Impact of Governor Bevin’s Vetoes  

Despite the projected growth – of nearly $1 billion in the next biennium – the Governor’s vetoes:

…limit access to education opportunities for Kentucky’s students who are most in need

• Vetoes Work Ready Scholarship that would allow traditional high school graduates to earn a 2-year degree debt free, leaving the funding in 2018 with no standards for giving out the scholarship monies
  • Diverts money from the “Powerball Promise” to fund “Work Ready” Scholarships – even without the program in place by statute
  • The General Assembly intended for the new scholarship programs to be funded by the General Fund, which would maintain the “Powerball Promise”
• Removes guaranteed scholarship spots for contract spaces for students seeking veterinary or optometry degrees at out-of-state schools
• Strikes minimum funding levels to help six urgent need schools ranked in the worst condition in the state
• Removes all parameters and oversight of $100 million in bonds for workforce-development projects. The General Assembly ensured this money would be spent equitably across the state

…crunch the middle class and cripple vulnerable Kentuckians

• Removes language to include more kids in preschool – original language would have expanded the program to include more middle class families
• Removes funding dedicated to emergency shelters for children and reading programs for at-risk kids
• Removes guaranteed funding for citizens living with mental and physical disabilities and their caretakers

…remove safeguards for Kentucky’s crime victims, women, and minorities

• Removes guaranteed funding to the Kentucky Legal Opportunity Program, which provides training to minority and low-income law students
• Removes guaranteed supplemental funding for colon, breast, and cervical cancer screening for KY’s most vulnerable citizens
• Removes guaranteed funding for Kentucky’s system of victim notification – Public Safety First Programs

…limit our homeland security

• The veto of SB 245 prevents Kentucky from meeting a 2005 federal law designed to make it safer to fly.
• The REAL ID law would have made ID’s valid longer, from 4 years to 8, while keeping Kentuckians who fly from having to buy a much more expensive passport they will now need to travel by air within the US

 

…remove the General Assembly’s constitutional right to guarantee funding

• Vetoes allow the Governor to reallocate money within departments at an unprecedented level
• Many vetoes for specific purposes make it possible for those funds to default back to the General Fund – used only at the Governor’s discretion without oversight from the General Assembly
• Executive agencies and nonprofit organizations will have to pander to the Governor for funding to carry out their roles instead of having guaranteed line items decided upon by the General Assembly
  • Essentially removes the right of the taxpayers to decide where their money goes through their state legislators

 

With the projected growth through 2017 and 2018, Kentucky can afford to do more to protect education and the vulnerable while maintaining financial responsibility.