music >> I think it's pretty sad that they'll put politics over four year olds in Kentucky.

>> The governor says the House Republican budget plan doesn't make the grade.

[MUSIC] >> We have a higher education system here that's accessible and affordable for everybody.

>> Why?

More and more college students in Kentucky are graduating debt free.

[MUSIC] >> It's very difficult when you're talking about reducing staff.

It's heartbreaking for some.

>> And the Jefferson County superintendent details his plan to cut the budget by more than $130 million.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition for this Friday, January the 30th, I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you for kicking off your weekend with us.

We begin in Frankfort as lawmakers work to pass a two year budget for Kentucky.

Governor Andy Beshear says the House Republican budget plan released earlier this week does not reflect Kentuckians needs.

Yesterday, the governor talked about what he thinks is missing from the budget plan.

>> The current House budget, and they said they're going to change it and I'll take them at their word just doesn't show the same priorities as the people of of Kentucky.

Now, the people of Kentucky understand the American dream starts with a job, but we don't have, at least in this version, any of the programs that that we've used in the past that have been so important to secure new jobs, they don't have funding for site development.

It's been critical.

They don't have a closing fund.

It's been critical.

They don't have the Rural Economic Development Fund that we had in all those need to make it in a final budget, and maybe it's coming in a different bill.

They don't prioritize education.

Knott pre-K cuts to to higher ed, which experienced so many cuts in in tougher times in about a half $1 billion less for K through 12 than I had in my budget.

Public safety.

They don't have money in for a very important and I get it's very expensive project for the Kentucky State Police that would make sure their radios can work in every single part of Kentucky.

If they don't, then we're less safe.

>> Well, you just heard Governor Andy Beshear talking about what he perceives as missed opportunities.

And this first draft of the House Republican budget plan.

And so right now with us, we have Austin Horn, who is the politics reporter for the Lexington Herald Leader, who's going to talk about the House budget plan, where it is right now, where it is to go, and a lot of other political developments in today's Reporter's Notebook.

Good to have you.

>> Ready to get to it.

>> Ready to get to a lot to get to, isn't it?

It's been a busy week.

So let's start with House Bill 500, which is the state's two year spending plan that Jason Petrie the House and House Appropriations and Revenue chair unveiled this week.

What's in it and what does he say about it?

>> I think it's safe to say it's the most bare bones first draft of a budget we've seen from this Republican led House.

It really differs from previous versions because it is just funding what is absolutely necessary.

And they acknowledge this is the first draft.

This is not kind of something that could work as a budget come April when the session ends, this is something that they're going to negotiate towards.

They're going to add stuff on.

You've got tons of areas where different constituencies are disappointed with the lack of funding.

I mean, if you think of SEEK funding, the per pupil cost or the per pupil expense is the exact same as it was in the previous budget, and inflation, just general costs have gone way up since then.

>> Yeah, and we know that public education advocates have been making that point for a long time, that even though House and Senate Republicans talk about historic funding levels of K through 12 education, other folks on the opposite side say yes, but it does not count for inflation.

So we can see the budget review subcommittees are meeting, and they'll be talking to these agencies, because we know that the governor, as Petrie said, has $10 billion worth of executive branch budget requests that could possibly go nowhere.

Or could some of those be deferred to the one time funding plan that they have done in the previous cycle?

>> Yeah, I think that's really possible.

We know there's going to be a separate funding bill that has that that one time kind of juicy, big project oriented spending.

But at the same time, I think there's something to be said.

We don't know exactly how this will play out, but they say that this will include more meetings, more kind of almost openness of the budget process throughout this 60 day session.

We'll see if that happens.

Right.

But that's what they're saying.

>> That's what they're saying okay.

Education has been a big a lot of education bills have moved in these last couple of weeks.

Senate Bill one, which is you know, the priority bill.

This is Senate President Pro Tem David Givens bill.

Talk about these public education measures.

And not all of them fall out on really stark parts in lines.

There seems to be some consensus on one of them, SB three.

But let's talk about SB one first.

>> Sure, SB one is largely oriented towards JCPS.

I think there are a ton of moving parts in negotiating bills.

Even if you think about there's another bill out there that would remove elected school board officials and have those be appointed by, you know, the the city governments of both Lexington and Louisville.

So I think there's a lot in flux.

It's hard to know what exactly is going to move and what's not.

But SB one, largely targeted at Jefferson County, is looking pretty good to move at this point in time, and SB three has pretty unanimous Democratic support as well as Republican.

And that's the bill that mandates more transparency in how school boards spend money.

>> And so SB one gives more authority to the superintendent and takes it away, takes it away from, in certain areas, the school board.

So what's happening here with the elected school board versus the appointed superintendent?

