You're on Your Own, Suckers

Brace yourslef. The starvation state budget has kicked in and agencies have started announcing the taxpayer-funded services that you can't have any more.

First the state's public defenders announced they'd have to let runaway teens and indigent suspects take their chances in court without lawyers.

Then Kentucky State Police announced the end of roving patrols on the highways in favor of checkpoints to catch speeders and drunk drivers. Checkpoints may work better to catch drunk drivers, but if you're ever driven on the interstate, you know nothing slows traffic down to the speed limit faster than a cruiser patrolling the fast lane.

On Tuesday, the Transportation Cabinet announced they would stop installing drainage pipes under driveways connecting to state highways. Big whoop, you say? Tell me that again when your car is stalled out in the flood caused by water overflowing an un-piped driveway. Next time you're out driving, count the private driveways between your house and your work, your school, your shopping, your doctor. Check the drainage ditch between them. Imagine it blocked. Imagine the standing water on the road, the hidden branches, the ice.

“Although this has been a service that we’ve taken on to assist area residents and to make sure it was done correctly, it’s just not a critical service,” Transportation Secretary Joe Prather said. “Our budget situation has forced us to look at all of our activities, determine where we can become more efficient and ensure the activities we are undertaking are critical.”

The cabinet hopes to save approximately $3.5 million with the changes. The savings can be shifted to other needed services, such as highway maintenance, striping, lighting or signage, the secretary said.

Driveway drainage is one of those invisible services for which our tax dollars pay, that we take for granted, that agencies like the Transportation Cabinet know they can cut because nobody will notice for possibly years, until the lack of proper drainage starts to accumulate in neighborhoods, going unacknowledged until that big spring storm hits.

Still not too worried? Legal representation and drainage pipes are at the top of a long, nasty list of things Governor Steve Beshear has decided Kentucky can't afford any more. Rumored targets include prison space for non-violent offenders, safe homes for abused children, state parks that don't pay for themselves, staff for field offices outside Frankfort.

What's your favorite state service? Restaurant health inspections? Filling potholes on city streets? Drinking water standards? After-school programs for kids? Hospital staffing requirements? Lifeguards at the public pool?

Care to bet how long you'll still have it?

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.