Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Our topic, the midpoint of the 2026 legislative session today was actually day 32 of the 60 day session.

So what's happened so far and what can we expect as the session continues as lawmakers continue their work on a two year state budget, several important education bills, whether to outlaw machine gun conversion devices or what's called Glock switches, housing, and so much more.

Well, tonight we're joined by four legislative leaders to talk it all out.

In our Lexington studio, we have State Senator Max wise, a Republican from Campbellsville and Senate Majority floor leader, State Senator Reginald Thomas, a Democrat from Lexington and Senate Minority Caucus chair.

State Representative David Meade, a Republican from Stanford and House Speaker pro tem.

And State Representative Lindsay Burke, a Democrat from Lexington and House Minority Caucus chair.

Of course, we certainly want to hear from you tonight.

You can send us your questions and comments by X, formerly Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

We invite you to send us an email to KY tonight at Keturah, or use the web form at Keturah Johnny Nash KY Tonight.

Or you can simply give us a call at one 800 494 7605.

Well, welcome leaders.

Thank you all for being here.

How do you feel?

Day 32 going on day 33.

Feel good, feel great.

I feel great.

>> Yeah, we we're veterans now.

We know what to expect.

>> Well, let's talk about some things that have already passed before I get into some really important measures, some of which even have been discussed in the last couple of days.

Senate Bill 172, the first bill to cross over to the governor's desk.

This was an important bill for ratepayers who've seen their energy costs later Wise go up.

And so this bill kind of helps spread out those payments over a period of time.

Tell us about Senate Bill 172 Phillip.

>> I don't think there's a single constituent that any of us have across the Commonwealth that's not faced issues with utility costs.

And so with this, it's it was a great first bill to get out for both the House and the Senate to show our constituents, hey, we're listening, and we're there to help provide as it relates to those utility costs to to freeze those and work with our PSC.

And so glad to see that we were able to get that out to Central Phillip Wheeler from Pike County, especially our Eastern Kentucky delegation.

They've heard quite a bit from from constituents, but once again, not just eastern Kentucky.

I think it's been statewide.

>> And that leads me to the point that Representative Meade, we did hear a lot of testimony about how even from Brandon Smith who talked about that, along with Phillip Wheeler about those, those those rates in eastern Kentucky, some of them were rivaling people's mortgages, you know, having to choose between paying their their power bill or their mortgage.

That's that's a pretty steep decision to have to make.

>> It absolutely is.

That's why we were glad to go ahead and pass it over in the House as soon as it came over and get that out.

I think we had a pretty tight deadline to make and we did that.

And so hopefully those folks will see some relief through the next year.

>> Yeah.

Very good.

And decide to not much to really disagree about on that right.

>> No.

It was just the right thing to do.

I mean, as you said, no one should have to choose between paying their mortgage and paying their heating bill.

You know, we don't want people put people in that position.

It spreads out the payments so they can make the payments and still meet all their other necessities.

It's just the right thing to do.

>> Yeah.

>> Representative Burke yeah.

I'm always grateful when we can do things that benefit the people of Kentucky together and do it quickly and efficiently.

>> So speaking of quickly and efficiently the budget, where is the state budget?

It's working.

It's working.

What's the what's the timeline here?

Speaker Pro.

>> Tem well, right now it's we're of course, going through the budget reserve subcommittee process and having those meetings, bringing in the agencies and cabinets to discuss their budgets.

And so we're getting pretty close.

We're whittling it down.

And so you should probably see it roll out in the next little bit.

>> And the next little bit, next little bit days, weeks.

I mean.

>> We probably figure on days.

>> On days.

Okay.

All right.

So one of the things that's really gotten a lot of ink and a lot of discussion in House Bill 500, which is the executive branch budget bill, is the health insurance portion as it currently stands.

And we know that Budget Chairman Jason Petrie said this is a first draft, and I think you all would agree it's got miles to go before it is finally resolved.

But state workers, teachers and retirees and we even heard that today at a press conference that we carried and and on our Kentucky edition program at 730 that they're worried about the potential for up to 78% spike in their premiums or reduced benefits because of a proposed 5% cap on the employer contribution to the state funded health plan.

Talk to us about how you arrived at the 5%.

What problem is this hoping to solve?

And is every House Republican on board with this?

>> Well, I think that this is a starting point and not a finish finish line for the budget.

It started the same way that it always does you you start the budget.

Everyone knows this process takes time.

You craft that throughout.

And the biggest issue has been that over the past year, we have asked the administration for those numbers, those budget numbers from each one of those cabinets and each one of those departments, we've gotten very little information from them.

In some cabinets, we've got nothing from them.

And so we're having to use historical data to try to create this budget right now.

And that's been the issue.

It's right now, we put in $14.9 billion in base funding.

And then with a decrease in spending of 4% next year and 3% over the year after that.

The reason that we did the base is because we're, again, we're operating off of historical data and trying to bring those cabinets and those and those departments into to have that discussion with us so that we can get the actual numbers on that.

So the issue has been with us not having that.

We go back and we look and that health insurance plan had increased only 3% between 2000 and 16, 2022.

That was the highest that an increase was was 3%.

So we're basing our numbers off of historical data.

Only then after we release our our budget, does the governor come out and say, oh no, it's a 24% increase this year.

And of course, this process as it continued along like it normally does, folks come to our office and talk to us, come to the committees and talk to us.

It would have continued that way had the governor not gotten heat from Auditor Ball's audit, showing that all those excessive expenses that he's he's spent here recently, which I hope we get to talk about again here in a few minutes.

Renee.

We would we probably would have still been in that same process, but he needed to take heed of himself.

So he sends this letter out to to the state employees and the teachers to to fire them up and of course, upset those, those folks.

But whenever that came out, we finally got the number that was 24%.

And we've gone back and started working on that in the budget.

>> Well, Representative Burke, what are your thoughts about this?

You've you all have even presented an alternate.

Well, you've got some floor amendments to, to abate some of what has already been proposed.