How is this dynamic shifting?

>> It's interesting.

I mean, I think it is fair to say that moving more of the school board positions to appointment style positions, I think brings them more under the purview of the state legislature, not directly, but right now, local school boards there are independently elected.

These people have their own political constituencies.

And it seems to me that this change would sort of bring those people a little bit more under the thumb of the people who appoint them, who are also under the thumb of the state legislature.

Right.

So it's I'm not saying they're trying to take total control of these school boards, but that is a dynamic here.

>> And many people would say it's not just a war on Louisville.

We've heard that lexicon before, but almost a war on Fayette County.

Right.

Because some of these measures also include instances of what's happening here in Fayette County with the superintendent here and some concerns about overspending.

>> Yeah.

I mean, there's no denying that there's been a lot of scrutiny on spending in Fayette County.

That's been a huge topic over the past half year or so.

A trip to Australia, a hotel, expenses, things like that.

Now, the board has come out with justifications for those expenses and a bunch of different cases, but still, there's very heightened public scrutiny.

And that's a lot of that is thanks to the open records law, right.

>> And SB three, which was filed by Senator Lindsey Tichenor.

That bill has gotten unanimous support in a Senate committee that would make sure that those kind of financials are posted on the school's website, right?

Credit card statements, all that kind of stuff, along with budget proposals, etc.

So in a minute remaining, perhaps let's talk about something that happened today with Senator Cassie Chambers Armstrong, who is a Democratic colleague of Representative Daniel Grossberg, who's in the lower chamber.

We know that Grossberg has been in the news because of possible alleged ethics violations dealing with sexual harassment.

What is Cassie Chambers Armstrong trying to accomplish?

>> Sure, Kentucky is known for particularly strong ethics code, but it really is narrowly focused towards finances.

For instance, a lobbyist can't even buy a legislator a cup of coffee.

That's that's a violation of the law.

But currently there's no explicit statement in that code for sexual harassment that says this is a violation of of the ethics code.

And I think the Grossberg case kind of highlighted that for a lot of people, we've reported tons of instances of alleged sexual harassment with regards to Representative Grossberg, but those might not be by the letter of the code ethics violations.

This change would make those ethics violations.

>> And we know that there's going to be some hearings involving Grossberg next week.

>> It was slated for this past Monday.

But of course, you know, the snowpocalypse changed that situation.

But next Monday at 9 a.m.

the the full public hearing is slated.

>> Yeah.

Well, Austin Horn politics reporter with the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Thank you so very much.

>> Thanks, Renee.

Appreciate it.

>> A Northern Kentucky Republican lawmaker says he wants to send a message that Kentucky is not a place for riots.

State representative TJ Roberts secured wide support today for his House Bill 84 that aims to clarify that local governments may be held liable for property damage caused by a riot or tumultuous assembly, as the bill calls it.

If officials could have reasonably presented, it prevented it.

The measure is viewed as a language cleanup bill, but it caused a round of questioning from Democrats on the House floor this morning.

>> All that House Bill 84 does is level the playing field and makes clear that no matter where you live in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, that we take seriously our duty to protect your life, your liberty and your property.

>> Every other city and county in the Commonwealth today, no matter their size, no matter how many people they have.

Murray Owensboro, Bowling Green, Paducah, Pikeville and the counties are all held liable today under this current statute, except for Lexington and Louisville.

Is that correct, gentlemen?

>> Under under current law, every city is currently liable except Lexington and Louisville.

Yes.

Unless you're an unincorporated land where there is no city.

>> Okay.

Would the gentleman yield to a follow up question here with you?

So if I'm understanding that correctly, this just really puts everybody under the same standard, the same playing field.

Due to a couple of Kentucky Supreme Court rulings in the past.

Is that correct, gentlemen?

From Boone?

>> That is correct.

This bill simply makes it to where no matter where you live, your government has the same obligations to you in terms of protection for your property.

In the event of a riot.

>> The House Democratic Caucus chair, Lindsey Burke, was among the handful of objectors to the bill.

She said the measure opens up old chapters of now outdated law that's irrelevant to modern times.

>> I don't want to see our people fighting each other.

I don't want to see a bloodbath anywhere in this state.

I don't want any of my neighbors to feel that they have an objective responsibility to come out and bear arms against a riotous group who are, I'll even say, perhaps breaking the law.

They may be peacefully demonstrating, but what if they are breaking the law?

I don't want citizen vigilantes in Kentucky.

I want law enforcement.

I want the people who are trained.

I want the people who know how to deescalate to protect my property.

>> House Bill 84 cleared the lower chamber today, 89 to 6, and it now heads to the Senate for consideration there in the House yesterday, bills to help disabled veterans and survivors of sexual assault passed their first floor votes.

