Latest version of KY budget could ‘wipe out’ Dolly Parton library, group says

The latest version of the state budget could effectively “wipe out” Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Program in Kentucky, which has mailed more than 8.6 million free books to Kentucky children, book program officials said Friday.

Kentucky has allocated money to help fund the Imagination Library Program in recent years. The latest version of House Bill 500, the budget bill passed by the Kentucky Senate, continues to allocate money but changes a formula used to calculate the state’s contribution to the book program so that the state would only cover one-third of the cost of the books provided to children, a statement from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library said. The proposed budget features a total of about $31 billion in General Fund spending for 2026-2028.

The budget conference committee, which is made up of House and Senate members, met on Friday to discuss the differences between the House and the Senate’s version of the proposed state budget. They addressed Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library directly.

“I just wanted to draw the committee’s attention to the letter that I believe that we’ve all received in the past 24 hours,” Senate Minority Whip Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, said during the conference committee Friday. “Dolly Parton Imagination Library says that the reduction in the match will lead about half of their programs to close in their most rural and their most low income counties.

“And so my hope will be because it will have no impact on our budget, would have a great impact on the reach of the program, that we could restore the match, and at the risk of losing my seat on the Senate side of the table, I would advocate that we go with the House language on that.”

The initiative has “dramatically improved kindergarten readiness,” book program officials said Friday.

Every month, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Program mails an age-appropriate book to children from birth to age 5 at no cost to families.

A local partner in each county enrolls children and raises money to pay for the books themselves, group officials said.

While support from Parton and her foundation brings the cost down to less than $3 per book including postage, that amount can still be challenging for local partners to raise, officials said. In 2021, the leaders of both parties in the Kentucky Senate led the effort to add state funding, matching local partners dollar-for-dollar, the statement said.

“With the state match in place, the program quickly expanded across the Commonwealth, and today every child in Kentucky is eligible to receive books until their 5th birthday. Educators, parents, and lawmakers of both parties have consistently celebrated the success of the program, which now delivers books to more than 138,000 kids across the Commonwealth each month,“ the statement from the book program said.

Recent data from the Kentucky Department of Education shows the percentage of students who were kindergarten ready was as much as 13 points higher among children who had participated in the Imagination Library Program, said the statement.

“However, the latest version of Kentucky’s primary budget bill under consideration could change that,” the group said. “HB 500, as passed by the Kentucky Senate, provides the full $2.5 million that would fund the dollar-for-dollar match. However, the bill also changes the formula so that the state would only cover one-third of the cost of the books.”

The change would keep thousands of dollars from reaching local partners, and many local partners wouldn’t be able to fill the funding gap. The program would be at risk in larger counties with thousands of eligible children and small rural communities with limited fundraising opportunities, the group said.

“When we surveyed our local program partners, more than 80 percent said they’d expect to shut down in less than a year under this new funding formula,” Libby Suttles, executive director of Imagination Library of Kentucky, said in the statement. “With so much focus on kindergarten readiness, we don’t understand why anyone would shut down a program that’s proven to work, especially when it doesn’t free up any money in the budget.”

The latest version of the budget bill, sponsored by Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, now goes back to the Kentucky House, “where leaders from both parties will work to resolve differences between their respective versions of the bill, including the funding for the book program.”

“We hope families who have loved the books will contact their legislators and ask them to restore the funding to the formula that’s set out in state law,” Suttles said. “This is a small investment with an incredible return for the future of our children.”

Asked for comment Friday, Laura Leigh Goins, a spokesperson for House Speaker David Osborne’s office, said “we’re not going to comment since we’re going into conference committees with the budget.”

The program in Fayette County was temporarily paused in December as a result of rising program costs and limited sustainable funding. It was able to resume operations in late January through anonymous funding.

This story was originally published March 20, 2026 at 5:19 PM.