Funding fight brewing after Beshear says some new bills may not be implemented

FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — By the time the last gavel fell in Frankfort, the 2025 General Assembly had passed more than 140 bills in its 30-day session, including a .5% income tax cut, lowering the age for a learner’s permit to 15, and a new dedicated state film office.

Twenty-eight of 29 of the governor’s vetoes were overridden; a partial line-item veto on operations during the Capitol renovations was allowed to stand. But there could be a new battle brewing between the two branches of government. In a letter to lawmakers last week, Gov. Andy Beshear said he may not have the funding to execute at least 11 of the newly passed laws: four bills that he signed, five that had vetoes overridden, and two that became law without the governor’s signature.

“What you see is the governor here is pushing back without the power of the purse, without, you know, the ability to get laws changed when his veto is overridden so much that they have got to come up with creative ways to figure out the best way to approach these issues,” FOX 56 News Political Analyst Jonathan Miller said.

Miller said underlying this is a longtime dispute between the executive and legislative branches, even prior to their current political lean, on unfunded mandates: a legislative decree without money attached. 

“Most of the time what will happen is the executive will find money squirreled away in a rainy day fund or elsewhere in an agency in funds that are not dedicated to one source, and they pay for those services,” Miller explained, but said there have been cases in “exceptional times” that the executive branch has had to come back to the legislature to ask for more funding.

However, some of the bills listed in Beshear’s letter are related to recent social issues that were heavily debated at the end of the session, like HB 495. That bill ended both Beshear’s executive order banning conversion therapy and Medicaid coverage for transgender-related healthcare. In the letter, the Beshear administration argued that the bill could cost the Medicaid program $6.3 to $9.8 million for increased behavioral and mental health services.

“I think it’s an interesting new way of framing the argument the governor has come up with, and I’m confident the legislature finds great objection with it, and I imagine we’ll be seeing some court action taken in the next several months,” Miller said.

“So, Governor, when we don’t line item an issue or point to an appropriation, it’s because we feel you have adequate funding in your budget to follow the law,” Rep. David Meade (R-Stanford) said on the House floor last Thursday when the letter was sent.

In Meade’s floor speech, he argued that new programs have been implemented by the executive branch before without direct funding.

In the letter, the Beshear administration cites a 2005 state supreme court case, Fletcher v. Commonwealth, that limits implementing policy without money attached. The administration also stated that the costs were communicated and requested an appropriation during the final two days of the session.

“Don’t worry, Governor, because next year when we do the budget, we are going to make it abundantly clear what you can and cannot spend money on,” Meade said, suggesting that specific, restrictive line-item spending language will be considered more than in years’ past.