And health insurance is one of the things that you want to get at.

>> Yeah.

Renee, I think it's worth noting that the 5% cap is unprecedented.

At no point in our budgetary history have we had caps on the employment employer contribution.

And so to use that as a starting point should be raising alarm bells, because this is a drastic departure from what our state employees have grown accustomed to.

So it is important for us to make note of that cap.

The House Democrats want to eliminate the cap because as we're seeing, 78% increases in the cost of health insurance, that's devastating for some of the state's lower income workers.

I think about people like bus drivers who are just barely above the poverty level, but they're doing really the Lord's work by getting kids to school safely.

And those particular workers they're going to be facing, I think it's around $500 a month in additional costs.

That's devastating.

$500 a month is the difference between being able to provide food for your family.

It's the difference between being able to pay your utility bill and setting an employer cap.

Instead of working harder to get the information we need to make.

Good policy puts undue strain on people who don't need it.

So the House Democrats did roll out seven different amendments last week to try and address some of the major shortfalls that we were able to identify in House Bill 500.

We provided full funding for Medicaid using dollars that were unspent and unallocated.

There's $1.1 billion of general fund revenue that wasn't accounted for in House Bill 500.

So we shored up medicaid because the federal government is making cuts and it's going to be hurting at home.

We added $279 million to stabilize the Kentucky employees Health Plan.

We added money to take care of two 13th checks for retirees, 1 in 27 and 1 in 28.

>> And explain what that means.

The 13th.

>> Checks a 13th check is a way of helping retirees with a little additional money.

It's not ongoing raises for their pension or retirement money.

It's one time payments, and we've done them in 27 and 28 to try and help with all those cost pressures that people are feeling.

You know, Kentucky State retirees have not had an increase, a cost of living adjustment, basically, since I've been an adult, it's been more than a decade.

And they really they're feeling the pinch.

They're saying it all the time.

We increased the SEEK funding per pupil.

We also added transportation dollars, investing in rural hospitals.

We have over $100 million bookmarked to go into the Rural Hospital Trust Fund, so that rural hospitals don't have to cut services or lay anyone off.

And of course, money to shore up SNAP as the federal government has transferred the administrative responsibilities to the states.

Now, the good news to be found there is that may be money.

We get to do a little bit more with, because the cabinets done a fantastic job of managing the Snap program.

One of the triggers from the federal government is bad SNAP numbers, but our SNAP program is run very well, and I don't think we're going to experience the burden that many other states will because of that good administration.

>> So let me ask, do you have any House Republicans that are on board with the House Democrats alternative plan for the budget?

>> Well, I'd say behind closed doors, there are a lot of people who think we're doing good work, and they hope to see that in the majority budget.

>> And you heard that.

>> I have not heard that.

But I will just point this out that that those if you look at the amendments that they filed, you can tell that those numbers came from the governor's office himself.

He gave those to them.

However, he's refused to work with us in our budget director over the course of this entire year.

So it's obviously that it's obvious that the governor is playing politics with them as he's trying to craft this budget.

>> So what would the normal process look like?

Speaker Meade the normal the governor was playing along.

>> Normal process would be that the cabinets would submit their budgets.

They would come in and they would testify in front of the committees.

They would go through the budget, break it down and say, this is what we need.

And they would justify the expenses of that.

But they have refused to do that other than their base budget.

And the problem with the base is, is that that base continues to grow year after year after year.

So we'll line items out line item, things that are going into the budget this year.

Well, the next time that that budget comes around, that line item has just been rolled into the base.

So this has been going on for decades.

So there could be programs out there that are just a complete waste that are that are are antiquated.

We're not using them anymore.

However, that money is still out there going into that base.

So we we have said you're going to come in and justify every single dollar that you're going to spend before we start increasing.

>> And so you have other agencies that you still need to hear from.

Where does that stand?

If you don't hear from them, then what.

>> We have heard from most of them at this point.

And so like I said, we we have crafted you will see a very different version.

>> Okay.

All right.

And we think in a few days.

So we're going to be counting.

Yes.

Senator Thomas.

>> No, I was going to just say that the state retirees have not seen an increase in retirement since 2011.

You got to go back to the first governor Beshear, who did that during a time when we were just coming out of a very significant recessionary period.

But even in that year, he found money to give to the state retirees.

That's 15 years, Renee, without an increase in retirement.

I mean, you can't live like that.

And so, yes, they need some kind of relief, a 13th check, you know, a 2 to 3% increase in their retirement, something to sustain them.

>> What if I.

>> Could say.

>> In the 2024 budget, the Senate Republicans did put a 13th check into the Senate budget on our side.

It didn't get worked out on the House side, but that may be something that we can talk about here in this budget.

>> I was going to ask, do you think that's a pretty good idea and the right time for that right now?

>> You know, I mean, we're hearing from a lot of constituents as it relates to to the Cola and about the 13th check.

And, you know, it's one of the things that we've got great leadership with Chairman McDaniel.

And I think also on the House side with Chairman Petrie, we'll have those discussions.

You know, just right now, the Senate, we're we're patiently waiting, you know, Speaker Pro Tem Meade to to get that over here to us.

But, you know, I've told constituents that have continued to to email us.

First of all, we appreciate the communication.

You know, we need to hear from our constituents.

But also, as Representative Meade said, this is a process.

It's the first stage of this.

It's it's bare bones.

It's getting it first out of committee, out of a and on the House side, then letting the House have their hands on it and it will work itself out.

We've we've we were going to get there.

>> Yeah.

Representative made.

What do you think about either cost of living adjustments for retirees or the 13th check.

Is there any any conversation in your caucus about that and which way to go?

>> There has been some.

I think the talking point that they leave out, though, is that the numbers that they have figured up are for the state employees, for Chris, however, the employees get left out of that.

It's a may in the bill and in the amendments.

It's not a shall.

So the majority of your employees in the counties are sir's employees, which will not get a 13th check.

And so we feel that that's very unfair.

And so we're continuing to try to look at it, see if we can find the money in order to do it.

