FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s Senate President says the Senate will be deliberate with the House’s budget proposal. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Kentucky House of Representatives passed its main budget bill Thursday

  • Senate President Robert Stivers said it won’t be heard in a Senate committee for a couple weeks

  • Stivers said tax reform will also be discussed alongside the budget, including a possible income tax cut

 

Sen. Robert Stivers (R-Manchester) said he doesn’t expect to have a finalized budget to send to Gov. Andy Beshear until mid-to-late March.

“We’re talking about a multibillion dollar appropriation, so it takes some time to look at its final form that we just got yesterday,” Stivers said

The House passed a two-year budget Thursday night, much earlier in the session than in previous budget cycles.

“We’re doing an analysis of it and the governor’s budget,” Stivers said. “And we hope and we plan to take a full 60 days to look at it, in comparison, to come up with a final document to send back to the House.”

Typically, the House and Senate form a joint committee to formally negotiate the budget, but that only happens after lawmakers on both floors vote on it. Stivers said he expects the budget bill to be heard in the Senate Budget Committee in a couple weeks.

Stivers doesn’t expect there to be any major differences between the House’s budget and what senators want, but over the new few weeks, he says they’re going to make sure they’re in sync.

The state’s pension debt is going to be a part of the discussion.

“The question becomes where they put the money in the pension system and to what extent,” Stivers said. “Was it $100 million? $200 million? And what impact does it have in the long-term reduction of our unfunded liability?”

Many critics of the budget didn’t take issue with where all of the money was spent, just that there wasn’t more spending in general.

Stivers said there will be some investments made in the form of tax cuts and tax incentives.

“If you want to give everybody a pay raise, let’s give em a tax cut because that puts money back in everybody’s pocket,” he said.

So how will those tax cuts take form? Stivers said it could be your income taxes.

“We would look at dropping people’s personal income tax so you don’t have a production tax; you have more of a consumption tax,” he said. “Be more like an Indiana model; be more like a South Carolina model; be more like a Tennessee model, and if you look at these states that have created tax codes like that, that’s where you see there has been real job growth.”

House Speaker David Osborne (R-Prospect) has also promised to pass some form of tax reform this session. 

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