What Kentuckians Say About Student Loan Cancellation
Nearly one in five Kentucky adults has federal student loan debt. For these 616,000 Kentuckians and our state as a...
Budget Agreement Includes Only Modest Increases in Most Areas of Budget, Salary Increases for State Workers
The 2022-2024 budget agreement announced today includes only very modest funding increases for critical state services across the budget. Investments in education and other areas are small, especially considering the...
Pretrial Bills in the Kentucky General Assembly Are a Mixed Bag
Kentucky’s pretrial system — which determines whether a person charged with a crime waits for their day in court behind bars or at home — is arbitrary, unfair and rife...
State Funding for Education Has Been Stagnant for Many Years, But the 2022-2024 Budget Presents a Unique Opportunity to Begin Reinvesting
In 1991, following a Kentucky Supreme Court decision finding that Kentucky’s system of funding education was unconstitutional, the Kentucky General Assembly responded by increasing taxes to begin reinvesting in Kentucky’s...
Kentucky Has an Opportunity to Continue Steps to Reducing Incarceration by Addressing Harsh “Persistent Felony Offender” Laws
Kentucky’s Persistent Felony Offender (PFO) law is a punitive sentencing policy that emerged during the beginning of the so-called War on Drugs. While originally intended as a measure to deter...
A Time To Invest: Preview of the 2022–2024 Budget of the Commonwealth
The General Assembly faces a critically important opportunity with the 2022–2024 Budget of the Commonwealth. The state has a historic budget surplus and unspent federal aid that provide the resources...
In Decade Since Major Criminal Justice Reform, the Kentucky General Assembly Has Passed Six Times as Many Laws Increasing Incarceration as Decreasing It
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the passage of 2011’s House Bill (HB) 463, “The Public Safety and Offender Accountability Act.”[efn_note]2011 Ky. Acts, ch. 2, https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/acts/11RS/documents/0002.pdf.[/efn_note] HB 463 was...
School Funding Task Force Recommendations Include Steps Toward Adequacy and Equity
In 2021, the Kentucky General Assembly created a School Funding Task Force to meet in the interim to review funding for K-12 education in Kentucky and other states and identify...
To Address Mass Incarceration, Kentucky Must End Perverse Incentives to Expand and Crowd Local Jails
The United States incarcerates 5 times more people per capita than other wealthy countries. Yet, while some states are succeeding at reducing incarceration and its harms to individuals, families and...
The Golden Key: How State-Local Financial Incentives to Lock Up Kentuckians Are Perpetuating Mass Incarceration
Incarceration is harmful to individuals, families and communities, yet Kentucky incarcerates 40% more people per capita than the United States average, which is more than 5 times larger than other...