>> Absolutely.

Yeah.

How do you all feel about that?

I mean, make sure the county folks are included.

>> I would be very happy to negotiate around that and see what we can do.

Our proposal included a 13th check in both years of the biennium.

So if we can solve that problem by doing it in one year and getting the Sirs, I think that's something we should talk about.

>> Renee let me add something quickly.

It's not a matter of of whether we can do it.

It's a matter of will we do it because we've got money to do that.

13 check.

>> Do you have money to do a 13th check?

I mean, there is a healthy budget reserve trust fund, but we know that HB 500, as it stands right now, withholds about $1 billion in revenue.

Why withhold that?

Is that to make sure that those triggers for lowering the income tax are met at a time where people think it should be met, or what's the rationale for withholding $1 billion in revenue?

>> Well, again, you had the starting point of the budget that's going to start dwindling as you expand that budget even more.

And the issue is going to be that we have a predicted $156 million shortfall.

And so we are trying to make sure that before we start actually throwing in projects and those type of things, we use the seal.

You have to remember that we haven't done the one time spending bill yet.

So we've still got a lot of things that we have to look at.

>> And we should remind viewers that that's what's happened in the last budget cycle.

There was the two year spending plan and then there was the one time monies.

These are non recurring expenses, right.

What what does that kind of look like for people who are curious about why do you have two different things?

>> Well I think with the one time you look at infrastructure projects, water lines, you can look at a lot of things that communities have been asking for additional help with.

And I'll say, you know, for, for probably all of us here on this panel, you know, we did those one time expenses.

Those are for great community projects that have needed to be done.

I know from our side, I think working also with the house on that, you know, we get a lot of our communities to come back to us, say thanks.

The understanding is it's a one time, it's not a recurring.

And so I think here in 26, we've got to be very close of a fine tooth comb of going back in 24, making sure nothing is slipping back in of things that got that one time to not get a recurring in 26.

>> Because many people will think, oh well, we can do this when we first get it.

But then they realize, well, there's things we didn't account for two years ago.

>> That's exactly right.

>> Right, right.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which we know is a more progressive, left leaning think tank, had reported that the legislature has taken over $1 billion from the Kentucky Health Insurance program over a period of years since 2009, to balance the state budget.

Had that money been left alone, would we be in the situation that we currently are that you're considering with the House Bill 500?

And if that had been the case where it had been funded or that money not been swept, would the increases be more eased?

Possibly.

>> Well, I think we'd still be in the same situation first.

I didn't really realize anybody still listened to those folks, but they the, the the plan itself establishes premiums and they share with costs with employees.

So it is split between the employer and the employee.

And each year that plan has to be fully funded on its own.

It's not that we can continue to recur costs or put money back, so we can use previous costs to pay for this year.

It has to be fully funded each each year it has to stand on its own.

And it's designed that way so that we're not creating bad policy and we're not creating a deficit later on down the road in that.

So every year that we have been in the majority, we have fully funded it in many years.

We've overfunded it.

And so when that happens, then that money comes back to the state to be used for other necessary purposes.

>> I think one of the things too, I think we're facing this across the Commonwealth, across the United States of rising insurance costs.

I mean, you can ask Joe Lunchbox the working second shift.

You can ask state employees such as bus drivers.

This is this is an every person problem that we're facing right now.

We need more competition within insurance companies, of more offerings, of some more choices that constituents can have when it comes to their choice for insurance.

>> Is that being evaluated and looked at or exploring those options?

I think right.

>> Now every option should be on the table of what we're looking to do.

>> Any comment on this side of the table.

>> You want to go first?

>> Thank you, Senator Thomas.

I think the elephant in the room is that, yes.

In fact, we are all facing these huge surges in the cost of our health insurance.

And it's because of what's happened in Washington.

We really need to make sure that it's clear to everyone who's watching that.

When the Republicans allowed the ACA subsidies to lapse, all of us felt the heat.

And it's going to get worse and worse over the next few years.

So I really hope that we can come around and not allow this to drown Kentuckians in medical costs.

>> Okay.

>> I will say that it is that it does come from the federal level, however, that started during Obamacare when when that ACA plan drove out other health care companies and drove the competition out of each state and leaving a monopoly pretty much in the health care industry, that's the biggest issue that we've had over the years.

>> All right, final word on that.

I'm sure we'll talk about this in the days and weeks to come.

So we've gotten a few questions, and we're going to take a departure from the budget.

This question is from Patricia in Lexington to Senator Thomas.

Will legislators address the fact that based on Chris 383.

Hope you know what that is.

Kentucky tenants have no rights in affordability is in the hands of landlords.

>> Renee I want to say, Patricia, I don't know that we're going to address that issue, but but we are going to address the issue of affordable housing.

I've just got to be honest with her.

I don't I don't think given the makeup of the legislature, there's no appetite to increase tenant rights, although we really should.

It's very in in this housing crunch.

But I do think that we're going to pump more money in should in affordable housing.

This session.

We just passed Senate Bill nine which is a good bill.

It it doesn't go as far as I would like because I think you need to try to to somehow impose a cap on what home home builders will make.

That's not in there.

I mean, we're giving we're giving homebuilders a lot of a lot of money in infrastructure costs, sewer costs, utility costs.

So so all that's going to be paid for by the government or even provided with low interest loans.

But then there's still no ceiling in terms of what they're going to sell the homes for.

And you got to cap that, Renee.

You can't give away public money to these homebuilders and not say, okay, we're giving you this money so you don't have to spend it, but you've got to put some kind of limit in your pricing of the homes.

That's what's missing in Senate bill now.

>> So let's I'll ask Leader Wise about that in Senate Bill nine, which when Senator Mills was on this program just a few weeks ago, he talked about how this bill in conjunction with Representative Susan Witten, who also has some ideas from the Kentucky Housing Task Force, that all of these combined would help address the affordability issue.

Does Senate Bill nine not address affordability?

>> I think it does.

