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Gov. Steve Beshear has organized a 25-member task force to tackle the issues of affordability and access to Kentucky higher education.

The Higher Education Work Group, co-chaired by business leaders Mira Ball of Lexington and Pete Mahurin of Bowling Green, has been charged with producing two reports: The first, due in January 2009, will focus on ways to reduce college costs. The second, due by September 2009, will take a broader look at how best to create stable state funding for higher education. The discussion will include whether smaller tuition increases could be proposed in exchange for certain funding levels and meeting performance objectives.

Beshear has outlined four major areas of concern:
• Affordability

• Making financial aid more accessible and easier to understand

• Easing barriers to transfer from community and technical colleges to four-year institutions

• Determining appropriate levels of state support for high education and outlining more clear performance expectations for colleges and universities.
Kentuckians have seen in-state residential tuition at public colleges increase 10 percent over the last decade, compared to 7 percent in surrounding states.

“We can’t be content with baby steps when other places are taking giant strides, not when we’re trying to compete with these states in the global marketplace,” Beshear said. “Rather, we must pursue new solutions to old challenges. We need dramatic and focused strategies that lead to transformational and enduring change.”

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson has announced plans to close city offices and furlough non-essential employees for three days in an effort to manage the city’s projected $20 million budget shortfall.

City offices will be closed on Dec. 26, the Friday after the Christmas holiday; Jan. 2, the Friday after the New Year’s Day holiday; and May 1, Oaks Day. City offices are closed on Christmas Day and New Years Day, which are paid city holidays for employees.

Public safety agencies – including essential personnel in police, fire, EMS and corrections – and garbage collection crews will be staffed. All other departments will be closed.

“These are three days that will have the least impact on both citizens and employees,” Abramson said.

The furloughs will save the city approximately $2 million.

Abramson also announced that he and the city’s top leadership team will take a 10 percent pay cut starting Jan. 1, 2009 – a move that will save about $200,000.
The city has also implemented a hiring freeze and restrictions on travel and discretionary spending.

While the closings and pay cuts will make a difference in the city’s ability to balance the budget, Abramson said the possibility of layoffs still remains.

The new Bowling Green Hot Rods logo taps into the area's ties to the auto industry.

Bowling Green Pro Baseball officially has officially unveiled the new identity of the new Class-A affiliate of the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays.

The new South Atlantic League franchise team will be known as the Bowling Green Hot Rods.

“We are very excited to develop the Hot Rods brand, which connects the spirit and heritage of this region’s automotive industry with a creative name and logo associated with the fun of minor league baseball,” said Hot Rods General Manager/CEO Brad Taylor.

The name was selected by way of a month-long name-the-team contest that drew more than 4,000 fans suggesting some 1,000-plus different team names.

Opening night for the Bowling Green Hot Rods is scheduled for Apr. 17, 2009, at a new downtown ballpark that is currently under construction.

Toyota is responding to the nationwide decline in car sales by slowing production at its plant in Georgetown.

Toyota is cutting more than half of the temporary assembly line workers at its plant in Georgetown as new car sales continue to be sluggish in the midst of the country’s grim economic conditions.

The company currently employs about 500 temporary workers.  Those employees affected by the cuts will be phased out between January and March of next year.
None of the plant’s 7,000 full-time employees will be affected.

Though Toyota has weathered the downturn better than some car manufacturers, sales of the company’s popular Camry model – which is produced at the Georgetown plant – are down 3.6 percent for the year and 12.8 percent in October.

As a result, the company has made the decision to indefinitely slow one of its three production lines  – a decision that means fewer people are required. It has also suspended production of the Solara convertible in order for inventories to level off.

The changes are not expected to affect production of the company’s new Venza model, which is being built in Georgetown.  The new five-passenger vehicle, which was designed to combine the flexibility of a sports utility vehicle with the style and comfort of a passenger car, is being built on the same assembly line as the Camry and will be sold exclusively in North America. The first Venzas to come off the line are to be available at dealerships this month, with a sticker price beginning at $25,975.

U.S. Sens. Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell have received the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence, an award honoring federal lawmakers whose voting records consistently support manufacturing in America.

The NAM Award is given to members of the House and Senate who support key manufacturing votes 70 percent or more of the time, as determined by a NAM member-led advisory committee comprised of both small and large manufacturers.

