Governor Beshear’s Executive Budget proposal provides a small amount of additional funding to K-12 education but not enough to fully restore the impact of six years of cuts and frozen funding levels. It pays for that increase and others by transferring a large amount of money from various state accounts and by cutting higher education and additional budget areas that had already been reduced substantially through the recession and its aftermath.
The budget plan includes bright spots in other areas, including restored funding for child care after deep previous cuts and increased funding for preschool. However, it also contains painful trade-offs and further retrenchment in many public systems that improve health and economic well-being.
