increasing its concentration, which creates fuel.

[MUSIC] Time now for our reporter's notebook, and we're going to go inside Kentucky politics particularly.

We're going to go inside the Kentucky General Assembly as they wrap up their 60 day lawmaking session here very soon.

And we have with us Hannah Pinski, who is a political reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

So good to have you.

>> Good to be on.

>> Yeah.

How do you feel with only four working days left?

Only two really that are veto proof.

How are things going, particularly when it comes to the state budget making process?

>> So right now in the state budget making process, we have House Bill 500 and House Bill 900 that I'm keeping an eye on.

House Bill 500 is the next two year biennial state budget, and right now the House and Senate are in conference committee, and they're working out the negotiations in the differences of their budget.

And just some key differences is that I believe the Senate budget has allocated some some funding to to new juvenile detention centers.

That's what Senator Danny Carroll has been pushing for in his legislation and also in the Senate budget.

There's a 13th check for state retirees that was not included in the House version.

They had allocated that portion of money to go into the Budget Reserve Trust Fund, also known as the Rainy Day Fund.

So it'll be interesting to see as they're working out these differences.

You know, what does get included, what doesn't get included in the next two years state budget.

And then we have House Bill 900 as well, also known as the one time spending bill.

And what's interesting about this session compared to 2024 is, you know, in 2024, we had seen the House lay out all the projects that they had wanted to invest in.

We had seen the Senate lay out all the projects they want to invest in.

What we saw this year is they just said, this is the amount of money.

I believe it's around 800 million.

>> And they agree on that part.

>> They agree on that part.

I believe the Senate allocated maybe just a touch bit more, but we do not know what projects they want to fund now.

So that is also in conference.

They're working out those negotiations.

So it's a more interesting approach.

When I talk to Speaker Osborne and President Stivers, you know, on why they are trying it this way, they said, you know this, there's a lot of negotiating that happens.

It's easier if we just come together in this conference committee to work out those differences there, rather than the House, lay out their version, and then the Senate lay out theirs.

>> But it is curious about how this House Bill 900, the one time allocations will go.

And if that's where maybe there's some more tension.

>> I definitely think that would be a fair statement to say because, you know, the consensus going into session was we're not potentially going to have as much spending as we did the last in 2024.

And also, you know, lawmakers have said, you know, people, people, organizations are requesting billions of dollars, and there's only so much money that the legislature should give out.

So you have to consider, are we going to give it to the rural counties?

Are we going to give it to urban?

What types of projects, transportation, road funding and stuff like that?

>> Well, one of the possibly line items that could be in House Bill 900 relates to K State Kentucky State University, the state's only publicly funded HBCU.

We know that Simmons College is also an HBCU, but it is privately funded.

I did not realize until they had the hearings this week that there were such serious conversations about the closure of K. State.

Tell us about were you surprised that this bill kind of came to fruition in these last hurried days of the session?

>> I definitely was.

And, you know, this kind of thing is common in the legislative session near the end when you have what you call shell bills, is that lawmakers will file it before the filing deadline and then replace it with the committee substitute.

That essentially is what they've been working on throughout this past month or so.

And, you know, with this Kentucky State University bill it sponsored sponsored by Senator Chris McDaniel, who is also chair of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

He started off at that committee hearing saying, you know, there are serious conversations starting, I think it was in January about the closure of KSU.

But after talking with President Doctor Akapo and and they worked out negotiations to what they presented in this bill, which is it would change the university's mission to a polytechnic school.

And also it would do things like cut down the areas of study to ten.

It would also give the Council of Post-Secondary Education more financial oversight over the school.

So in the original version of the bill, the CPE would have to approve expenditures above that $5,000 for KSU.

There was a floor amendment that Senator Chris McDaniel had talked to Democratic Senator Gerald Neal about that he brought up during committee, as if we could raise that threshold to 20,000.

So that was changed.

And then another thing that changed as we went through the Senate process is in the original bill, it said put an enrollment cap of 1000 in-person students, and they changed that language in the final version in the Senate at least, to do at least 1000 in-person students for retaining faculty and staff.

>> But it also puts in some admission requirements in terms of college entrance exam scores and GPAs.

What is it, 2.5?

>> Yes, I believe.

>> It's 2.5.

And, you know, Senator, Senator Carter Heavrin had brought up that concern as well, is that it could potentially turn away students.

She brought up concerns with that.

It now heads to the House.

So we'll see what the House does if there's any changes.

But, you know, this is something that I think has been worked on for months, Doctor Copperhead said.

You know, conversations about the closure, about this bill were heated at first, but he seemed pretty satisfied with what at least the Senate's version had passed.

>> This week and there would be money for, I think it's a health sciences building.

And then.

And so there would be some, I guess I don't know if that would come out of House Bill 900 or House Bill 500.

So we'll see how that works.

Well, as we as we wrap up here.

And we also wrap up the session, what do you have your eyes on that's not budget related?

>> I definitely think changes to Kentucky's election law.

We have we have seen some bills move forward in the legislature so far during session that would do stuff like, you know, Senator Lindsay's bill, Senate Bill 154.

It passed the Senate earlier, but that provision got added into a House bill that recently passed the floor yesterday that would ban secondary form of IDs, the Social Security cards.

So I know that caused concern with Senator Cassie Chambers Armstrong because she said, you know, a lot of Kentuckians use that secondary form of ID to vote.

So could that potentially turn away voters at the poll?

That's one provision in the bill.

And the other provision that House bill that passed that got added has to do with sharing Kentucky voter data to the federal government.

That provision was in another another House bill that passed, but has not made it through the Senate yet.

You know, Democrats Brent concerns of sharing this private voter information of, you know, if voters don't believe in what the federal government believes, could that potentially harm them if they get if that gets sent to them?

So that's definitely some provisions I'm keeping an eye on, especially since we have the primaries coming up here soon.

>> That's right.

But these changes wouldn't necessarily be implemented or effective before the May 19th primary, would they?

>> Now, I believe.

>> Sorry, it would be the general.

>> Yeah.

The general election.

Right.

Because there was some some conversation that this could have some concerns.

I think the county clerk's association was concerned about the effective date.

Well, a lot to keep our eyes on.

And we thank you for writing so eloquently about it and keeping