A week after announcing budget cuts, Kentucky gov moves millions to offset them
A week after announcing cuts to Medicaid, foster care and other social service programs, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday he now believes he has the flexibility to move funds from elsewhere to support those programs.
Beshear is now moving $30 million from projects that are “outdated or ineffective” to support programs he announced last week he had to cut in order to operate within the budget passed by the General Assembly this year.
He blamed the Republican controlled legislature at the time. House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, responded to Beshear’s announcement by calling it a “cruel and unnecessary blow” on June 4.
Osborne also said the legislature, in its two-year budget, “gave the governor and his administration the flexibility to use existing state funding to protect priority services like those for vulnerable Kentuckians when making reductions. We also directed the administration to prioritize state spending and seek savings by addressing outdated and ineffective programs, as well as services already provided by other agencies or the private sector.”
Beshear said Thursday he interprets that statement to mean it is the legislature’s intent that he has the flexibility to move funds he previously didn’t believe was possible.
When the GOP-controlled state legislature had crafted the two-year state budget earlier this year, House budget chair Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, emphasized repeatedly the legislature was funding “needs, not wants” in making cuts and trying to control what he believed was escalating spending by the executive branch.
Petrie changed the budget crafting process this year by having a number of committee meetings to scrutinize spending requests by state agencies, ultimately enacting a budget that Democrats and a progressive think tank described as restrained in its spending. GOP leaders also emphasized Beshear has the ability to prioritize funding for some programs over others, pointing to how he allocated funds for senior meals last year.
As a result, Beshear will move $25 million from “a specific economic development project that didn’t happen” and another $5 million from a housing project at Eastern Kentucky University that he said fell through because it relied on a federal grant. The Lantern has asked the governor’s office which project the $25 is coming from.
Those monies, Beshear said, will keep foster care payments as they are and prop up Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds but “this can’t fix everything.”
“Under this plan, we may be able to blunt about half of the devastating cuts from the General Assembly,” Beshear said at his weekly press conference.
The reallocated funds will financially support 8,841 children in foster and residential care and keep 1,500 Kentuckians from losing TANF benefits.
“These are extraordinary measures, and we’ll see if the General Assembly means what they said, that I have flexibility, or if it was just meant to shift blame for the cuts they know they were making,” Beshear said. “We’ll get our answer based on whether they challenge this in court, but if legislators or the attorney general do this, the money’s already moved. All they’ll be doing is taking it away from foster families and foster care residential providers that desperately need it.”
This story may be updated.