In response to Governor Steve Beshear's directive to reduce spending by six percent, the Kentucky Department of Education has announced it plans to cut its budget by about $20 million over the rest of the fiscal year.Department spokesperson Lisa Gross says the new round of cuts could be a burden on local school districts.Gross says previous cuts involved Flexible Focus Funds, which cover areas such as professional development and textbooks but could be moved around by local districts to suit their needs."We've made so many cuts to those Flexible Focus Funds that now we're having to start to look at other items in the education budget. Those include things like dropout prevention, gifted and talented, writing programs, math programs, reading programs, so on and so forth," Gross said.Gross says it hasn't been determined yet which budget items will be cut, but a decision will come soon.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.