Lebanon Enterprise, Nov. 30, 2011
Mills reintroduces bill to allow
advertising on school buses
By Stephen Lega
State Rep. Terry Mills proposed a bill during the 2011 General Assembly that would allow local school boards to decide if they wanted to sell advertising on school buses. That bill won approval in the House of Representatives, but died in the Senate.
That hasn't deterred Mills, who has prefiled a similar bill (BR 272) for the 2012 session of the state legislature.
Mills stressed that districts would not be required to sell advertising space. Instead, the bill would give school boards the option to sell advertising on the exterior of school buses as a possible revenue source.
"It just opens the door for additional revenue for schools," Mills said.
Over the summer, Mills said he sent letters to every superintendent in Kentucky about the proposal, but only one responded to him.
He added that he did have some opposition from a few transportation directors. He understands that if a district decides to allow ads, it could create more work for those directors.
Nevertheless, Mills thinks the additional revenue could help school districts that have been affected by the downturn in the economy. He knows it wouldn't address all the budget issues facing schools, but it would help generate some additional revenue.
"It's good for business and it's good for education," he said.
Mills said he could envision ads for healthy fast food options, military recruiting, charitable organizations, the Kentucky Proud program, and post-secondary education institutions.
"What better way to advertise our community and technical college system than on the side of a school bus?" Mills said.
The bill would prohibit certain kinds of advertising. Specifically, political advertising, public advocacy advertising, and advertising promoting alcohol or tobacco products would be barred from school buses.
At the same time, he could also see local businesses, such as banks and insurance companies, buying the mobile advertising space.
"It wouldn't bother me if they paid a premium price for this because the money goes to education," Mills said.
At this time, seven states - Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas and Utah - allow school bus advertising. Florida, Idaho, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Washington have also considered bills to allow school bus ads.
Mills has not prefiled any other bills, but he said he is considering another bill similar to one he filed last year regarding expanded gaming.
Mills said he supports expanded gaming in Kentucky, but he also recognizes that it has the potential to lead some people to become compulsive gamblers. The bill he filed last year would have set aside state revenue to fund a program to help problem gamblers.
In the Senate
State Sen. Jimmy Higdon has received some statewide attention for a bill he has filed to combat the spread of pill mills (BR 188), but that is just one of several bills he has prefiled for the 2012 session of the General Assembly. (For more on the "pill mill bill," see the Nov. 23 edition of the Enterprise.)
Here is an overview of the other bills Higdon has prefiled through Monday:
* BR 57 - Higdon proposed the bill with Election Day in mind, but it's not for himself. It's for schools. This bill would allow school districts to be open on the days of elections, special elections and primary elections if no school in the district is used as a polling place. This bill would also allow school districts to schedule election days as a make-up day for school cancellations due to weather, safety or health emergencies.
* BR 145 - Higdon has introduced the bill in previous sessions. This proposal would amend the Kentucky Constitution so that the General Assembly would meet for 30-day session in even-numbered years. Under the current Kentucky Constitution, the state legislature meets for 60 days in even-numbered years and 30 days in odd-numbered years.
* BR 149 - In the past, Kentucky has had state legislators who have gone on to work in another state agency. This bill would prohibit an employee's salary earned in another state administered system from being used to determine their benefits in the Legislators' Retirement Plan.
* BR 151 - This bill would create a substance abuse screening program for adults receiving vocational education training. Individuals who test positive would be prohibited from receiving training for 90 days. Each subsequent positive test would result in a one-year prohibition on training.
* BR 152 - This bill would allow children who are 5 years old by Aug. 1 to enroll in a primary school program and who are 6 years old by Aug. 1 to enroll in public school. Under current law, Oct. 1 is the cutoff date.
* BR 188 - This is Higdon's pill mill bill aimed at making it difficult to open the kinds of pain management clinics that exclusively prescribe high doses of narcotics for the treatment of pain.
* BR 234 - This bill would increase the number of members on tourist commissions for second through sixth class cities (which includes Lebanon) from seven commissioners to nine commissioners. The two additional representatives would come from local restaurant associations.
Higdon said he was asked to present the bill by one of his constituents, Kenny Marrett, who has helped organize a downtown Lebanon Restaurant Association. Under the current law, three commission members are representatives of the hotel association and only one is a representative of local restaurants. By adding two more restaurant members, eateries would have as much representation as hotels, and it would also allow separate representatives for fast food and sit down restaurants.
Higdon has already received some resistance to this bill from state tourism officials. He said they're concerned that some legislators will use this bill as an opportunity to amend the law to allow cities to receive up to 75 percent of tourism tax revenues that now fund the tourist commissions.
* BR 240 - This is another retirement funding bill. Higdon's bill would close the Legislator's Retirement Plan to legislators who have not participated in the plan prior to July 1, 2012, or who do not begin their first term in office until after that date. This bill would also create the Legislators' Defined Contribution Plan for those legislators who serve their first term after July 1, 2012. This would allow the state to match contributions up to 5 percent of the legislators' salary toward the state retirement plan. Legislators would be fully vested in the plan after six years.