FRANKFORT (AP) — For the first time in the 226-year history of Kentucky, Republicans will decide how the government spends more than $20 billion of public money over the next two years.
But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin is not celebrating.
“It won’t be pretty,” Bevin told reporters during his annual year-end news conference Thursday.
State taxpayers are heading toward a $156 million budget deficit in the current budget year. And for the next two years, lawmakers say they need to find an additional $700 million to pay for the state’s struggling public pension system, which is at least $41 billion short of the money required to pay benefits over the next 30 years, according to official estimates approved by the retirement systems’ governing boards. Bevin says the true number is nearly double that.
Paired with the rising costs of the Medicaid program to provide health coverage to the poor and disabled, Bevin said significant budget cuts are coming.
Massive budget cuts are not new to Kentucky. In the years after the Great Recession, former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear cut state spending by $1.6 billion. Most of those budget cuts have never been restored, and Bevin said the state cannot keep cutting that which has already been cut “to the bone.”
“Things that have been exempt are not necessarily going to be exempt because we can’t afford it to be,” Bevin said. “There is going to be cuts spread across things people think are sacrosanct.”
Bevin did not say what those cuts would be. Historically, lawmakers have exempted spending on health care and public education from budget cuts. A major source of funding for local school districts is the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky funding program, also known as the SEEK formula. House Education Committee chairman Rep. John “Bam” Carney said lawmakers would “do everything we can to find other areas in the budget to make sure SEEK is as fully funded a possible.”
“Higher education, I’m afraid, will probably see some drastic cuts,” Carney said.
Kentucky’s public colleges and universities are requesting an additional $160 million in state funding over the next two years. State lawmakers have cut their funding by $200 million over the past decade.
Bevin blamed Democrats for the budget crisis, saying Republicans were cleaning up “100 years’ worth of other people’s messes.”
Additionally, Bevin says Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear is one of the least competent attorneys in the state and says he cannot take anything he says seriously.
Bevin blasted Beshear during his annual year-end news conference on Thursday. Beshear issued an opinion Wednesday that said a key provision of Bevin’s proposal to overhaul the pension system was illegal. Bevin dismissed the opinion, saying it was worthless “like so many of his opinions.”
Beshear said all he has ever asked of Bevin is to follow the law. He said he had hoped four days before Christmas the governor could rise above name calling and personal attacks.
Beshear is a potential Democratic candidate for governor in 2019, when Bevin could run for re-election.
Finally, Bevin says he has more than a year to decide whether to run for re-election.
Gov. Matt Bevin held his annual year-end news conference on Thursday. Bevin has been in office since December 2015, and his term expires in 2019.
Asked if he will run for re-election, Bevin said “we’ll see.” He said he has “a year and some change” before he has to make that announcement.
Bevin has not created a fundraising account for the 2019 election. His most recent fundraising report shows he raised more than $718,000 for his 2015 election accounts, money that could pay off some of the more than $4 million Bevin loaned himself for that race.