FRANKFORT — Kentucky Republicans in the General Assembly have issued subpoenas to the Beshear administration for information they say they need to craft the next two-year state budget.
In a press release, Republican lawmakers said the subpoenas were issued “after months of requesting critical budget information from the Beshear administration.” The subpoenas were issued by the co-chairs of the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee, Republicans Sen. Greg Elkins, of Winchester, and Rep. Scott Sharp, of Ashland, to State Budget Director John Hicks, Personnel Cabinet Secretary Mary Elizabeth Bailey, and Personnel Cabinet Deputy Secretary Robert Long.
However, a spokesperson for the governor said the subpoenas are “a stunt with no merit.”
The lawmakers’ press release did not include copies of the subpoenas, but said lawmakers are requesting information about “Kentucky Employee Health Plan actuarial reports, studies, and recommendations pertaining to the development and implementation of the plan years 2023-2028, including without limitation benefits, enrollment rules, and premium rates, as well as claim trends, enrollment data, and related consultant communications for 2026–2028 plan years.”
House Republicans have filed budget bills this session that they called a “bare bones” version of what will actually make it through the legislative process. Two of the budget bills, House Bill 500 for the executive branch and House Bill 504 for the judicial branch, will be heard in a House Appropriations and Revenue meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Progressive think tank the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy has said the current version of HB 500 would shift costs of health insurance plans to state employees and school employees. That shift drew criticism from groups like the “Scrap the Cap” campaign, which rallied in Frankfort earlier this week to represent opposition from public employees and retirees.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, House Speaker David Osborne (R-Prospect) said that Republicans have been requesting information for the budget from the Beshear administration “for several weeks now,” particularly about the state health insurance plan.
“It is unconscionable to me that we continue to use state employees and retirees as political pawns, and that this administration expects us to pass a budget with $2 billion committed to state health plans — $2 billion taxpayer dollars —without the information that we need to construct a budget,” Osborne said.
He added that the information being sought is not “proprietary information” or “politically-sensitive information.”
“This is information that was paid for with taxpayer funds to aid the state budget director to construct a budget that is public information that he has withheld from us,” Osborne said.
Asked about possible further recourse to get the information, Osborne said he hoped “that we won’t have to cross that bridge.”
Beshear, a Democrat, issued his budget proposal to the Republican-controlled General Assembly via his State of the Commonwealth address last month. In it, he called for lawmakers to approve $500 million in one-time spending to ease families’ “rising cost pressures.”
Scottie Ellis, a spokesperson for Beshear, called the subpoenas “a stunt with no merit” and said that lawmakers “have had all necessary information for weeks.”
“Tuesday of last week, for the first time, they requested new information that had to be compiled by actuaries, and it was delivered today at 3:22 p.m. ET by the State Budget Director,” Ellis said. “The Beshear administration has provided every piece of information the General Assembly has requested, in addition to a nearly 390-page report delivered on Jan. 7. These political games distract from what should be an easy choice for the General Assembly — which is to not increase health insurance costs for 310,000 hardworking state employees.”
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Written by McKenna Horsley. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
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