News

Last week the Kentucky House of Representatives passed their version of the Executive Branch Budget, HB200, in which they restored the 6.25% budget reductions to universities that were included in the Governor’s proposed budget.  For WKU, that amounts to $4.6 million in our state appropriation.  The House budget also includes full funding for the Kentucky Mesonet at WKU, which was eliminated in the Governor’s budget.  In the second year of the biennium, one percent of base funding for universities is transferred to the performance funding pool.  The House revenue bill includes a 60 cent per pack cigarette tax and a 25 cent per dosage tax on opioids. 

The House budget keeps the $300 million Asset Preservation Bond Pool that was proposed in the Governor’s budget. This program provides $150 million in state matching funds in each year of the biennium for universities to complete maintenance and renovation projects on existing buildings and infrastructure.  The funds cannot be used for new capital projects.  The House budget includes a 50/50 matching requirement in both years of the biennium. That is different than the Governor’s budget, which increased the university matching portion to 60% in the second year. 

This is the second step in the process to approve a state budget.  The Senate will take up the  budget next, followed by negotiations between the House and Senate to work out differences between their two versions.  We now turn our attention to the Senate as we continue to advocate for stable, predictable funding for higher education. 

In other important action, the Senate has introduced a revision of the pension reform proposal that was outlined by the Governor late last year.  Last week the sponsor of SB1, Senator Joe Bowen of Owensboro, provided an update on the legislation to the Senate State and Local Government Committee and described changes that will be made to the bill before it is officially presented for a vote.  We expect to see the new version of the bill sometime this week.  We continue to talk with Senate leaders about the implications that pension obligations have on the WKU budget and how our employees are affected by changes to the state pension systems.  Once the new version is made public, we will share the link to the bill on the WKU Government and Community Relations website, www.wku.edu/govrelations. 

To see other legislation that we are currently monitoring, you may access the WKU Legislative Tracking Sheet here. 

View HB200 here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/recorddocuments/bill/18RS/HB200/HCS1.pdf

View current version of SB1 here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/18RS/SB1.htm

View SB1 sponsor update as share in committee on February 28 here: http://www.klsreports.com/ShowDocument.aspx?CDocID=5829