As the dust settles on the just-completed General Assembly session, a panel of Frankfort insiders gathered on Kentucky Tonight to assess some of the legislation that lawmakers passed and several opportunities they missed. The guests were Kentucky Democratic Party Executive Director Morgan Eaves, lobbyists Abby Piper and Jared Smith of Piper | Smith LLC, and Republican strategist Tres Watson of Capitol Reins PR.
The State Budget and Education Spending
Lawmakers approved a new, two-year state budget totaling about $128 billion and an additional $2.7 billion in spending from the Budget Reserve Trust Fund for one-time projects.
“Did everybody get what they wanted? No,” says Jared Smith. “But did people get what they needed? Maybe.”
The spending plans include increases for public education through per-pupil funding known as SEEK and for student transportation, as well as money for infrastructure improvements ranging from water and sewer projects to airport upgrades. Tres Watson calls the investments “significant.”
“It’s really astounding the amount of money that’s being put back into the commonwealth,” says Watson. “It’s not sexy, it’s not going to make headlines, but I do think... this budget was a really good budget.”
Despite the education increases, legislators did not include a specific pay raise for teachers. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has called for an 11 percent bump for educators and school personnel, but Republican leaders continue to reject the idea of a statewide, across-the-board increase. Morgan Eaves says the spending for schools also fails to keep pace with inflation.
“Public education is the number one job creator in the commonwealth… and they’re continuing to underfund it,” says Eaves. “They’re still not giving money for textbooks and professional development for teachers. It’s not the best budget.”
Republicans contend the boost in SEEK funding will enable school districts to decide what pay raises are best for their localities. Even if lawmakers had approved an 11 percent increase, Abby Piper fears inequities in teacher pay would still exist between wealthier and poorer districts.
“We have people making $30,000 or less in the state of Kentucky as a starting teacher, and then we have folks in urban areas making a whole lot more,” says Piper. “That gap in particular would not have been addressed by the governor’s proposed 11 percent raise.”
Other measures may help with teacher recruitment and retention, says Piper. She points to separate legislation that will for the first time give student teachers a stipend, and create a pilot program to forgive student loans for those getting teaching degrees.
In a late budget clean-up bill, the legislature allocated $1.5 million to the Kentucky Attorney General for an electric reliability defense program. Watson says that money will help Attorney General Russell Coleman challenge regulations from the Biden Administration that could hurt coal-fired power in Kentucky.
“If the federal government is going to pass regulations that’s going to make that harder for the commonwealth, then the attorney general needs the firepower to be able to fight back,” says Watson.
Democrats say the budget missed opportunities to address wage compression among state employees where some new hires make more than workers who have been in similar positions for years. It also failed to fund a cost-of-living increase for state retirees who haven’t had an adjustment in a decade. Lawmakers had considered but then rejected giving a one-time bonus to help retirees offset rising inflation. Piper says those in the state retirement system need and deserve that increase, but she says legislators did allocate tens of millions of dollars to the public pension systems to continue to get those plans on a stable financial footing.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
House and Senate Republicans had proposed separate measures to limit diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the state’s public universities. But in the end, both Senate Bill 6 and the tougher House Bill 9 failed to pass. Smith says the Senate measure, which prohibited teaching of or training on 16 divisive concepts, was at least palatable to higher education advocates, but he says they opposed the House bill, which would have cut funding for DEI programs and ended differential treatment based on a person’s race, religion, sex, or national origin.
Instead of passing one of the two measures, lawmakers tried to merge the House provisions into the Senate bill. Piper says that created friction with Senate Republicans, who disagreed on how strictly to define DEI initiatives. Watson says senators also had concerns about how the House provisions would impact the availability of scholarships for minority students and other underrepresented groups. Those issues, coupled with intense lobbying by university administrators and students ultimately led to the failure of both bills, they say.
Contentious Crime Bill Becomes Law
The panel agrees that House Bill 5, dubbed the Safer Kentucky Act, has some valuable components such as making carjacking a crime and strengthening the penalty for dealing fentanyl that results in an overdose fatality. But some panelists contend the legislation goes too far on a provision meant to crack down on street camping.
“You’re criminalizing homeless while you’re passing a budget that does not appropriate adequate funding for affordable housing,” says Eaves.
There’s also a fear that the measure will result in even more jail overcrowding and higher incarceration costs without addressing the root causes of the problem.
“We don’t have a homelessness problem. We have a drug problem and we need to focus on that,” says Piper.
Watson acknowledges the legislature didn’t address affordable housing, but he says they will do that in the future. He contends HB 5 is meant to get people off the streets, which he says are unsafe and unhealthy places to sleep, and into shelters. Watson also argues homelessness is largely a Louisville problem.
“Put the tools out there that are necessary to help make citizens of Louisville feel safe and to help businesses feel safe so that the engine of our commonwealth can keep running like we need it to,” says Watson.
Democrats also blasted the bill for lacking a full fiscal impact statement, and complained that Rep. Jared Bauman, the Louisville Republican who sponsored the legislation, relied on criminal justice research that wasn’t specific to Kentucky.
School Choice
Lawmakers approved a proposed amendment to the state constitution to allow public dollars to flow to private schools. That question will now go on the November ballot.
Watson contends school choice supporters are at a disadvantage when it comes to selling the amendment to voters. He says public school advocates can can summarize their opposition to the proposal by saying it’s unfair for state tax dollars to go to private schools most children can’t attend. Countering that argument with a clear, concise message, he says, will be much harder.
“It’s got an uphill battle, not because there’s not public support for it – every poll says that there is,” says Watson. “The messaging just becomes very difficult in a campaign cycle when the anti-side has a very simple message.”
Piper says it makes no sense to send tax dollars to private schools when lawmakers won’t pay public school teachers a competitive wage or give state retirees an COLA. She also argues that if the amendment passes, rural taxpayers with no school choice options will end up paying for Louisville children to attend private schools.
“It’s not about school choice... This is about school privatization,” says Piper. “It really flies in the face of 200-plus years of Kentucky’s constitution, which states public dollars go to public schools.”
Actions on Jefferson County Schools and Elections
The General Assembly targeted Jefferson County with several measures that drew heated debate. House Concurrent Resolution 81 will create a task force to study the management and operations of the Jefferson County Public Schools. Republican lawmakers have criticized the district for poor student performance, lingering achievement gaps, transportation failures, and a bloated administration.
“There’s clearly a failure of leadership in Jefferson County,” says Watson. “The more we can do to bring accountability and shine a light on what happened, what continues to happen, and what’s going to happen, it’s going to be better for the kids up there.”
Democrats criticized the resolution for targeting only JCPS when they say other school systems face similar challenges. About one in seven Kentucky children attend a Jefferson County school.
“I don’t have a problem looking under the hood,” says Eaves. But she adds, “I do think they have villainized our largest urban district and they’ve made it the bogeyman. I think in a lot of ways they’ve tried to make it a public education scapegoat.”
Critics also fear the task force is a precursor to splitting Metro Louisville into multiple school districts. Piper and Watson argue that makes no sense, saying it would only result in more administrative bureaucracy for the same number of schools.
Other legislation changes how Metro Louisville residents select their mayor and council members. Historically those elections have been partisan contests, but under House Bill 388 those races will now be nonpartisan.
Watson says that brings Jefferson County in line with other localities like Lexington-Fayette County that have nonpartisan municipal races. But Eaves says Louisvillians want partisan local elections and it’s not fair for Frankfort Republicans to dictate otherwise.
