House budget shows little interest in moving Kentucky forward.

The House budget proposal is getting its hearing today, to be sent to the House floor for a vote later in the week.

Written versions of the proposal *still* haven't been released, but here's what it does, as far as we know:

• Cuts higher education 2.5% over the next two years.
  


• Cuts adult education. Non-traditional students have already taken hits with previous cuts to the community colleges, and cuts that limited GED testing sites and programs and access.
  


• Cuts two days from the school year for elementary kids, which also cuts pay for teachers and staff.


• Cuts the health plan for state workers.


• Cuts funding for contracts with private companies. (What does this mean? The example offered at one Frankfort hearing was the Poison Control Hotline.)
  


• Depends on $256 million in federal Medicaid funding that might or might not materialize.


• Includes about $371 in revenue from HB 530, which passed the House last week. HB 530 would cap some tax breaks that the legislature passed last summer, suspend tax breaks for businesses that aren't making a profit, and have businesses pay the sales taxes they owe sooner rather than later. There were no revenue reforms. And this bill is unlikely to pass the Senate intact.
  

So there is $627 million in assumed funding.  That means that there's almost $900 million in cuts.  And yet, somehow this proposed budget includes a $10 million increase in funding for the Boni Bill (a bill that passed in 2007 to protect social service workers, but has never been fully funded), a host of projects to "reward" some legislators who voted for HB 530, and money to chip away at the waiting lists for Meals on Wheels.

(Edit: Oh! So that's how they did it! They borrowed about $2.2 billion--quite a hefty debt. For more information, here's the Herald-Leader article, and here's the Courier-Journal article.)

But after chronic underfunding of health services, education, environmental protection, and public safety, the House doesn't have much to be proud of.  They had better choices that would have allowed stronger investments in Kentuckians, better opportunities, and a more balanced and fair tax structure.  More details are expected to be released this evening, and a written version is expected to finally be released later this week.

Meanwhile, a report was released that says that out of every 100 Kentucky 9th-graders, only 44 will start college the fall after they graduate, and only six of those will finish in four years.  If this is all by choice, fine and good. But with tuition rates rising an average of 10% a year for the last decade, we suspect it isn't by choice.