By Lorie Hailey
Associate Editor
The Personnel Board will consider today whether Richie Farmer broke the state merit law at the Department of Agriculture when he was its commissioner, reports The (Frankfort, Ky.) State Journal.
It’s the first time the board will take action on the scathing audit by State Auditor Adam Edelen, but the Personnel Board has recently investigated hiring practices at the department.
Hearing officers found that the agriculture department broke state hiring laws by placing two non-merit division directors – Danita Fentress-Laird and Kathryn Willis – into merit assistant director jobs during a lengthy investigation that concluded in January, the same month of the announcement that there would be a thorough audit, the paper reports.
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The Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati has a program in which homeowners and renters who were displaced or who suffered damage to their primary homes in the Feb. 29 and March 2 tornadoes might be eligible for grants of as much as $20,000 toward the purchase, construction or repair of a home, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.
The bank set aside $5 million for its disaster-reconstruction program, which is available to qualified applicants in any county declared a disaster area in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.
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Bourbon production has returned to the place where it started with the opening of a small batch distillery in Maysville, the Associated Press reports..
State and local officials joined those associated with The Old Pogue Distillery recently to celebrate the return of bourbon making to Mason County.
Peter H. Pogue, president of The Old Pogue Distillery, said three generations of Pogues had made bourbon until Prohibition and now the family was “almost to the day —136 years later — again distilling on the same hallowed ground.”
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Nearly three years into the recovery, more than four in 10 Americans don’t believe the economy will improve over the next few years and the vast majority plan to rein in spending over the next 12 months, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey being released today, reports USA TODAY.
Nearly half the respondents said they aren’t financially secure and almost a third said they have no savings. Consumers also have dramatically shifted their priorities in the past two years, putting less value on luxury and status, and more on saving money and staying healthy, the paper reports.
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