The big story tonight from Frankfurt, the state's two year budget.

Less than an hour ago, the House voted 77 to 19 for House Bill six, which is the multibillion dollar two year spending plan.

You'll hear some of that floor debate in just a bit.

We have plenty of debate already this session about whether this budget leaves too many Kentuckians behind.

Kentucky Edison's Jim Leffler tells us about that and tonight's legislative update.

Conservative of, say, the House has proposed a sound budget, They.

Have consistently put together fiscally responsible budgets.

And this budget is no different, no exception to that.

But progressives say plenty was left out of the spending package.

The money is there.

We've got billions of dollars in reserves.

Kentucky's rainy day fund is at a historic high.

That's why progressive unions, advocates and policy watchers have been calling for historic investments in social services.

But largely across many important areas like teacher pay, child care, clean drinking water.

There's just not enough money put in to really make the kind of progress we need.

The strongest commitment, arguably, was to school transportation, something committee House members agreed to fully fund.

Otherwise, education as a whole got a modest bump that Kentucky is used to seeing.

Superintendent say that's not enough to offer competitive wages.

According to a Kentucky Association of School Administrators survey.

Educators and superintendents are never going to get everything that they are asking for or want or believe that they absolutely need.

Kentucky child care operators say they need more support.

They had been relying on federal COVID 19 funding.

Without state funding, they would likely raise tuition rates or even close their doors, According to a survey from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

But the amount of money that's put in the House budget, it's about $30 million.

One year, 40 million, then next year is not enough to prevent some real damage from a loss of $330 million annually.

Those monies were provided as part of that strange 2 to 3 years that we had with the Federal government's really closing a tremendous amount of spending out of Washington, D.C. to the states for specific purposes and was intended to be time limited.

Kentucky youth advocates said in a statement, quote, It is befuddling, knowing the commitment to kids of so many House members to see a budget that neglects such a critical element of the safety net for kids, working parents and our state's workforce.

One part of the spending package, House Bill one, pulls from the rainy day fund to make big one time investments like paying down the state's pension liability.

By $1.45 billion above what the actual really even recommends that they put in.

State retirees themselves won't get the same relief.

They had hoped it did or their pension checks would keep up with inflation.

But it's not.

So there are folks that are really suffering and they are having to take second jobs that they didn't anticipate that they would have to.

Kentucky's public retirees have not received a cost of living adjustment since 2011.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm June Leffler.

Thank you, June, for that report.

Now, the nearly $30 billion state budget that's coming from state tax dollars did pass.

As we told you, while the House GOP plan puts an additional $40 million to fully fund school transportation costs, it doesn't provide for universal pre-K or provide for those across the board pay raises for K through 12 school personnel as recommended by Governor Andy Beshear.

House Democrats argue that now is the time to make bold investment in Kentucky's programs and departments considering the state's record setting cash flow.

I worry that we are not doing enough, particularly for public education, especially teachers pay.

This budget will not begin to make a dent in our low state ranking when looking at the starting and the average age of teachers.

And we know that we're losing teachers from our sister states that surround us.

They're going to Tennessee.

They're going over to Indiana.

That's for our state retirees.

It is far past time to give them at least a one time payment to help with a pension that has lost one third of its value since 2020.

2012, the last time they received a COLA for that period of any kind.

And Governor Beshear included 100 million for what we're calling the 13th retirement check.

And I believe we should at least meet that threshold.

Yes, we should have a healthy reserve fund.

And you heard.

We do.

Before it got here, members of the majority said that we'd really like to see it at 15%.

That's best practice.

About 45 days of operating costs.

But then we got there.

Good work.

Now we're nearly double that by the end of the biennium.

Some people project that it will be more than $5 billion.

Pick your financial adviser and they will tell you that's foolish.

What you should do after you have adequate reserves is look for needs that are holding the Commonwealth back.

As we told you earlier, House Bill six, the two year spending plan passed the House 77 to 19.

It's now on its way to the Senate for consideration there.

Other budget bills were also passed and we'll update you on those tomorrow.