Lawmakers advanced a last-minute bill funding a year of full-day kindergarten, money to repay Kentucky’s unemployment insurance loan and more funds to boost broadband internet in the state on Tuesday.
The language was added to House Bill 382, an unrelated bill that dealt with the state’s regional development assistance fund. The new version was unveiled early on the last day of this year’s legislative session, which is required to end at midnight.
The $140 million for local school districts for kindergarten funding was initially part of the controversial school choice bill passed by the legislature, but it was removed shortly before Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto period.
With significant opposition among Republicans and Democrats, the legislature narrowly overrode Beshear’s veto of the school choice bill on Monday.
One of the key swing votes was Rep. Regina Huff, the Republican chair of the House Education Committee.
In a Tweet on Tuesday, she said her vote in favor of the school choice bill was conditional on kindergarten funding.
Most Kentucky school districts already have full-day kindergarten and the money will allow them to offset expenses.
The bill includes $575 million in federal coronavirus relief money to help pay down Kentucky’s unemployment insurance loan, which the state took out after the start of the pandemic.
And it includes another $50 million to expand broadband internet in Kentucky — on top of the $250 million the legislature already set aside for rural broadband.
Sen. David Givens, a Republican from Greensburg, said the extra $50 million would be “specifically for economic development opportunities for commercial industrial customers.”
Republican Senate Budget Chair Chris McDaniel hinted that there might be more budget items before the deadline, noting that “the day is young.”
