kentucky budget

Kentucky House Republicans released a two-year state budget bill Tuesday, which is expected to evolve over the session. The current version would spend dramatically less than what Gov. Andy Beshear proposed for education and Medicaid.

After years of federal stimulus and surpluses, the Kentucky General Assembly will have to pass a state budget in a tighter fiscal environment in the 2026 session.

After a nonpartisan forecasting group predicted a smaller shortfall, Gov. Andy Beshear said he is implementing reductions across state government — but some constitutional officers are declining to do the same.

The committee of economists that forecasts Kentucky government revenues anticipates a $156 million revenue shortfall this fiscal year and only modest revenue growth through the middle of 2028. Gov. Andy Beshear says he'll announce a plan Thursday to reduce the state budget.

Kentucky tax revenues fell $7.5 million short of what was needed in the past fiscal year to trigger cutting the income tax to 3% in 2027.

As lawmakers prepare Kentucky’s biennial budget for the 2026 legislative session, the state budget director says the Commonwealth will need to set aside over $115 million more than in previous years to keep giving its residents in need food stamps and – because of the federal reconciliation bill passed earlier this summer – potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on top of that.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s office says that 20 bills and two resolutions passed this year don’t have enough funding attached for his administration to implement them. Many, including several that passed with bipartisan support, are set to become law Monday.

The budget bills outline $33 billion of state government spending over the next two years, with Republicans lauding it as a historic investment in Kentucky education and Democrats criticizing it as falling too short.

The fast-moving budget bills were amended in the Senate to add $1.7 billion for one-time spending on projects and remove language defunding an alternative sentencing program and threatening K-12 school districts with takeover.

Up-to-date digital maps are instrumental for everything from emergency management to routine property valuation. But the current legislative budget bill doesn’t include funding to continue an ongoing statewide mapping project.