Bunning’s pro-manufacturing voting record was 85 percent; McConnell’s was 100 percent.

In the 110th Congress, 43 senators and 181 representatives earned the NAM Award. 

The National Association of Manufacturers is the nation’s largest industrial trade association, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states.

Yum plans to reduce its percentage of company-owned stores by selling them to franchisees. Yum is the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, A&W Restaurants and Long John Silver's.

Yum Brands Inc. has initiated a companywide restructuring plan that will eliminate several hundred white-collar jobs and shift up to 200 corporate jobs to the company’s five fast-food brands.

Yum is the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, A&W Restaurants and Long John Silver’s. KFC, Long John Silver’s and A&W are headquartered in Louisville, Pizza Hut is based in Dallas, and Irvine, Calif., serves as headquarters for Taco Bell.

Company officials have said the restructuring is more connected to its strategy to sell some of its company-owned stores to franchisees – a trend that is being seen throughout the industry – than the country’s existing economic conditions.

Yum currently owns about 20 percent of KFC and Pizza Hut stores and plans to reduce that to approximately 10 percent.  As a result, some overlapping positions are being eliminated. (The company plans to keep its ownership of Taco Bell stores – a line that is more profitable than the others – at 20 percent.)

The changes are being implemented immediately and are expected to be complete by the early part of next year. The restructuring will reduce the number of employees at Yum’s corporate headquarters from about 1,400 to 1,100.

Ford to invest another $200 Million in Louisville; State Incentives protect 5,000+ Jobs
Ford Motor Company is planning an additional $200 million investment at its two Louisville manufacturing plants under an amended incentive package approved by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

Ford plans an additional $100 million investment at the Kentucky Truck Plant – on top of the $200 million in retooling over the past two years – to allow the plant to produce the Navigator and Expedition models starting in spring 2009.

Ford also plans to invest at least $100 million in the Louisville Assembly Plant to provide the manufacturing flexibility to produce a new, fuel-efficient car for the U.S. market by 2011. The total investment required to install a new flexible body shop and other re-tooling at LAP for full conversion from an SUV to a car plant will likely exceed $300 million and could go as high as $500 million. 

The incentives will allow Ford to recover up to 30 percent of its total investment made by 2016, capped at $180 million. The incentive package is the culmination of months of meetings and discussions between Ford, the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the City of Louisville. The package, which includes investment and employment targets to qualify for incentives, enables Ford to finalize plans for improvements at both Louisville facilities. 

“These investments will help protect the jobs of more than 5,000 Ford employees in the Louisville area and thousands more people throughout the commonwealth whose jobs and businesses depend on Ford’s continued presence here,” said Gov. Steve Beshear.

In addition, the state has approved $2 million in incentives to help auto parts supplier Martinrea expand its Christian County plant, which produces parts for Ford vehicles. Martinrea is planning a $13.5 million expansion that will add 65 jobs to its existing 340-member workforce.

As a major supplier to domestic auto plants, demand for AK Steel's products has dropped as sales for new cars have declined.

Facing a sharp decline in demand for its products, AK Steel has idled most of its operations in Ashland, leaving hundreds without jobs until the plant resumes operations.

Officials with AK Steel, which has also idled its plant in Mansfield, Ohio, said that based on foreseeable market conditions, both facilities would remain idle until early to mid-January.

The Ashland Works facility produces carbon flat-rolled steel for automotive, appliance and other markets. The plant currently employs 1,100 hourly and salaried men and women. About 275 of the Ashland Works employees work at the company’s coke plant, which is continuing to operate at a reduced level. A small number of hourly and salaried employees are continuing to maintain the idled operations in preparation for a re-start.

The Pittsburgh-based company said it continues to evaluate all of its operations and will be prepared to restart the idled operations sooner if business conditions improve significantly.

Allegiant Air is a low-cost carrier headquartered in Las Vegas.

Low-cost carrier Allegiant Air will launch air service between Owensboro and Orlando, Fla., beginning Feb. 18.

Flights between Owensboro-Daviess County Regional County Airport and Orlando Sanford International Airport (located midway between Orlando and Daytona Beach), will operate twice weekly, with service on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Allegiant will utilize 150-seat MD-80 jets on the route.

Regular one-way fares on the route will start at $89.