I think we have a lot of holistic approach we're taking with both with representative Bill and what Senator Mills is working on.

I even look at today we got off the Senate floor.

Central Rawlings has a bill as it relates to permitting and allowing us to cut through so much of government red tape of when we're waiting on permits, especially for home builders and our other inspectors to be able to continue to wait and wait for permits to get done.

Let's cut through that.

Let's get these people ability to to get to work and be able to provide for families and provide for communities to start building on projects.

>> Yeah.

Housing is one of the big issues that I think many people thought the legislature could just really solve, just like that.

Speaker Meade reality check for folks, right?

>> It is.

It's a very difficult industry.

Of course, I'm in the real estate industry as a broker and auctioneer, and I did some building myself.

And it's it is just a very difficult industry.

But we have to I have to say thanks to Susan Witten for the job that she's done so far.

And Richard White's also has a bill out there that should hopefully help representative witness House Bill 617, which updates some planning and zoning standards in each of the areas for residential construction.

That is, it addresses setback rules, parking mandates, residential use on commercial properties, things like that.

And then she has House Bill 618, which also streamlines the building codes and inspection timelines.

And then Representative White has House Bill 530.

That again establishes some some different timelines, but also allows for some different permitting decisions and things like that.

So there's there's a lot of things we're doing right now.

>> Are you satisfied, Representative Burke, with what you're saying on the housing end or what's missing in your view?

>> In a word, no, I'm not satisfied.

The people of Kentucky are in desperate and dire need of more housing.

And while it's true that this is a hard nut to crack, we have great examples in our region.

Indiana has done very impressive work in getting a greater quantity of housing built and quickly.

And while I completely agree with the gentleman from the majority that it does take multiple approaches, it takes a various assortment of different bills attacking the problem from different angles to achieve success.

But really, what I keep hearing is more about deregulating.

And while I agree that that's part of what we need to do, some of those concerns, some of those solutions are very concerning to me.

One was brought to me by a firefighter who said that he understands that we're moving toward allowing apartment buildings to be built with one stairwell, so the firefighter would be running up and all the tenants would be running down, and they'd be bumping into each other in the stairwell, he said.

Under no circumstances would you want an apartment complex to be more than three stories tall.

And I think we were talking about eight, and maybe the compromise was four.

This is not the type of policy that Kentuckians are asking for.

They're asking for us to make a an investment in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Governor Beshear proposed 150 million from the Reserve trust fund, the House Democrats and our amendments.

We've proposed 140 million.

And this isn't a silver bullet either.

There is no silver bullet, but we need to be brave enough to make big moves and not just tinker around the edges when people are desperate and people in Kentucky are desperate for a place to live, a place to own, that they can develop generational wealth.

And if we won't be bold, they won't get there.

>> Senator Thomas.

>> No, when you talk about generational wealth, I couldn't agree with her more.

You know, I strongly believe that that when we enact policy Renee, it's got to be for two focuses, primarily one, affordability, making sure that what we're doing, people can afford and live lives in a in a manner that that focuses more on prosperity and opportunity and hope and not on struggle and sacrifice and fear, which is where we are now, not just in Kentucky, but in this nation and generational wealth.

I'm a strong believer in generational wealth.

And those those in my Chamber who hear me talk, hear me say that over and over again.

>> So let me take another pivot.

If we're done with housing for right now, and we'll have another conversation about that, I'm sure, in the weeks to come.

This is from Martin Rivers in Lexington.

He says, quote, I was discouraged to see time taken this last week to hear testimony from governor DeSantis, Governor Florida, regarding HCR 45, which is the balanced budget amendment, doesn't Petrie Chairman Jason Petrie of the House Budget Committee have more important issues to deal with, like the state budget, rather than hosting another state's governor?

So I'll come to you, Representative Meade, for that.

>> Well.

The response the governor of Florida is leading that that issue, and it is a huge issue at the federal government of trying to figure out whether we can balance the budget, and the states are pushing for that.

So he was here to testify on that.

I think that Representative Petri is involved with that because that's a passionate issue for him.

It does have to do with the budget, and he has done a remarkable job of crafting this budget, as he has in the past, and will continue to do so.

So it's something that we have we have multiple issues that we work on, each and every one of us as legislators.

And that was one of his.

And it was absolutely, perfectly fine to see governor DeSantis here, I think.

>> Yeah.

Leader Wise.

>> Well, you know, governor DeSantis has made a trip to Rupp Arena.

He's made a trip to the Kentucky Derby.

He's made a trip to the now the Legislative Annex.

And that's the same amount of times I've seen Governor Andy Beshear in the legislative annex is one time in my term of office where he came up to our Senate floor and had a lunch with us with the minority party.

I love seeing a governor like governor DeSantis come and talk about what he's doing with this and what he's pushing.

I think it's fantastic piece of legislation.

The reason I look at that is Senator Thomas mentioned about, you know, young people worried about buying a home and worried about the next generation of wealth.

Well, if our federal government does not do something about the national debt and where it's going, I'll worry about that.

We all should be worried about that.

Regardless if you're Republican or Democrat, independent, if you're a taxpayer of this country, we should be worrying right now about where the federal government is going as it relates to the debt.

I thought governor DeSantis did a fantastic job.

He also supporting congressional term limits.

And that's not just the only thing is the balanced budget amendment.

He's doing quite a bit of these things right now.

You know, I think there's 27 states Renee have passed the balanced budget amendment.

Once you get to 33 states, then you can enter into a convention of states.

Now, this is a single issue on this.

When we hear about convention of states many times, think about these things can go rogue and it can be a host of issues.

But this one is strictly about the balanced budget amendment.

We'll see what the House's appetite is with that.

And if it makes its way over to the Senate.

>> Yeah.

Any other comment about that?

>> I want to say this because, you know, we've heard a lot of swipes taken tonight about Governor Beshear.

So I just want to weigh in on this on your show for just a second, okay.

In the six years that governor has been in office, he has set historical records in the state in terms of private investment, $70 billion in terms of jobs, over 50,000 jobs created.

