Tagged: state budget

After hours of closed-door meetings, the Kentucky Senate approved budgets for the three branches of state government Thursday night.

The House previously approved its own versions of the budgets. The Senate kept the House's legislative plan intact but modified the executive and judicial budgets. The two chambers must now form a conference committee to work out the differences.

It’s been another busy week in the Kentucky General Assembly. On the agenda: the budget, drug testing and prescription painkillers. To summarize what happened and why,  Kentucky Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Kenny Colston talks politics with Rick Howlett.

Two men are missing after a pontoon boat capsized on the Tennessee River around 11 this morning.

Kentucky Politics:

A proposal that limits the amount of pseudoephedrine consumers can buy in a month could make it out the state House of Representatives intact.

The Kentucky House is expected to vote on an austere state budget by the middle of next week.  Speaker Greg Stumbo says he doesn't expect a lot of changes to Governor Steve Beshear's original budget proposal. The governor's $19.5 billion, two-year budget proposal includes 8.4 percent cuts to most state agencies. The House Appropriations and Revenue Committee vote is expected Tuesday.

Kentucky lawmakers are once again ready to approve a bill capping the state's debt at six percent of revenues.

The issue has been in and out of committee multiple times this session. It started as a constitutional amendment, then changed to a regular bill. And state Senators have renamed the measure to show their commitment to it. It is now called Senate Bill 1.

Currently, Kentucky is just over the six percent debt-to-revenue ratio, and bill sponsor Joe Bowen says the bill is a safeguard.