With just one working day before breaking for the veto period, the Kentucky legislature still has to approve a two-year state budget.
Senate President Robert Stivers told reporters Tuesday night that a final version of House Bill 500, the $31 billion executive branch budget, could be published online later in the evening.
“Documents are being drafted and reviewed” based on a conference committee’s work, Stivers said.
Also being reviewed and drafted, Stivers said, is $810 million in “one-time” spending in House Bill 900, which passed both chambers with no details on how the money would be spent other than that it would be in the categories of water and sewer projects, infrastructure and economic development.
House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, told reporters Tuesday evening the budget documents would “come out tomorrow.”
That leaves lawmakers and the public little time to weigh in on big expenditures, but Osborne said he didn’t see a problem.
“The public has been weighing in since long before the budget was filed. It started back in May of last year, taking testimony, gathering information. There have been hundreds of committee hearings over the past year,” Osborne said. “I’m sure that there’s somebody that’s going to believe that they didn’t get enough money in the budget or weren’t adequately heard, but I will tell you that I think that these last couple of budgets we’ve had have been among the most transparent and open in modern history.”
The legislature also must finalize a budget for Kentucky’s courts. Last week, Chief Justice Debra Hembree Lambert warned that the judicial branch would no longer be able to afford to operate drug, mental health and veterans courts under the legislature’s budget plan. The Administrative Office of the Courts identified what it said would be $33 million in underfunding over the biennium. Lambert said the only option would be to eliminate programs that are not constitutionally required.
A number of other big changes could be sent to the governor’s desk in the form of legislation awaiting final action Wednesday, including reshaping the state’s utility regulator, the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
The House is expected to take up a Senate bill unveiled last week that would pare Kentucky State University, the state’s only historically black public university, into a polytechnic with fewer academic programs.
Among the bills awaiting final action by the legislature:
- House Bill 567, which would allow public agencies to require photo IDs to establish Kentucky residency before processing requests under the Kentucky Open Records Act.
- Senate Bill 8, which would expand the board membership of the Kentucky Public Service Commission and give the Republican state auditor appointments to the board. The bill also would intervene in a court case in favor of a proposed Western Kentucky natural gas pipeline.
- House Bill 422, known as Logan’s Law, which would further restrict eligibility for the state’s mandatory reentry supervision program and implement new rules for insanity pleas in criminal cases, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
- Senate Bill 185, which would reduce Kentucky State University’s academic offerings and give the university a new polytechnic mission.
- Senate Bill 1, which would shift power away from the Jefferson County Public Schools board, and Senate Bill 4, which could remake school boards for Jefferson County Public Schools and the Fayette County Public Schools.
On Monday, the budget conference committee heard a preview of some of what’s likely to be in the final recommendation for the executive branch budget which funds state government, education and prisons.
Senate Appropriations and Revenue Chair Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, told the group that lawmakers would be adopting the House’s recommendation for the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, or SEEK, a formula that allocates funding for school districts.
McDaniel also said there would be over $200 million provided for Medicaid that “if the administration can appropriately identify the need for its access will be there” when the legislature returns for its 2027 regular legislative session. Advocates and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear have warned previous versions of the budget would significantly underfund the state’s Medicaid benefits.
“While it will not have all of the funding that everyone would like, it will have a great deal of increased funding over where it is right now,” McDaniel said about Medicaid on Monday.
After the legislature adjourns Wednesday, a 10-day “veto period” begins in which Beshear can consider bills and decide to sign them into law, veto them or let them become law without his signature. Lawmakers then will come back April 14 and 15 for the last two days of the session to potentially override vetoes and pass additional legislation.
Any bills sent to the governor before the 10-day break begins would essentially be “veto proof” — meaning that the GOP supermajorities would have an opportunity on the session’s final two days to override vetoes. Republican lawmakers can easily override any gubernatorial veto with only a simple majority needed in each chamber. Those include potential line-item vetoes of appropriations within the budget by Beshear.