Beech Tree News Network

FRANKFORT — Four bills related to Kentucky’s spending plan for the next biennium have taken another step toward passage and are headed to the Senate. 

House Bill 6 would appropriate billions each fiscal year to the state executive branch. Rep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, serves as the committee chair for the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. He and the chairs for the House Budget Review Subcommittees presented HB 6 on the House floor on Thursday.

Petrie said they tried to “exercise better practices” when it came to drafting HB 6 by not just looking at the next two years, but to the future. One way is by building the budget from the agency budget requests, he said.

“The way this document comes together fundamentally starts with those agency budget requests,” Petrie added. “And that sets our pensions, our payroll, and what needs to be increased, decreased, added in new, and all for consideration.”

HB 6 would increase funding for SEEK, fully fund transportation for public schools, meet the actuarial requirements for every state pension plan, appropriate millions toward clean drinking water initiatives, invest in public safety and more.

Lawmakers discussed HB 6 for nearly four hours on Thursday. House Minority Floor Leader Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, said the budget is the “guiding document that educates our kids, keeps us safe, promotes our most vulnerable, paves our roads and does a thousand other things … that helps this Commonwealth grow.”

Graham focused most of his comments on public education funding and state employee pension payments. He said the teacher retention rate in Kentucky is in a “crisis,” and the budget should include funding for higher starting salaries and raises.

As for state retirees, Graham said they have not received a cost-of-living increase since 2012. He said he and others are calling for $100 million to provide state retirees a one-time “13th retirement check.”

“We know the need, and we have the money,” Graham said. “Now, let’s just come together and find a way to appropriate this money to help the people who help us each and every day.”

Petrie said the budget is not final.

“I don’t take anything off the table,” Petrie said, adding there is still work to be done with the Senate before the budget will be in its final form.

In response to Graham’s request for cost-of-living increases for state retirees, Petrie said it is complicated. The health of the state pensions has been in a precarious place for many years with the Kentucky retirement plan for non-hazardous employees being in the worst spot.

Petrie said in the past there were cost-of-living increases passed by the general assembly that were not properly funded.

“We need to take very, very cautious steps about doing something that we may not be able to fund in the long run and may really affect our ability to put extra money into that system to make it healthy,” he said.

In addition to pension issues, Kentucky’s juvenile justice system has also been a concern of the general assembly. Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, said she was happy to see sizable, multi-million-dollar appropriations in the budget toward transportation, mental health and alternative detention options for incarcerated juveniles.

Herron said she would like to see funds dedicated to juvenile justice facilities as well.

“I think that right now it is very practical for us to put money in to figure out what we’re going to do with those facilities as it relates to juvenile justice,” she said.

HB 6 cleared the House floor by a 77-19 vote.

In explaining his “yes” vote, Rep. Kevin D. Bratcher, R-Louisville, said HB 6 is a “responsible” budget.

“Responsible government means that you have to prepare for the bad days, not just spend it on what feels good today, and who cares about tomorrow,” he said.

In addition to HB 6, the House also approved House Bill 1 unanimously. The bill would give-one time budget reserve trust fund monies toward infrastructure improvements, state employee and teacher’s pensions, economic development projects and public safety.

“House Bill 1 is a one-time money spending of one-time expenses with one-time money,” House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, said, adding it is “key to ensuring this commonwealth will remain in order.”  

The state legislative branch and judicial branch budgets – House Bill 263 and House Bill 264 – also advanced off the House floor Thursday. HB 263 was approved by a 90-2 vote, and HB 264 was approved by a 92-0 vote with two abstentions.

HB 6, HB 1, HB 263 and HB 264 will now head to the Senate for its consideration.