The big piece of legislation the Kentucky General Assembly has been waiting for this 2024 session—the two-year budget bill—has been filed by Representative Jason Petrie of Todd County.
House Bill 6 is the bulk of the executive budget, which is a hefty 251 page document, but also filed was House Bill 1, which includes one-time expenditures of $1.7 billion from the state’s reserves. Projects involved in those one-time spending including money for water and wastewater grants, matching funds for federal grants, money to pay state pension debts and more.
What it does not include is specific funding for teacher pay raises, and House Speaker David Osborne says that’s because they’ve chose to put additional money into SEEK, the main funding formula for public schools, which would let districts use the money how they want.
Representative Jason Petrie, who represents a portion of Christian County along with Todd and Logan counties, says the budget legislation will undoubtedly undergo numerous changes before it is fully passed. He says they crafted the budget by focusing first on the state’s needs and then the wants—and hitting triggers to lower the income tax was not the priority.
He says they accepted input from many people and sources, and will continue to hear from individuals moving forward in the process.
As for using a good chunk of the reserve money, Speaker Osborne says it still leaves a very healthy surplus while using the money to benefit Kentuckians.
The proposed budget would also provide for pay raises for state police and hiring more social workers—it currently does not include funding for universal pre-k.