FRANKFORT, Ky. — House Republicans on Saturday defended their decision to release their proposed two-year budget late Friday afternoon, days before Gov. Andy Beshear is set to release his proposal.

House Speaker David Osborne (R) also touched on what all is in the bill in a press conference Saturday.

Beshear’s office was caught off guard by the House GOP’s proposal. His spokeswoman, Crystal Staley, said the plan falls short of the “game-changing investments” the governor plans to recommend, including funding universal pre-kindergarten for all 4-year-olds.

House Democratic leaders called it “beyond petty” to file the executive branch budget bill without input from Beshear’s administration. The Democrats said the timing by House Republicans “violates long-standing traditions and the spirit of budget law itself.”

“We may as well wrap up the 2022 legislative session now, because all of the major decisions apparently have been made,” Democratic Reps. Joni Jenkins, Derrick Graham and Angie Hatton said in their statement. “This is not good government; in fact, it’s barely government at all.”

Speaker Osborne said lawmakers have been working on their budget for months, and it would be a waste of time to wait any longer.

"The governor’s recommendations are exactly that. They are recommendations," Osborne said. "We will absolutely 100% consider his recommendations throughout the process, but I think to wait intentionally to ignore months of interim work, months of committee work, months of budget review subcommittee work is just quite frankly a waste of time."

The budget includes covering the cost for full-day Kindergarten, funding for additional social workers and a $15,000 pay increase for Kentucky State Police troopers, the last of which Osborne called an "urgent need."

"We have known for the last several years the difficulty of attracting and retaining state police officers. And we have spent literally the last two years trying to wrap our arms around how to tackle it," he said.

A separate bill filed Saturday deals with tornado relief and will set aside $200 million, in line with what Beshear mentioned in his State of the Commonwealth address on Wednesday. 

“We were able to identify and firm up a couple of areas where we could go ahead and deploy those dollars right now," Osborne said. "We can do it upon the governor’s signature next week when we pass that bill."

Osborne said there's an identical bill in the Senate and a committee will discuss this House bill on Monday. 

Gov. Beshear is expected to share his recommended budget next week.