kentucky budget

The Kentucky General Assembly’s GOP supermajority waited until the final day before the veto period to pass a two-year state budget and a bill spending $1.7 billion on specific projects.

Kentuckians charged with low-level crimes often brought on by substance abuse or mental illness can avoid incarceration by participating in specialty courts. But the next two-year state budget being crafted in the General Assembly threatens to eliminate that option.

The Kentucky Senate added more spending to the budget than the House version, but now GOP legislative leaders in each chamber will hammer out their differences.

The two-year budget bill of the Republican supermajority outlining the spending of $31 billion in state tax revenue cleared the Kentucky House and now heads to the Senate.

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.