Time to check in on the week's political news with NPR's senior editor, Rylan Barden.

Our Laura Rogers talked with Ryland earlier today.

Hey, Laura.

Thank you so much, Renee.

Welcome to you.

Island High has gone.

It's going good.

We hope that you're staying warm where you are.

Trying my best to.

And we'll get right to it here.

The House GOP released their budget plan last night.

So does their plan create an environment to hit the necessary triggers for future income tax reductions?

They're trying to, through some creative use of the of the state's rainy day fund and also designating some things as appropriations or not.

So there is some some of that, you know, clever budgeting that's going on there.

I mean, some of that will really be determined at the end of the fiscal year this year.

Once the you know, what's the final receipts, the receipts for taxes are counted and how much the state spends on money.

And and really we get a firm idea of what the the state's budget surplus and she looks like the state's gonna have another one of those this fiscal year and how much of that will end up going into the state's rainy day fund So.

So a little bit more to see on that.

But I think they're really hoping on that, hoping for that next year.

Other than that, this is a this is not the budget that that Governor Andy Beshear proposed earlier this month or I guess late last month in which he was proposing across the board 11% raises for Kentucky educators.

Also universal pre-K. Those two elements are not in there.

There is a slight increase in the state's education funding formula, both of years of the next of of the next budget cycle.

And lawmakers do say that that will that can allow school districts to slow some of that.

Of that money down to teachers to provide them raises.

But this is something that teachers and and some groups have been calling for to really just create an across the board raise so that they don't so that so that this will happen because not all school districts treat that extra money in the same way.

Another thing they did is kind of separated the budget bill into two different bills.

One is kind of your recurring costs budget and another one is more debt dedicated at one time.

Economic development efforts and some other money so related to to wastewater infrastructure or water infrastructure, and also adding more money into the state's pension systems, which are doing better than they have, say, five years ago.

But they still require a little bit of extra attention from some state budget writers every year.

They have to put a little bit of extra money to keep them solvent, to make sure that future state workers, when they retire, will, you know, can reliably have those pension checks going out.

So this is early on in the process.

There will still be discussions over this.

This is the this is the House version of it.

So the Senate will get to weigh in on this after the House passes their version.

The budget.

In the end, this always gets hammered out kind of towards the end of the legislative session with both chambers deciding on those priorities and also the governor's office kind of trying to weigh in on the back end as well, trying to get their priorities in there.

And other legislation that's getting some attention.

Is the House GOP safer Kentucky plan?

This is addressing violent crime, public safety.

It's expected to come before committee on Thursday.

So how has this evolved?

It's getting a lot of reaction.

It's a big sweeping bill that tries to tackle public safety.

And this does everything from boosting penalties for things like carjacking and trafficking fentanyl.

But also it addresses homelessness in that it bans street camping.

This is that provision.

Earlier this week, lawmakers did say that while it still allows cities to set up designated areas for for for homeless people to to camp, but just trying to, you know, penalize when people are camping in public places, that's something that advocates have been calling out, saying that, you know, these are these are people who are already having trouble interacting with the system and not exactly knowing what some of the rules are.

And they just kind of get pushed here and there.

It's evolved a little bit.

But one of the big things that's always been in there is a three strikes rule.

That's something that when somebody is convicted of three separate Sony offenses, that after that it will on the third, it will be considered a a life in prison sentence.

And that's something also that advocates have been calling out, saying it's just going a little too far.

And really what this whole bill does is out a lot more potential crimes for people to be convicted of.

And Kentucky is already a state that that puts people behind bars at a higher rate than than most other states in the union.

Yeah, You know, advocacy groups are pushing back on, especially on that three strike law.

They say instead of further criminalizing people, they would like to see more treatment for substance use disorders and think mental health services and things like that.

So there is a lot of conversation around the Safer Kentucky plan for sure.

So we'll see how that pans out as far as once it goes into committee tomorrow.

And then something else that's getting attention, Senate Bill six, which concerns diversity, equity inclusion policies at Kentucky Universal Cities.

And, you know, some people say that it's divisive.

Others say supporters say it's anti-discrimination.

What are you hearing about this legislation?

Yeah, this is a big national movement right now.

A lot of Republican led legislatures are pushing bills like this that they try to limit so-called, you know, D-I programs at universities and and also just how teachers or professors talk about DUI.

So this one, this one in Kentucky would ban the use of certain divisive concepts that make people feel discomfort or guilt regarding race or sex.

So there's a lot of really broad terms here that that would ultimately need to be hammered out by either universities or the courts if there's ever a legal challenge over something like this.

All right.

Rowland, we appreciate it so much.

Thank you for your time and insight today.

Thank you.

Renee.