New Report Shows Kentucky Child Care Assistance Continues to Fall Short
Kentucky’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) has one of the lowest income eligibility thresholds and has among the highest co-pays...
Budget & Tax
Even Big Cuts to New Teachers’ Pensions Would Do Little to Address System’s Funding Challenge
Even if the state were to massively cut pension benefits for new teachers, it wouldn’t result in meaningful savings to the teachers’ retirement system over the 30 year period needed...
Reinstating Kentucky’s Tax on Extreme Wealth a Part of Making State Taxes Fair and Adequate
To view this brief in PDF form, click here. Kentucky loses an estimated $25 million a year because state lawmakers haven’t yet taken steps to recoup lost revenue from federal...
The Low-Income Kentucky Workers Who Would be Harmed by a Federal Tax Credit Cut
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC) help hundreds of thousands of low-income working Kentuckians make ends meet. These tax credits have been shown...
Pension Needs Far Exceed Likely Revenue Growth in 2017
The state needs to find $580 million more to make its actuarially required General Fund contributions to pension plans in the first year of the next budget, according to information...
Restricted Access to Unemployment Benefits Played Role in Paying Back Loan
Kentucky got the good news it has now paid off its $972 million loan from the federal government after the state's unemployment insurance program fell into the red during the...
Despite Good Growth in 2015, Erosion Still Hurting Revenue
The good news is Kentucky’s economy grew faster in budget year 2015, and tax revenue grew with it — by $505 million, or 5.3 percent, compared to budget year 2014....
Retirement Income Growing Much Faster than Wages, Spelling Trouble for State Revenues
Kentucky must begin an active search for revenue options to begin fully paying down our pension debt and make public investments that will move the state forward. One issue that...
Road Fund Helped by 2015 Fix but Still Feeling Funding Challenges
Kentucky ended budget year 2015 with a $20 million shortfall in Road Fund receipts, meaning slightly less money has come in than what was budgeted to invest in and maintain...
Year-End Revenues Highlight Importance of Individual Income Tax
Kentucky ended its budget year with General Fund revenues $165.4 million more than anticipated, equaling growth of 5.3 percent from the year before. The individual income tax is the main...