Twice as big, plenty of projects: KY legislature passes $1.7B one-time spending plan
The final version of the Kentucky legislature’s one-time spending bill more than doubles the total funding for projects across the state compared to previous iterations. With two hours left to beat the clock to withstand a potential veto, the legislature gave it final passage late Wednesday evening.
A long list of projects totalling more than $1.7 billion was the result of a Free Conference Committee Report on House Bill 900, which was hashed out between members of the House and Senate Wednesday.
The report was not publicly available at the time the legislature passed it.
Earlier Wednesday, the legislature gave final passage to House Bill 500, the recurring Executive Branch budget bill allocating $31.1 billion over the next two fiscal years.
The $1.7 billion in the final version of House Bill 900 comes from the state’s Budget Reserve Trust Fund, also known as the “Rainy Day Fund,” and goes toward more than 300 projects across the commonwealth. That’s still significantly lower than the $2.7 billion House Bill 1 from 2024, which similarly split off one-time spending from the recurring Executive Branch budget.
The highest-dollar allocation is $230 million for road projects designated by the recently-finalized two-year road plan bill.
But in contrast to 2024’s House Bill 1, this year’s House Bill 900 proposed fewer high-dollar projects, spreading the money out to a wider range of individual projects.
Similar to the last budget cycle, downtown Louisville is a big winner in the bill. In the 2024 budget cycle, the city was granted $100 million; this year, it would be slated to get $90 million for projects like the Belvedere, the convention center corridor and the Downtown Vacant Buildings Revitalization/Downtown Development Fund, among others.
Lexington projects received almost $30 million total, with another $20 million going to a regional effort that includes Lexington.
The bill includes nearly $20 million for a terminal expansion project at the Blue Grass Airport. That project was dependent on funding to move the air traffic control tower, for which federal funds were recently secured by Sen. Mitch McConnell, and the state also allocated $5 million toward in the bill.
The Aviation Museum of Kentucky will get $4 million to continue its relocation efforts.
A total of $20 million is allocated to the Central Kentucky Business Park Authority, a regional collaboration between the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government, the Madison County Fiscal Court, the City of Berea and the Scott County Fiscal Court.
The Lexington Children’s Museum will receive just over $3 million for an expansion project. The Lexington Children’s Theater receives $750,000 in the bill for repairs and improvements.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government received $250,000 to support the “Next Generation Workforce Development Project.”
$1.5 million will be allocated to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government to support a scholarship through the Ed Brown Society.
Another $1.5 million is granted to Goodwill Kentucky “to support an expansion to a second location in Fayette County.”
Below is a list of all projects allocated at least $10 million in the final version of the bill:
- Highway Construction (CRP Projects): $230 million
- GRANT Program: $100 million
- Kentucky Infrastructure Authority – Troubled Systems Program: $90 million
- Downtown Louisville Revitalization: $90 million
- Mega-Development Projects: $80 million
- Eastern Kentucky University Osteopathic Medicine Project: $50 million
- Kentucky Product Development Initiative: $50 million
- Council on Postsecondary Education Endowed Research Fund: $37.5 million
- Transportation Cabinet riverport improvements: $29.6 million
- Kentucky Department of Education Learning & Results Services programs: $28 million
- Blue Grass Airport Terminal Expansion: $20 million
- Maysville Regional Water Treatment Plant: $18 million
- Louisville Regional Airport Authority: $17.3 million
- City of Albany Water Treatment Plant: $17 million
- LaGrange Utilities Water/Sewer Upgrades: $15 million
- General Aviation airport grants: $11.4 million
- Frankfort Convention Center: $11 million
- Lebanon Elementary School: $10 million
- Incentive funds for CVG and Louisville airport for “nonstop flight opportunities:” $10 million
- Crittenden-Livingston County Water District: $10 million
This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 7:48 PM.