A registered nurse herself, State Representative Rebecca Ramer, says specialty nurses can best collect evidence after a sexual assault and care for traumatized victims.

More in our look back at some legislative stories from the week that we call PostScript.

[MUSIC] >> When someone comes forward after an assault, Tom and Access Matters.

This bill implements a key recommendation from an LRC study that I sponsored last session.

It creates a statewide same coordinator within the cabinet for Health and Family Services, establishes a public registry, and directs the development of a regional plan so every hospital knows how to access a qualified examiner.

When a survivor needs one.

>> In a separate matter, a U.S.

marine in the state House wants to help disabled veterans.

A proposed state fund would pay for accessibility ramps for veterans using wheelchairs.

>> I don't believe that there's any of us that's on the floor with us today that believes that our veterans should or our military should go overseas and fight and come back home fighting for the resources that are already here.

But what this bill does, it's already it's to set up a program for disabled veterans that needs a wheelchair ramp.

So with this proposal, it creates a program to assist or disabled veterans with the construction, installation of ramps for their homes and their residences.

>> Both bills received bipartisan unanimous support.

[MUSIC] Some news on the higher education front.

Six out of ten college students are graduating with no student debt, and that's according to the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.

The council credits the decrease with the rise of participation in dual credit courses and schools, increasing their financial literacy education for students.

[MUSIC] >> I'm really happy to report that over the past five years, statewide, the proportion of students graduating debt free has gone up 14 percentage points from about 46% to just a little over 60%.

Even better, among those who graduate with some debt, the amount of debt that they have at graduation is also receding at a rapid pace.

I think it's a combination both of state policy, as well as the great work that CPE and our institutions are doing.

The General Assembly has been very intentional about increasing the amount of Cap grant dollars, which is the state's version of the federal Pell Grant.

The federal government also recently made updates to the Pell Grant so that more students, low income students in particular, could get financial aid.

The state and CPE have also been very intentional, and prioritizing first gen student degree completion and low income student degree completion in the state's performance based funding model.

Another thing that I would mention is the rapid expansion of dual credit programs across the Commonwealth.

Over the past several years, we've ramped up the proportion of students who graduate from high school with a successful completion of a dual credit course in 2016 that the proportion completing was about 23%.

Just last year, it was 47% of all high school graduates.

We're closing the gap on the proportion graduating without debt and the debt load for those who have debt among our low income students and our first generation students, we have a higher education system here that's accessible and affordable for everybody.

What that translates to is we're making remarkable progress as it is towards our North Star goal, which is that 60% of all working age Kentuckians will have a degree or credential of value by the year of 2030.

Right now, we're at 56.2%.

In turn, that means that we're going to have more citizens graduating with degrees and credentials of value and entering the workforce and making great wages and contributing to Kentucky's economy.

Its tax base, which which is a benefit to the state as a whole.

>> According to the Kentucky Council on Post-secondary education, 74% of graduates from community and technical college graduate debt free, as well as 46% of graduates from public universities.

Kentucky's largest school district is running out of money.

The superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools has proposed massive budget cuts to the tune, more than $130 million.

Our Kelsey Starks discusses the proposal with Doctor Brian Yearwood, who is the superintendent of JCPS on the next Inside Louisville that airs this Sunday.

>> When it comes to the school level cuts, the mental health practitioners were reinstated.

That was initially on the chopping block and that they are going to stay in schools.

But another point of contention are these academic instructional coaches.

And so those, as I understand it, will be available to the schools as they are able to afford them.

>> Yes.

Well, it's twofold.

Schools will be allowed to purchase an academic coach if they so desire, but we will.

There are approximately 160 plus academic coaches.

About half of them will be centralized.

And by saying that, it means that they'll undergo intensive professional development, intensive training so that we can deploy them out to schools, employ them out to classrooms to really improve, increase the classroom instruction.

Because at the end of the day, although we are making cuts, we have to keep our promise to our taxpayers, to our parents, to our community that the quality of education, again, must be at a premier level.

And so we are actually realigning the coaches to do just that, to provide them with really intensive training and allow them to, I call it, increase the bar, higher the bar in terms of what teachers will be delivering in classrooms by providing support and coaching.

>> Does that mean some of the poorer schools that may need more academic instructional coaches may not be able to have them?

>> Well, the academic coaches that we have at central will be deployed out to schools, especially in areas where there there's great need.

So every school will have access to an academic coach.

>> Okay.

And then what do you what do you tell parents who have I mean, you heard many parents at the board meeting and from from administrators and principals, teachers who are concerned about how these cuts are going to affect the schools directly?

>> Yes.

These are difficult times.

And these decisions, although these are not short term decisions.

We really have to look at long term impact.