“Not only will these added flights help better meet the travel needs of those living in and around Daviess County, but this new partnership will also provide an economic boost to the region by bringing in more jobs and tourism,” said U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, who supported the runway extension project that made Allegiant service possible at Owensboro.

Integrity Automotive has received $40 million in orders for the ZAP û short for Zero Air Pollution. The electric cars produce 98 percent fewer pollutants than gas-powered cars and can go at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.

Integrity Automotive’s plans to build an $84 million factory in Franklin to produce electric cars have been stalled by the national economic slowdown, which has resulted in problems securing financing for the project.

Integrity Automotive President and CEO Randall Waldman told the Franklin Favorite that U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning are working to help the company obtain a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help get the project back on track. Waldman has said that for the Franklin project to move forward, the company will need to secure new investors or $150 million to $200 million in federal funding.

In the meantime, Waldman says he has received $40 million in orders for the ZAP electric car and is in the process of retrofitting part of the company’s plant in Shepherdsville so that they can begin filling those orders. The company currently has approximately 200 employees in Shepherdsville and plans to add between 25 and 50 in the coming weeks so production can begin in the first quarter of 2009. Integrity officials expect to be able to produce 25 vehicles per day at the Shepherdsville facility. Waldman’s plan is to install equipment in Shepherdsville that can be moved to Franklin when the new plant becomes operational.

Fixed-based operator TAC Air is investing $11.5 million for airfield improvements at Blue Grass Airport that will include a new executive terminal and 45,000 s.f. of new hangar space.

As a fixed-base operator, TAC Air provides ramp service for private aircraft, aviation fuel, aircraft storage and tie-down spaces, and aircraft, engine and accessory maintenance. TAC Air currently manages a general aviation terminal that serves as its operational base for handling the needs of those traveling on private and corporate aircraft.

The new 12,000-s.f. terminal will feature a large passenger lobby, two conference rooms with state-of-the-art equipment, a gift store and art gallery, upscale food offering, movie theater, exercise facility, pilot lounge, quiet room and flight planning area. The company hopes to have the new space completed before the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010.

University of Louisville researchers will take part in the largest government-funded, long-term study of environmental and genetic effects on children’s health to be conducted in the United States. The National Institutes of Health announced that UofL will receive a grant of $13.1 million over the next five years as a site in the National Children’s Study. The study will follow 100,000 children from before birth to age 21, with the goal of understanding how genes and environment interact to affect their health and development.

The National Children’s Study has the potential to address multiple issues, ranging from how exposure to allergens affect the later development of asthma to the causes of obesity and the impact of infections on developmental progress, said Deborah Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics and one of two UofL principal investigators. “This is particularly important for children in Kentucky, where we have higher than average rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes and more children born with low birth weight.”

The program “has the potential to be as important as the human genome project in our understanding of health and disease,” said David Tollerud, co-principal investigator, associate professor of pediatrics and professor of public health, medicine and pharmacology and toxicology.

The merger between the St. Luke Hospitals and St. Elizabeth Medical Center has been finalized, creating a new health care organization that includes five hospitals with 1,068 hospital beds, 31 primary care office locations, more than 4,600 employees and a net patient revenue of $663 million.

Preliminary plans for the merger were announced last year, but could not be finalized until St. Luke worked through legal issues to officially withdraw from the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati.

Though the hospitals will continue to operate under their existing names and no staff reductions are anticipated as a result of the merger, combining operations will save up to $15 million per year.

Leggett & Platt has notified employees at its Simpsonville furniture parts manufacturing plant that the facility will close at the end of March.

The facility produces metal mechanisms used in reclining sofas and chairs.
News of the shutdown brings the plant’s 45-year history to a close and leaves some 250 workers without jobs.

At the early part of this decade, Leggett & Platt was one of the area’s largest manufacturing facilities, with more than 600 employees. In recent years, however, layoffs have left the facility with less than half that figure. Ninety-one employees were let go in January 2007, and prior to the announcement of the plant closing, another 86 were already scheduled to be laid off as of mid-December. 

In a press release issued regarding the closure, L&P officials said the decision was due to changes in the market, which led to excess capacity companywide.
A portion of the plant’s operations will be moved to L&P’s plant in Leitchfield, Ky., with other operations being moved to China.