Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/eklibanoff/)
Eleanor Klibanoff joined the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in June 2017. Klibanoff previously worked at Keystone Crossroads, a public radio project covering urban decline and recovery in the Rust Belt. She was a Kroc Fellow at NPR and a recipient of a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant to cover maternal healthcare in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
At Little Sandy Correctional Complex in northeastern Kentucky, prison leaders created a culture that “may have contributed to acts of sexual harassment and a reluctance to report allegations of sexual harassment,” according to a state report.
Mike and Pam Oakley have been talking for years about how Kentucky’s worker safety agency failed their 17-year-old son. State officials never listened. They’re listening now.
The state finance cabinet was ordered to pay legal bills for refusing to give KyCIR access to records, and penalties for declining to turn records over to the Attorney General’s office.
The commissioner acknowledged that agency culture, a lack of accountability and staffing shortages had often led to shortcomings when investigating deaths on the job.
The judge ordered the Labor Cabinet to pay more than $16,000 in legal fees and an $800 penalty because it disregarded legal precedent when it redacted the name of an employee who was accused of sexual harassment.
One candidate has made improving worker safety a talking point in his campaign for governor.
The merger proposal was presented as one possible antidote to the Labor Cabinet’s recent troubles.
House Bill 322 would restore the OSHA Standards Board and require it to meet more frequently.
Cabinet leaders said eliminating the Labor Cabinet would save money, streamline government and improve the functions of Kentucky’s Occupational Safety and Health agency, which has been under federal scrutiny since a critical audit released in August.
The Labor Cabinet has purchased equipment and raised salaries in its embattled worker safety program. The Cabinet hasn’t specified how much the raises would be.