The Kentucky General Assembly began its 2024 regular legislative session on January 2, 2024. This year lawmakers are charged with passing a 2-year state budget in addition to any other legislation they wish to take up.
KYOSA priorities for the 2024 session include:
- Creating legislative fixes that address current barriers to child care licensing and funding for out-of-school program providers. View a list of our top school-age child care priorities here.
- Establishing a competitive state grant program for community-based out-of-school time programs to increase access and serve more young people across Kentucky. See examples from other states here.
What you need to know so far:
- The Governor’s proposed $136.6 billion budget calls for investments in education, child care, juvenile detention centers, state police, and infrastructure, including:
- A $172 million annual investment in the public school system to support the preparation of over 10,000 four-year-olds for kindergarten
- $140 million to the childcare sector across the next two years in response to federal COVID-relief funding cliffs
- An across-the-board 11% pay raise to all school employees
- An 18% increase in SEEK funding
- GOP leaders in the house and senate, who currently hold a supermajorities, say there’s “no appetite” for universal pre-K and employee wages should be set locally.
- A priority bill for Republican lawmakers is the Safer Kentucky Act, which would create a three-strike law for violent felonies, tighten restrictions on groups that raise money for bail, and enhance penalties for certain crimes.
- The structural work of the Kentucky General Assembly is performed by committees. The ones to follow this session to track progress on bills relevant to the OST field are the:
- House and Senate Standing Committees on Education
- House and Senate Standing Committees of Families & Children
- Live coverage of this legislative session, including committee meetings, is being provided by Kentucky Educational Television (KET). A complete schedule can be found here.
Key dates:
- Jan. 3: The first batch of pre-filed bills entered from lawmakers into the public record posted to the Legislative Research Commission’s website
- Feb. 26: Last day for new House bills
- Feb. 28: Last day for new Senate bills
- Mar. 27-28: Concurrence
- Mar. 29 – Apr. 9: Veto period
- Apr. 15: Session ends
Click here to download the complete session calendar. New fact sheets and news releases from KYOSA on Kentucky’s afterschool landscape and barriers to access can be found on our KYOSA Data Explorer page.