Kentucky House and Senate negotiators appear to be on the cusp of an agreement for balancing the state’s Medicaid budget.
After the House proposed a way to close a $166 million gap in the Medicaid budget without across-the-board cuts to state agencies, the Senate made a counter-proposal. It still includes across-the-board cuts, but they’re smaller, says Senate President David Williams.
“We feel like that the proposal that we’ve come forward with as a Senate is more than fair and more than halfway," he says.
But the Senate plan still includes cuts to education, which doesn’t sit well with House Speaker Greg Stumbo.
“It may be that there’s a time that we’d have to reduce all – an across-the-board cut - but now is not the time," he says.
The conferees will reconvene this morning and if a final agreement is reached, the House and Senate could vote on it this afternoon. After that, the session would go into a ten day veto recess, with one day remaining for veto overrides.
