officer and vice president for administration and finance, Jeremy Alltop. Alltop told NKU’s student newspaper, The Northerner, that he had no idea these issues were in the budget.

Farrar said that when Alltop arrived, he started looking at all the pieces and how they were put together, the university’s spending, “that’s when [the issue in the budget] was discovered.”

The budget shortfall was presented to the Board of Regents in an audit meeting in October.

In an Oct. 17 email to then-President Vaidya and the board, Andrew Aiello, chief of staff for Go METRO, Cincinnati’s transits system, who serves on NKU’s College of Informatics Advisory Board, expressed concern over the issues in NKU’s budget.

“We have heard the news that NKU is facing an extremely challenging budget situation and will soon be making some very difficult decisions about the future of the university and, in turn, the future of our community,” Aiello said. “Times like these will no doubt require shared sacrifice, strategic thinking, and strong leadership.”

On Oct. 31, the Northerner reported the budget deficit, initially thought to be $18.7 million at the Oct. 4 meeting, was actually $24.2 million.

The Board of Regents held a meeting Nov. 9 where Alltop and Matt Cecil, provost and executive vice president, outlined the university’s repositioning strategy.

Among the changes outlined, the university said it would allow a “voluntary separation program” for eligible tenured and tenure-track faculty.

It would also be rolling back merit-based scholarships for international students.

“The big overspending on financial aid, the increase in instructional costs, those kinds of things. A lot of that really expanded in the last two or three years. That’s when the problem became really more acute,” Farrar said.

Farrar outlined that the issues in the budget stem from scholarship money and staff raises.

The problem with scholarship money started with the pandemic, according to Farrar. Before the pandemic, the university dropped its testing requirement — ACT and SAT scores — for merit-based scholarships, leading the university to rely solely on GPA.

During COVID, GPA scores skyrocketed, so there was a considerable influx of scholarship-qualified students. Instead of allowing these students to use outside money, such as KEES Scholarship money, the university first used its own pool of institutional aid, which amounted to about $8 million.

The 2022-2023 fiscal year budget outlined that the university would reverse this trend moving forward.

It did, however, keep room for staff pay increases, with about $7 million going to pay raises for staff during this time.

Farrar thinks the university had to make these investments in order to keep staff because some were leaving to accept better offers.

“That’s a big increase in personnel costs,” Farrar said.

Staff expenses are usually the most expensive part of any business, according to Farrar, but the university might have been a bit more generous than it was able to afford.

President Vaidya’s emails

In emails obtained by LINK nky, Vaidya communicates with university officials, staff, and concerned community members about the repositioning plan, NKU’s budget issues, and listening sessions in the fall.

In a Nov. 2 email with NKU’s communications team about prepared remarks for the Nov. 9 Board of Regents meeting, there isn’t any clear indication that Vaidya knows of his exit.

“I wonder if I should begin with some sort of acknowledgment about the repositioning and listening sessions and the difficult situation etc.? Thoughts???” Vaidya asked.

On Nov. 8, the night before the Nov. 9 Board of Regents meeting, the board had dinner with Vaidya. Boehne said that the board and the president didn’t discuss Vaidya’s exit at that dinner, but the discussion of it did start the next day.

Eight days later, on Nov. 17, the board held a special meeting where they announced Vaidya’s departure. The meeting was swift, the president wasn’t available for comment, and the board immediately went into executive session.

In Aiello’s — who serves on the College of Informatics Advisory board — email, in which he expresses concern over NKU’s situation, he also outlines ways he thinks the university can move forward.

Specifically, he acknowledges that cuts need to be made, but he argues for those cuts not to happen to the College of Informatics.

“It is understood that cuts need to occur, but disproportionate cuts in Informatics would be counterproductive to the goal of sustaining/growing enrollment,” Aiello writes.

He also writes that the university demands more from the college, and if NKU is to grow, it must offer something different from the marketplace. His remarks specifically hit on maintaining Informatics+, a center connecting NKU students to real-world learning experiences.

Aiello outlined how regional companies seek talent in electronic media and broadcasting, data science, cybersecurity, and computer information technology.

“These companies have built deep relationships with the COI through the outreach of Informatics+,” Aiello writes. “They are heavily engaged in keeping the university responsive to the needs of industry, and they are delivering non-tuition streams of revenue to the University (Cybersecurity Symposium, DX22, Kroger Technology, and Digital Innovation Lab, etc.). It is essential that the outreach arm of Informatics+ continues to serve the region at a high level. The college’s exceptional successes in fundraising are also a result of the effectiveness of the Informatics+ team.”

At the Nov. 9 meeting, however, the board approved discontinuing Informatics+.

Boehne said there are plans to roll this program in with other programs at the university.

There isn’t, however, any information specific to Vaidya’s departure, and LINK nky is still in the process of an open records appeal over Vaidya’s emails with the attorney general.

On Jan. 13, the Attorney General’s Office issued a decision that found that NKU violated the Open Records Act by not correctly responding to LINK’s request within five business days — something that’s required under the law.

NKU released 629 pages of emails, but continues to withhold some emails due to what it argues is preliminary standing, such as “preliminary drafts, notes, and correspondence with private individuals not intended to give notice of final action of a public agency” and legal correspondence from NKU’s legal affairs office.

LINK nky disputed these categories and has filed another appeal for the rest of the president’s emails at the behest of the AG’s office.

What’s next for NKU??

Farrar said there was a combination of mistakes made regarding NKU’s current financial situation.

“But really from my perspective they were made with good intentions in mind,” Farrar said, elaborating that the university needs to make sure it balances what it wants to do with the budget.

During its meeting in early January, the Board of Regents unanimously voted to appoint Bonita Brown, vice president and chief strategy officer at NKU, as the university’s interim president.

Brown said one of her goals is to make the university more frugal through the university’s repositioning strategy.

Last year, the Kentucky legislature bailed out Kentucky State University with $23 million — about half of the university’s budget — after the university found it had a budget shortfall in the summer of 2021. This led the university president to resign and Gov. Andy Beshear to investigate the school’s financial situation.

NKU’s nearly $25 million budget deficit is about 9% of its total budget.

This year, however, is a non-budget year for the Kentucky legislature. Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights) told LINK nky in November that he has yet to hear of NKU approaching the legislature to open up its budget for additional funding.

“We’re going to keep an eye on what they have going over there,” McDaniel said in November.