He's literally put Kentucky on this map.

He's created tremendous opportunities for the state all over the world.

I mean, people know him.

You know, what we've seen is that he has spotlighted Kentucky now as a destination state rather than a flyover state.

So he's gone out across this nation putting Kentucky on the map.

I think he's done a tremendous job for this state and really helped, has helped advance Kentucky, you know, over his six years of administration.

I think he should be applauded for all his fine work he's done.

>> But that has been also with the help of legislative policies that have enabled him to to make such boasts around the nation and globe.

Correct.

Well.

>> It's fair to say that certainly the legislature has not impeded, you know, his initiatives and his designs.

That is fair to say.

However, if you look at what they've done over six years to really limit his authority in passing certain bills, I mean, you get a you get a whole different picture.

So that's debatable.

Renee, I don't think we have time to debate that tonight, but that's debatable as to how much support he's gotten from this legislature in his tenure.

>> From what, you know, is Governor Andy Beshear as visible with the lawmakers, particularly the majority, as he should be?

>> Well, I, I can't say that, Renee, only because I spend the bulk of my time with my Democratic colleagues.

I will say that just last week, I saw governor a couple of times at different events.

So I saw him in the state.

I was I was in his presence just two times last week.

So there have been plenty of times I've come across Governor Beshear in my travels, not just in Lexington, but around Kentucky.

>> If I could respectfully push back against Senator Thomas.

I do this with all due respect, because we are colleagues and we've got a great friendship in the Senate.

But I think, Senator Thomas, you should give a pat on the back to what the legislature has done with our policy.

We go back to right to work.

We go back to repeal and prevailing wage.

We go back to the things we've done economically.

And when we talk about that budget reserve trust fund, when I came in in 11 years ago, we were just over probably representing maybe over $100,000 in that.

And where we have grown that budget reserve trust fund, that's the work of conservative policies that are happening within our economic, our economic leadership of House and Senate, A and R, as well as House and Senate leadership.

That was the first trip in seven years as governor has been inside the legislative annex.

Now, we could talk about ribbon cuttings.

We could talk about all the things in the governor's been out doing.

I've been at quite a few of those things also, but I think also much credit must be given to the Republican controlled leadership within the House and Senate.

>> Representative Meade.

>> Absolutely.

And when I came in, we actually didn't have a budget reserve trust fund.

We had a deficit at the time.

We were we had overspent.

And everything that you've seen happen over the course of the past few years, the the job growth, the job investments, all that has happened from the policy that has come from the General Assembly.

Name one thing that this governor has passed policy wise in the General Assembly.

There's nothing he has done absolutely nothing when it comes to passing policy.

He's been vetoed.

He's vetoed in more, more than any other governor.

He's been overridden more than all the other governors combined.

But he's passed no policy.

>> Speaker Meade makes a good point.

>> Well, not actually right, because medical marijuana is to the credit of Governor Beshear, we wouldn't have that policy.

But for his advocacy and leadership and the billions of dollars we have in the budget reserve trust fund, I think those are federal dollars that we got from President Joe Biden.

So I'm afraid that it's not all something we can pat ourselves on the back about.

A lot of that isn't our doing.

Now, I'm not saying there haven't been good things from the conservative leadership, but it's not all you.

>> We also can look at universal pre-K.

I think that's been the biggest policy push that this governor has been.

I don't think he was at the press conference in the rollout when you brought forth universal pre-K as a piece of legislation for this legislative session.

And I would think if that is a priority of this governor, that he would have been at the press conference for the minority party to have made a push for that.

I've seen t shirts have been printed up hats for universal pre-K, but when it was rolled out as a piece of legislation, the governor was not there.

I think maybe the governor at the time may have been on The View and maybe on The Jon Stewart Show.

He may have been traveling, but with that being his number one piece of legislation this session, he was absent that day from the annex or from the press conference.

>> Respond to that, please.

>> Well, it could be on us that we didn't call and invite him because we didn't.

We think that we're legislators and our job is to legislate.

And he's an executive and his job is different than ours.

So we didn't invite him to our press conference and perhaps we should have.

However, I know he's paying attention because on Friday when we did our amendments, we got a call immediately saying, what about pre-K?

And I said, don't worry, sir, you don't have to worry about that.

It's coming.

>> Renee just, just let me say this.

We have put out we being the Senate Democrats two bills, Senate Bill 165, Senate Bill 166.

I want to tell that to your viewers.

Okay.

We work closely with Governor Beshear to to get those bills out.

And a press conference was held just last week in support of those two measures.

So now we weren't there.

But but there was a press conference out of governor's office to support Senate Bill 165 and 166.

So so the governor has been very active in putting out legislative policy.

And Renee again, I think we ought to be at least honest with your viewers there there are arguments made on both sides here.

But when we talk about the governor's policies being overridden, you can't ignore the fact that there's been a supermajority during his entire tenure that has just really, for whatever reason, not liked the governor's Democratic policies.

Now, you know that that that's reality that the governor has had to deal with.

But he's been extremely successful in his tenure as governor, despite a lot of the pushback.

Sometimes, sometimes I'm trying to be fair with the Republican supermajority.

>> Yeah.

Speaker Pro Tem, you made a mention a while ago about the spending in the governor's office.

I want you to pick back up on that.

What were you alluding to?

>> Well, what we back up just a little bit and start with the the special examination from Auditor Ball on the Medicaid payments several months ago, where there had been $800 million in improper Medicaid payments out there where we were, we failed to follow federal alerts warning us that there were duplicate Medicaid payments out there.

We didn't take the basic steps to take folks off the rolls when they were enrolled in other states.

We were there were deceased folks on the roads as well, which all added up to that $800 million, which they concluded in her in her findings, that those payments did not benefit Medicaid recipients.

It was just absolute waste of tax dollars.

You also then take a look at the audit for the Kentucky Department of Education, where they let $250 million of SEEK money lapse, which should have went to those to those districts across the state.

