As state lawmakers continue to draft their version of the state budget, the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee is taking a closer look at the spending habits of all three branches of government.

Today, the Budget Committee reviewed transactions from the executive branch that the auditor's office considered.

Quote, points of interest.

Our McKenzie's Bank tells us what areas are getting the spotlight and why it matters to the state budget.

She has more.

As we kick off tonight's legislative update.

House Appropriations and Revenue Chair Representative Jason Petri is taking a magnifying glass to particular areas of spending that may not be well tracked or well justified in the state's purchase tracking system.

How much do we spend as state government on advertising?

Not federally required, not legally required, but just advertising.

What do we spend on out-of-state travel?

What do we spend on in-state travel?

What do we spend on food, lodging and other stuff?

The information presented by the auditor's office today was not part of an official audit, but a review of the purchase tracking system.

The auditor's counsel says out-of-state travel was an area with some hard to track purchases.

And not a state travel, the state executive branch or fiscal year 25, spent almost $7.5 million, but at least over $398,000 was spent using agency Am or American Express card.

Sorry.

What's interesting about the Amex cards is the level of detail that's attached to Amex card use by agencies is very little.

Sometimes you only see some sort of like a flight receipt or something like that.

It's difficult to know what the flight was actually for.

The presentation also included a deep dive into the governor's travel expenses, including hotel rooms and meal expenses.

Some other interesting expenditures that we saw here were was a seven $7,600 limousine that was rented in Germany.

A $4,600 car rented in Switzerland.

You'll notice some meal expenditures here.

And then one interesting thing was that, it appears that, while in Washington, D.C., there were two traffic tickets accumulated that were charged to Kentucky taxpayers.

Spending by the Department for Community Based Services was also reviewed.

DCB is currently under investigation by the auditor's office for its use of office buildings to shelter foster children.

One I'll highlight is the $481,000 that was paid to a single vendor for, quote, emotional injury evaluations.

What's interesting about this one is that this is over $400,000 more than almost every other vendor for these same types of services.

And, and $389,000 more than the next highest vendor.

Chairman Petry says he does not pass judgment on any of the expenditures discussed today, but that the stewardship of taxpayer dollars is worth talking about while the budget is open.

The money that the government the state receives is tax revenue.

And if you get a group of just regular people in a room and you start running down through these expenditures with them, what do you think they're going to say and what are you going to feel in response?

And what are you going to think in response?

It's just a good time.

It's like a moment when we're looking at what's in the base.

Well, let's look at certain codes that are in the base and what's going on.

House Bill 500, which details the current budget proposal and the spending report by the auditor's office, are available online through the Legislative Research Commission for Kentucky edition.

I'm McKenzie Spink.