Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/jbennett/)
Jared Bennett is an investigative reporter for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. Before KyCIR, he was a reporter the Center for Public Integrity and a digital producer for WBUR in Boston.
UK HealthCare has powerful debt collection tools at its disposal thanks to its partnership with the Department of Revenue, which can garnish wages, levy bank accounts or intercept tax returns to get at money allegedly owed to the university — all without a court order.
Candle factory workers weren’t trained for emergencies before deadly tornado collapse, lawsuit claims.
The city has settled with the corrections officer who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the Louisville jail and jail staff union.
Experts say jail suicides are preventable with more stringent screening and mental health care.
The state Transportation Cabinet’s bidding system allows a handful of large companies to avoid serious competition for jobs.
The lawsuit was filed in Graves Circuit Court on behalf of Elijah Johnson and other “similarly situated” employees of Mayfield Consumer Products. The suit claims the company refused to let its employees leave the factory Friday night, even though the factory had “at least 3 hours’ notice of the danger” the severe weather could bring.
While the candle factory’s owner denies wrongdoing, the attorney claims the survivors have proof the company broke the law.
The candle factory has a higher-than-average injury rate, and recruited incarcerated people and people from Puerto Rico for $10-12/hour jobs.
A jail spokesperson said they are still gathering information about the deaths.
Louisville is looking for a new vendor to provide phone and video call services from the city jail. Unlike its previous contract with Securus Technologies, the city wants the new vendor to make calls free for incarcerated people and their loved ones.
People making calls from the Louisville jail currently pay Securus, a private company based in Texas. The company then passes a portion of that revenue on to Metro Government in commissions. But a request for proposals issued this week says the city will not only forgo commissions but will start paying for phone calls directly.
Records obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting show Securus collected $1.6 million from the Louisville jail and paid nearly $945,000 in commissions last year.
Related story — Phone Calls Still Won’t Be Free When Louisville Jail Gives Up Profit. “It’s so important for families to be able to have contact with their loved ones who are inside the Louisville Department of Corrections, and it’s a really great step forward that it can be free,” said Judi Jennings, who provides art supplies to children visiting family members at the jail as part of the Louisville Family Justice Advocates.