That's money that was lost there through this administration.

You also look at the recent review that she did of the executive branch spending with the EMR system.

And in that there's a whole host of things that was wasteful and excessive.

The Kentucky State Police spent almost 800, $184,000 on out-of-state travel while providing security for the governor.

Every time he travels, we have to send security with him.

That's understandable.

However, it's excessive travel.

And then also when when he spends almost $8,000 on a limousine in Germany, $360,000 paid by the Kentucky Department of Education for 75 people to attend a two day conference that's here in the state.

The governor's office spent a combined of a total of almost 340,000 on Derby events, including $17,000 for a dinner in Louisville.

The Kentucky Department of Community Services spent $540,000 to a vendor, who later agreed to a civil settlement for improper billing.

The Department of Community Services spent almost $46,000 on advertising, which included color changing tumblers, canvas totes, two tone Himalayan tumblers, stadium cushions, football rockets, drink sleeves, sports bottles.

And we all remembered what happened when the governor expanded the senior meals program.

And they he was warned by those providers that there was not going to be enough money for it.

So when it happened, then he blamed it on the legislature for him expanding a program.

But the entire time he was doing that, he was also paying one vendor almost $200,000 for media campaign for the senior meals program.

So when you look at all this spending, the folks of Kentucky have had to tighten their belts.

They sit down at their dinner tables every night.

They look at their bills, their expenses, how they're going to make a living, how they're going to send their kids to college, how they're going to provide on their next mortgage payment.

They're they're buckling, they're tightening their belts down.

The state should be doing exactly the same thing.

And this shows that it was not happening.

>> So your response to that, from what he's read, it does look like there needs to be more belt tightening from the governor's office.

What's your defense?

>> Take that first.

You or me?

Your choice.

You want to go first?

Ladies first.

>> I agree.

I would first point out as speaker Pro Tem Meade said that Auditor Ball did a special report.

That's not an audit.

It's not an audit.

And what she did was take available data and then spin it as hard as she could to make it look as bad as possible.

She didn't ask any follow up questions.

She included information that was extraneous in the report, and it was done as a pretext.

It was done in a way to try and make you Kentuckians think that something bad is happening, and that you are going to have to be accepting of cuts to your programs that support you as a result.

And that's just bad faith.

There's nothing good about it.

So beyond that, then we also have to take into consideration the Medicaid money that was lost.

And I won't debate you that it was lost.

But you look around the country and you find that there are almost every single state in that same predicament, because the Medicaid program has within it the possibility of having people registered in Indiana and Kentucky and Tennessee all at the same time.

That's not Kentucky's fault.

Kentucky didn't design the Medicaid program, so could we find ways to fix it?

Yes, we could, and I hope we will.

But a lot of them are federally directed, and everyone's taxpayer dollars would not be wasted if we had a federal fix on that.

So it is a problem.

I don't disagree that it is a travesty that that much money of federal tax dollars were wasted in Kentucky, but you pull the camera back and look at all the other states, and then we have a real scary problem about federal tax dollars that have been wasted.

And the federal government needs to fix it.

>> Now, I'm going to jump on the Medicaid real quick.

You know, we have seen Medicaid expenditures increase from 10% to about 24% over the last five years here in Kentucky.

And a lot of that's when we did some work on Senate Bill 50, which was a pharmacy related bill.

And I think it was a bipartisan bill to look at Medicaid expenses that were going into pharmacy with Mcos.

And we found a lot of money, and the governor was able to utilize that.

But instead of that being back to Medicaid providers, it went to vision and went to dental for Medicaid recipients.

We had an opportunity there to probably have increased rebasing rates for Medicaid.

I know Senator Gibbons was on your show and talked about Medicaid with dental deserts that are out there right now.

That was probably a good opportunity.

We could have utilized those Medicaid dollars to put towards good use.

I'm glad we created the Medicaid Oversight Advisory Board.

This session is very important about the future of health care also in Kentucky, and looking at some of those issues of Medicaid to make sure the appropriate people of Kentucky are on who are receiving Medicaid, are in need of Medicaid.

There is our fiscal cliff that we are going over with health care as it relates to rural hospitals, as it relates to Medicaid.

I'm looking forward to Representative Fleming bill on House Bill two as it relates about Medicaid and the expenses.

We need to have transparency.

We need to make sure we've got oversight of the Medicaid program.

And I think this is a good session for us to really get down to work on that.

>> Are those bipartisan elements that you can agree with or do you find flaw?

>> No, I don't find flaws generally.

And I'm glad this was raised because, Renee, I want to show my bipartisanship here and talk about what I think is the best bill that we've passed.

The Senate passed this session, and that Senate Concurrent Resolution nine by Senator Meredith, that sets out a requirement that we do a feasibility study, you know, on on Medicaid here to help develop a medicaid delivery model pilot project.

We want to do 20 to 30 of those across the state that does three important things.

Renee, I want you to hear this one.

It increases accessibility for for low income individuals to get health care.

Two, it provides high quality physicians to give them that health care, and three, makes it very affordable for them to do that.

It's what we really need in this country, is able to provide health care for those who can't afford it on a high quality level, on a high accessibility, accessibility level with outstanding doctors.

And so I think this is the best bill that the Senate has passed this session.

Senate Concurrent Resolution nine, because it moves us to a place, hopefully next three years, where we can have these health clinics all over the state, that that can provide high quality health care at little to no cost to people.

>> All right.

Any other conversation on health care.

>> Just before we.

>> Move on, before we we deflect off of that.

I will say that just to respectfully disagree, it is Kentucky's fault when it comes to the Medicaid program, because there are federal alerts that come to the state saying, hey, you possibly have somebody duplicate it here.

The algorithms that are set up in the system will warn them of these things.

They didn't take note of that.

They didn't.

They didn't heed that and didn't drop those folks off the rolls.

So that has created a huge problem.

And then to say that she has.

Spun this in some way, I mean, how do you justify almost $8,000 for a limousine and $340,000 on his derby events, and $17,000 for dinner just to pick out three of those?

