Beshear offers ‘education first’ budget, with investments aimed at teacher shortage, safety

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who focused heavily on public education throughout his campaign, offered what he described as an “education first” budget on Tuesday.

His first budget took aim at a variety of issues at the top of the agenda for educators, school administrators and parents, including a state teacher shortage and funding for textbooks and school safety improvements.

“We face a teacher shortage that threatens the quality of our public education in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “Without good teachers, we cannot produce the best students or the best workforce. So our budget prioritizes our teachers.”

Among other specifics, the budget proposal includes:

• A $2,000 salary increase for teachers in fiscal year 2021. This was described as “a one-time salary supplement to teachers who are full-time employees in a school district or state school and who provide daily instruction to students.” The proposal includes additional General Fund amounts of $97. 7 million in fiscal year 2021 and $90.9 million in fiscal year 2022. On average, a Kentucky teacher’s salary in 2019 was $53,923, according to the governor’s office, which means a $2,000 increase reflects a 3.7 percent average increase.

• Funding for textbooks, which was eliminated in the last budget. Beshear’s budget recommendation includes $11 million each year of the biennium to restore a large portion of textbook funding.

• $18.2 million to pay for the school safety upgrades required by 2019’s Senate Bill 1, which was approved following a deadly school shooting at Marshall County High School. The governor’s office said this is the full amount of funding needed as estimated by the Kentucky School Boards Association. Beshear said children deserve to be safe at school and the budget ensures that all school safety building upgrades are made.

• The budget represents a 1 percent increase in the SEEK funding formula, adding $40 per child in every school district across Kentucky. This means increased funding of $39 million in fiscal year 2021 and $48.5 million in fiscal year 2022. Beshear said this is a starting point that he hopes to be followed in subsequent budgets with greater investment.

• The budget proposal also would use $2.1 million each year from lottery revenues to restore a teacher loan forgiveness program, which would be administered by the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority. $1 million each year in lottery revenues would also be used to revitalize a need -based teacher scholarship program that was eliminated in the last budget.

• The budget also recommends using funding from Volkswagen Settlement Funds to replace more than 150 school buses.

• It also includes $13.3 million in facility repairs to the Kentucky School for the Deaf and the Kentucky School for the Blind.

In a statement, Kentucky Education Association President Eddie Campbell praised Beshear’s proposed budget. “He promised during his campaign that public education will be the cornerstone of his administration’s policies. The budget he presented this evening backs up those words with action.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 7:11 PM.