Politics

Mayor Greg Fischer says Louisville’s economy is rebounding from the national recession, but the city still faces a large budget shortfall due to rising pension costs.

Fischer made the comments at his annual State of the City address before the Rotary Club at the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage. This year's speech was slightly more upbeat than previous ones, with the mayor arguing that Louisville is becoming more entrepreneurial.

The Metro area has added 22,000 jobs and unemployment has dropped by almost four percent in the last two years. But challenges remain, namely Metro Government's hefty budget deficits.

"Last year’s $25 million gap is now down to about $13-14 million out of a $500 million general fund. That’s still a lot of money. But we didn’t get into this problem in two years and we can’t solve it in two years," says Fischer.

The top two lawmakers in the Republican-led Indiana General Assembly say a push to write the state’s ban on gay marriage into the state Constitution isn’t a priority for them right now.

House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long say they’re more focused now on measures to improve job training and boost spending on schools.

Two Republican House lawmakers have introduced resolutions that would send the gay marriage issue to voters in 2014 if  approved by the General Assembly.

The clock is ticking on the current legislative session, but efforts to push expanded gambling in the 2013  are still on-going, Gov. Steve Beshear said.

“I think it’s too early to reach a conclusion yet on whether we will have a bill on expanded gaming, you know we’ve got some issues to be resolved," he said.

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Claiming they committed fraud, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway has filed a suit against a mortgage company.

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, provides a marketplace for banks to trade mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.

Conway says it was set up by banks to avoid the fees that must be paid when mortgages are sold and to hide the true owners of those mortgages.

Proponents of a local option sales tax have gained big ally in their legislative fight: Gov. Steve Beshear. 

The local option sales tax would allow cities to levy an additional tax on top of the state’s current six percent sales tax for specific projects, if local voters approved the new tax.