I mean, you can't justify that in any way.

>> Do we know of other administrations, whether they're Republican or Democrat, had similar expenses for the times in which those.

>> You know, I'm not sure.

But I will say this, that it wouldn't matter if it was Democrat or Republican.

It's not right to do it either way.

>> Let me say this.

I've already cited to you, so I'm not going to repeat myself in terms of all the outstanding historical work this governor has done.

I don't know of anybody, anywhere who gets something for nothing.

You've got to invest some time.

You got to you got to invest some resources to to grow and develop and, and, and gain gather that kind of private investment, high, high increase of jobs somewhere.

And so if you got to take trips, if you got to do a little bit of entertaining, if that's going to yield US $70 billion of private private investment, that's going to yield us over 50,000 jobs over six years.

I say that was that was far worth it.

This governor has tremendous contacts all over the world, and it's been highly beneficial to Kentucky.

>> $8,000 limousine rides are worth the return you get.

>> Well, I the number that really stood out to me from the special report from Auditor Ball was where she tried to make it seem like it was suspect that the governor paid about $110,000 to join the National Governors Association.

Well, a quick Google search will tell you that's how much it costs to join the governor's association.

And every governor in the United States is a member, so I'm just not sure why that was included, other than it had a comma in the middle and it made it seem big and scary.

But we deserve better than just random numbers.

>> I want to go back to you, Representative Burke.

About a moment ago, it was mentioned about some of the policies that the supermajority has passed, like right to work and repealing the prevailing wage.

And just maybe it was last week, a week before your colleague Adrielle Camuel had a press conference that announcing a bill to repeal Right to Work.

I mean, given the political environment in which you find yourself in, is that a fool's errand?

>> Well, whether or not it's a fool's errand will be for the voters to decide.

But what I can tell you is that the working families of Kentucky don't appreciate having the legislature determine what their contracts can or can't do, and the right to work legislation needs to be repealed because Kentucky workers are getting the short end of the stick.

We need to ensure that we're standing up for workers.

And right now, the legislature is more about bosses and less about the working people.

And so I'm really having a lot of trouble with that.

And I thank you for letting me just say so.

>> And I want to say quickly, I don't want to put Lindsey on.

I mean, Representative Burke on the island here, we have a state senator, Gary Clemons, who's filed the same bill in the Senate.

And all Senate Democrats have co-sponsored that bill.

>> Same question to you, though.

>> Oh.

>> Where can it go?

>> Well, what's your question portends, Renee, is the fact that because of the supermajority that exists in the Senate, it's not going to go anywhere?

And I can't deny that.

But is it good policy?

That's, that's that's a really more important question.

And it's absolutely good policy for the reasons already articulated by Representative Burke.

I'm not going to repeat what she said.

>> All right.

We're going to move away from that.

And we're going to talk about a bill that's coming up in in coming up in committee.

Excuse me.

Tomorrow morning, I believe, at 9:00 Vmap Veterans and Military Affairs and Public Protection.

And it's about these Glock switches, small, often 3D printed attachments that roughly the size of a quarter that, when installed, can transform a standard semiautomatic handgun into a fully automatic machine gun capable of firing up to 1200 rounds per minute.

There is a bill, House Bill two 9599, excuse me, by Representative Jason Nemes that would create a state level ban on these machine gun conversion devices.

This does this have bipartisan support?

And and when we hear this committee, when we have this hearing tomorrow, we're going to hear from law enforcement officials who are really on board from this from the KSP.

We know the Louisville police chief has said this has got to stop.

We got to do something about this.

>> Well, if you look at what Representative Nemes is doing, he's mirroring federal law and that he's he's taking on the federal law at state level because our local jurisdictions can't take care of it has to be done at the federal level.

Of course, that would be like the Commonwealth attorneys and those type things.

So he's trying to he's trying to bring it down to the local level in order to do that.

If you've ever seen one of these switches in action, and I've only seen it on video, but when that thing, when it's put on there and they pull the trigger one time, it will completely unload the gun.

And so they will they they're they're extended clips that go that you can put in the guns to, to fire many more multiple rounds.

And, and so the only reason you would really use one of these switches is for something that that is criminal.

>> Yeah.

Is there commitment.

And from everyone in your caucus, are you on the same page about this, about banning these?

>> I think there's the majority.

I'm not sure that I could say everyone.

I haven't talked to everyone about it, but.

>> Is there a Second Amendment violation that some may see here?

>> No.

Well, I mean, the the NRA is completely neutral on it.

Glock is for it.

So I mean, there's we're talking about it's very hard.

These these devices are very hard to control when you pull that trigger as well.

So no, there are folks that are on board to to try to get.

>> Rid of it.

Just having seen the video a few times, I mean, it's some damage can be done.

So this side.

>> Yeah, it's horrifying what these switches do to otherwise lawful firearms.

When we heard this bill over the interim in Judiciary Committee, the police chief from Louisville Metro Police said that even with his extensive training, he would never use one of these, even for fun at a shooting range, because the misfires, the danger that is present when a good machine, a good firearm, is converted into a fake machine gun, there's no way to control it.

It's truly dangerous.

And so even for people who really enjoy using guns for self-protection or for hunting or anything like that, they're not going to find utility in something like the Glock switch.

So I do hope that we can pass this with bipartisan support, but I know why it's not in judiciary, and that's because it didn't have bipartisan support from enough Republicans in that committee, which frankly, is scary.

>> Yeah.

So I was going to bring up the fact that it is in veterans military affairs and public protection.

Speaker, if you want to answer that real quick, I'll get back to you later.

Wise about why it is assigned where it is.

>> Well, to tell you truth, I really wasn't involved in that conversation when it was changed over.

I know that judiciary has been extremely busy lately, and I'm not exactly sure why it was moved over.

>> Okay, Wise.

>> You know, I don't typically engage in House bills until they've passed over from one chamber to the other.

I would just look at this as, is this already a federal felony law and is it redundant if it's already exist?