So as we are cutting budgets, we're actually realigning to strengthen our academic outcomes for our students.

So yes, right now it seems as though again, things are not where they want them to be.

But long term we by realigning our positions, by getting individuals in place and providing the training, the supports that are there, we will see long term impact.

And that's what we have.

I don't want a superintendent or board to ever have to go through this again.

And these processes we are putting in place will allow us to have a responsible budget to not ever have to face any type of deficit like we're facing.

>> Right now.

>> There is much more to this conversation.

Plus, Superintendent Yearwood talks about the possibility of splitting up some of the district in Jefferson County public Schools, and also on inside Louisville.

There's an interview with Mayor Craig Greenberg all of that with Kelsey Starks this Sunday at 12 noon, 11 a.m.

central, right here on KET.

[MUSIC] .

No one in Kentucky likes the snow, ice and cold weather, especially after this week, right?

Well, not so fast.

It's a taste of home for these polar bears at the Louisville Zoo.

Polar bears are native to the southern edge of the Arctic pack ice, including northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Russia.

It looks like they're having a good time.

The bitterly cold weather.

It does continue during this last weekend of January, but there are so many activities around the state this weekend and beyond.

Our Toby Gibbs takes a look at this week at what's happening around the Commonwealth.

[MUSIC] >> The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum is tuning up for a tribute to John Hartford.

[MUSIC] The John Hartford Days event features a lineup of artists including the Tim O'Brien band, Robbie Fulks and The Wild Bunch, who will all be there to honor the legendary musician known for his virtuoso fiddle and banjo playing and innovative songwriting.

[MUSIC] The tribute takes place this Saturday.

Another music legend, Dolly Parton, is getting the symphonic treatment.

Dolly Parton's threads, My Songs and symphony stitches together music, film and storytelling with new orchestral arrangements of Dolly's biggest hits.

The multimedia symphonic experience happens Saturday at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.

[MUSIC] >> For you.

>> The Lexington Children's Theater is teaming up with the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative this weekend for Mikes and Myths.

It's an evening where spoken word meets folklore and community voices take the mic.

Then there will be a pay what you will performance of the play.

The princess who lost her hair.

It's country meets the cosmos in Bowling Green as Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart joins Grammy winning bluegrass trailblazer Molly Tuttle for cosmic twang guitars on fire.

The two co-headline a performance that bridges decades of roots music with blazing instrumentation and melodic harmonies.

Catch them next Thursday at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center.

Film fans can explore Irish identity in Lindsey Wilson University's Irish film series, a crash course in 20th century Irish identity.

The series features four films that deal with Ireland's struggle for independence from four different perspectives.

All four screenings are free and open to the public.

There will be a talk before each screening, as well as a post-screening discussion.

It's a party where the guests really go wild.

As the Louisville Zoo hosts its annual Animal Birthday Bash.

The celebration highlights the residents who live at the zoo and share the same birthday month.

Hear firsthand stories and insights from those who care for the animals, and watch the birthday stars.

Enjoy special treats and toys designed to engage their senses.

Time travel through the life and music of the King at the Renfro Valley Entertainment Center this Saturday with Elvis.

The Concert of Kings, hosted by Elvis's former tour manager and close personal friend, Charles Stone.

The performance brings three tribute artists to the stage to cover the Kings iconic eras, from early rock to the Vegas years.

All honoring the look, the voice, and the swagger that made Elvis the King.

[MUSIC] And that's what's happening around the Commonwealth.

[MUSIC] I'm Toby Gibbs.

>> Thank you so much Toby Gibbs a lot to do this weekend.

A couple of programing notes in about an hour coming on Kentucky comes at you and Bill Brian and a panel of working Kentucky journalists discuss everything that we've talked about all this week the weather, the possibilities of schools running out of NTI, nontraditional instruction days, what's been going on in Frankfort with the Kentucky General Assembly, and of course, those education bills that are concerning Jefferson County and Fayette County schools, plus the state budget.

All that's coming at you at 8:00 eastern, seven central, right here on KET.

And then Monday night, Kentucky tonight returns, weather permitting.

We're going to talk about housing in Kentucky.

We know that we are 200,000 housing units short in this state.

We've got a panel of lawmakers and other housing activists and interests who will be joining us in this studio to talk all about the ideas that lawmakers are considering this session.

So don't miss that Monday night at eight eastern, seven central right here on KET.

Coming up on Kentucky Edition, a Louisville police officer shot during the Old National Bank shooting in 2023 has now retired from the police force.

Much more about officer Nick wilt.

His bravery that we will celebrate on Kentucky Edition Monday night where we inform, connect and inspire.

Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen and then come back here Monday night after a great weekend ahead.

Take really good care.