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Department of Labor urges residents to search for possible unpaid wages

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The Department of Labor says nearly 2,000 Kentuckians have more than $994,000 of wages to be claimed.

Department of Labor Public Affairs Specialist Erika Ruthman says the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division enforces the nation’s labor laws and investigates potential violations, which sometimes reveals money that is owed to workers.

“When they find violations, they recover, sometimes, unpaid wages on behalf of employees,” Ruthman said. “When that agency does so it makes every effort to locate and notify all employees of back ages that are due to them.”

Ruthman says the quickest way to find out if you are one of those workers is to go online.

“All they need to do is go to the Department of Labor’s website, navigate to the Wage and Hour Division, and they’ll find information on Workers Owed Wages, or WOW,” Ruthman said.

The Department of Labor can only hold onto found wages for three years, after which time the money is turned over to the Treasury Department, so it is important to search sooner rather than later.

“It’s best if anybody at all thinks that they might have wages due to them to go ahead and just plug some information into that searchable database WOW on the U.S. Department of Labor’s website so that they can find out if some of that cash might belong to them,” Ruthman said.

Department of Labor data shows that wages have been found for workers in several area communities including Elizabethtown, Bardstown, Radcliff, and Glendale.

Bills supported by Kentucky Second District Representative Brett Guthrie advance

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Two bills supported by Kentucky Second District Representative Brett Guthrie are under consideration by the United States Senate.

Guthrie recently spoke with Quicksie and The Wolf about bills on his legislative agenda, one of which is the Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act, which recently advanced out of committee in the Senate.

The bill reauthorizes the Support Act, which was signed into law in October 2018, and focuses on funding for community-based treatment recovery programs. Guthrie said he considers it his signature legislation.

“What our bill does is give support to local communities to make that decision,” Guthrie said. “That’s why I was having my meetings in local communities. If we just have huge grant programs that are prescriptive from the federal government, a one-size-fits-all Washington approach, that doesn’t help communities. It may help some communities, and some communities it doesn’t, so we leave a lot of discretion particularly at the Frankfort level but coming down to local communities to help people.”

Guthrie said he thinks it is important to help people who want to be helped.

“Now there’s some people that are just criminals, and we can’t just dismiss that, and I think we’ve allowed that to happen and we’re trying to tighten that up through our Judiciary Committee, but what we want to do is make sure people are free of their addiction or can live with their addiction so that they can be productive citizens again,” Guthrie said.

The Senate will also be considering the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, which passed the House with bipartisan support. Guthrie said at a time where people are struggling with health care costs people need to know what they are paying for.

“It focuses on exposing those anomalies, and not necessarily anomalies but planned pricing schemes so that people just continue to raise the cost of everyone,” Guthrie said. “We want everybody to have health care, and we want everybody to have the benefits they were promised. We have to have a system that’s sustainable and affordable and doesn’t bankrupt our grandchildren.”

Guthrie is the chair of the Health Subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

West Point mayor, city council members recognized for training achievements

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Government officials from West Point are being recognized for their commitment to training.

The Kentucky League of Cities presented West Point Mayor Richard Ciresi with a Level II Excellence in City Governance award, which requires a minimum of 58 hours of approved training with two additional hours of ethics training.

The KLC also presented West Point City Council members Annette Baker and Jo Sabol with Level I Achievement in City Governance awards, which require a minimum of 29 hours of training and an additional hour of ethics training.

Mayor Ciresi said the training is helpful for managing the multiple aspects of local government.

“Running a city is a lot more complicated than most people understand, and a lot more complicated than I ever understood, that’s for sure,” Ciresi said. “To do the job you’re elected to do correctly, within the law and with the statutes, you really need the training because it is complicated.”

The mayor also said that the importance of good training becomes magnified when it comes to running a small town.

“It’s just such a wide array of different things to know, and for us, the smaller cities, myself and the city council are supposed to know all of this,” Ciresi said. “We don’t have a Director of Public Works, and we don’t have a director of all of these different agencies.”

Ciresi said his first year as mayor was more focused on addressing issues he did not know existed when he took office, so he is looking forward to getting more into his agenda in his second year in office.

“Streets, sidewalks, and then to expand our parks and expand our tourism attractions to bolster our economy, and then the big thing is just development, to be able to build new homes,” Ciresi said.

Visit the Kentucky League of Cities on the web to learn more about their training programs.

Police searching for escaped Hardin County Detention Center inmate

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Law enforcement is requesting the public’s assistance in locating an escaped inmate.

The Kentucky State Police and Hardin County Detention Center are searching for 37-year-old Tony R. Stephens, who reportedly escaped from the detention center’s substance abuse treatment program annex Monday morning.

The KSP says they were notified of Stephens’s escape at around 8:30 a.m. While the last reported address for Stephens is for Fordsville, officials believe Stephens may be attempting to head toward the Covington/Northern Kentucky area.

Stephens is described as a bald white male with blue eyes standing five feet nine inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. The detention center’s inmate registry shows that Stephens was booked into the facility in July on drug charges. 

The public is asked to not approach Stephens if located. Contact the Kentucky State Police at 270-766-5078 or dial 911.

(Photo source: Hardin County Detention Center)

New alignment goes into effect for Interstate 65 at Exit 86

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Construction crews are switching traffic on Interstate 65 at Exit 86 to a new alignment at the new bridge over the interstate and the Kentucky Route 222 intersections with BlueOval SK and US 31-W.

According to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, traffic was scheduled to be moved off the bridge this past weekend. Motorists exiting and entering I-65 on the south side of the intersection will utilize the new ramps, while the existing ramps on the north side will remain in use until the old bridge is demolished.

Southbound exiting motorists will follow a temporary extended path to the new section of KY 222 and turn right toward Glendale or left toward US 31-W until the new southbound exit ramp is complete.

KYTC District Four Public Information Officer Chris Jessie said motorists should approach the new area with increased awareness and pay attention to striping and signage.

“Keep in mind that we’re not done with construction yet, so as time goes on folks are going to acclimate to where they want to go, how they’re going to get there, how they’re going to navigate,” Jessie said. “We’ve got three new signals through that area, so again, just be patient. Pay attention to the markings on the road and the signs, and everybody should be fine.”

The timeline for construction will be dependent upon weather this winter.

“From here on out, crews are going to continue working on really completing the overall project, and that’s going to include demolition of the old bridge, so that will start to come down,” Jessie said. “Once they get that demo work done then they can work on tying in the new ramps on the north side of town and cleaning that up.”

Posts from the KYTC with pictures and more information on the work at the interchange have been shared to the Quicksie and Wolf Facebook pages.