I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, but I look forward to watching that in terms of committee, just seeing the discussions that take place with that.

But I don't want anything to impede upon and adding another layer of gun control.

So I would just be my position as majority leader, the Senate, just monitor and see what the votes look like, see how it gets out of committee and see where it goes on.

>> The floor.

So let me see if I understand what you just said, because it's already outlawed on the federal level.

You think it would be redundant for the state to do it and that there's no need for it?

>> I would just need to see if it's a federal felony law already.

If that already exists, then is the law already redundant of what we would look to do since it's already there as federal felony law?

So I would just need to look into that and see.

>> Senator Thomas, your thoughts.

>> I was at the same Judiciary Committee meeting that Representative Burke was, I thought, Representative Jason Nemes testimony was very compelling.

So was the chief of Louisville Police.

Renee.

These are killing machines.

These are killing machines.

They're not sport.

They're not designed for human protection.

They're designed for one purpose only is killing.

And yes, they should definitely be outlawed.

And I hope that House Bill does pass the House.

And I hope we take it bring it before the Senate, because I know that for one person that will vote for it, it will be me.

>> Do you have a sense of where maybe some of your caucus members may be on this issue, just having heard about it and read about it in the news and maybe seen the testimony from the.

>> We have not had any discussions yet.

>> Okay.

Very good.

So in the less than five minutes we have remaining.

So we did get to a lot of issues tonight.

And that's what happens when you have really good deep discussion.

You get to just a few.

So other than the budget, what is one issue leader wise that you hope is resolved or a particular bill?

Do you think this must get across the finish line along with the budget?

We know that's kind of a given.

>> Absolutely.

Yeah.

Budget number one priority after that.

You know, if you look at what the Senate's done of our top ten bills, 60% are education related.

And I think if you even look at on the House side, House Bill one that got filed, I think education continues to remain a strong suit of this Republican supermajority, whatever that education opportunity may be, whatever those avenues and pathways are.

I think you even see off the Senate floor a lot of bipartisanship with much of the education bills we've done.

Even today, we had a teacher sick leave bill that was very bipartisan of an opportunity to provide, you know, sick leave for teachers to be able to cash out and use sick leave early on and not wait until the end.

You're going to see also tomorrow off the Senate floor, that's going to be school discipline, making sure our teachers are protected when it gets into assaulting teachers.

This has became a problem across the entire commonwealth of Kentucky.

Our teachers many time go into situations in the classroom.

They're fearful.

Some of them are facing, even at elementary middle school level, a student that's six, two and maybe 225 pounds, and some of them are fearful.

And so we want to make sure that learning environment is safe for teachers, but also safe for students.

We also want children to be able to learn and them not to be scared of being in a classroom.

So we're going to be serious on this as it relates to, you know, a lot of the school issues I'm excited about, you know, where we're at right now in the process.

We're taking a very deliberate approach.

It's been very, I think, very methodical.

As we review pieces of legislation.

One of the things in the new chamber that's really changed for us is not introducing special guests and introductions.

We've been able to really get into the policy, you know, and it's nothing against the mayors and the Girl Scouts.

We love when they come to Frankfort and in the old Capitol, we'd have them in the gallery.

But man, we can get right to orders of the day, can't we?

Send it to Thomas and you better be ready, because I'm calling those bills, and those senators better be ready to talk.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> I got to say, it used to be Friday sessions.

We were in and out in 15 minutes.

This year we have Friday sessions.

They last for two hours.

There's there's just no question that the debate has been much more robust this year.

Maybe it's the bills but but but we certainly have more robust debate in the Senate.

>> Than the environment by which you can't have a lot of the other extraneous.

Right.

I do want to give you a chance.

Speaker Pro Tem Meade to talk about House Bill one.

Right.

And we just had that Kentucky Supreme Court ruling about charter school funding.

And this does something differently because of the big beautiful bill on the federal level.

Tell us about it.

>> It's the federal education freedom tax credit.

It was established in H.R.

one.

And what it does is each state has to opt into that.

The tax credit is going to be out there.

So right now Kentucky is not opted in yet.

But 27 other states have.

So I could give $1,700 myself.

I could send it to Indiana.

And a child in Indiana is going to benefit from that.

And I will get my tax credit here, my federal taxes when I file them here in Kentucky.

So what we're doing is we're saying we're going to be a part of that, allow Kentucky to to take place in that and to benefit from that.

It's not it's simply not just a school choice bill.

Public schools can set up these accounts as well.

And so I could if Lincoln County sets up a one of these funds at Lincoln County Schools, I can put my $1,700 there and it will benefit a child there in that county.

>> Representative Burke, do you have any issues with this bill?

House Bill one.

>> Not that I can cover in a minute and a half.

Renee.

>> CliffsNotes version, Reader's Digest.

>> The CliffsNotes version is that the voters of Kentucky have given an ultimatum that we need to focus on Kentucky public schools, and I do have concerns about diverting students who would be in the public schools into a private or charter setting so that those SEEK dollars are following them somewhere else.

Now, if we ensure that that's not happening, I'm more amenable to the discussion.

But my brain is just running a million miles a minute toward House Bill two, which is coming tomorrow to A&R committee.

And that's the Medicaid adjustment bill that was referenced earlier.

I'm deeply concerned about asking our poorest community members to pay a $20 co-pay when they go to the emergency room.

That part really bothers me.

We had someone from the American Heart Association come in and tell me that women have heart attacks and they feel like they're sick to their stomach.

So if we say you if you go to the emergency room and it's a non-life threatening emergency, you need to pay $20 or women are going to start dying over $20 co-pays.

Okay, I hope not.

>> All right.

We'll follow that tomorrow.

You can watch all the action online and on the Kentucky channel.

Ket.org will be covering all these committees tomorrow.

So you can stay in the know.

And I will see you right back here again at 630 eastern, 530 central for Kentucky Edition.

Thanks for watching tonight.

I'll see you tomorrow night.

Take good care.