The Senate’s Puzzling Budget

Potent increases for higher education and flatline funding for early childhood? The Senate Budget offers a deeply puzzling combination of the two, especially in a year when Kentucky has the revenue to respond well to our state wide needs.

There are bold positive moves:

$92 million more for public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System for FY 2023, plus an unusual added jump of $57 million for FY 2024
$38 million more for the College Access Program, the state’s leading needs based aid program.
A major step up for career and technical education for P-12 students, including an additional $20 million a year above the investments called for in the House’s improvement package

And then there’s inaction and worse:

No increase for the Child Care Assistance Program, at a moment when we know that lack of child care access is slowing workforce participation and economic growth.
No increase for public preschool, when we know that quality early learning is one of the best investments communities can make.
A big step downward for full-day kindergarten, taking away the hard won-SEEK funding added in FY 2022.
A SEEK base increase far too small to keep up with the last year’s inflation, much less equip districts to address a rising workforce crisis by providing improved pay, resources and supports for educators.

We don’t understand. We call on legislators to reconsider this package and do more for Kentucky’s youngest citizens and our K-12 students, for their families and for the hardworking adults who teach and care for those children each day. And we call on all Kentuckians to press for better investment. To build Kentucky’s big bold future, we must have a better budget than the one the Senate voted for yesterday.

We’ve prepared our standard budget summaries, with one document for early childhood, one for P-12 education, and for postsecondary education. If you want, you can also compare those to our summaries of the House original bill, the Governor’s budget proposal, and the House Committee Substitute edition of the budget.