Findings from Raising The Bar: Kentucky's Real Budget Report

Kentucky Can Do Better!

Findings from Raising The Bar: Kentucky's Real Budget Report

* Kentucky ranks 50th in per capita spending on education, according to a 2005 Governing Magazine report. Kentucky needs to invest $337 million more annually to bring per pupil spending up to the average of surrounding states.

* In 1997, Kentucky surpassed the national average and ranked fourth among surrounding states in teacher salaries. By 2005, Kentucky's average teacher salary had dropped and was $7,285 less than the national average and $4,382 less than the average of our surrounding states.

* In a given year, 44,000 Kentuckians experience homelessness. Since 2003, the state's Affordable Housing Trust Fund has been cut by 30 percent. At the same time, Kentucky has received millions less in federal dollars for affordable housing.

* In 1991-92, state funding represented 42 percent of total funding for Kentucky's public colleges and universities. By 2000-01, the state provided only 33 percent.

* Between 1999 and 2004, state funding per pupil at the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) dropped 30.6 percent.

* As a result of state budget cuts, tuition to attend Kentucky's four-year universities rose by amounts ranging from 27 to 54 percent between 1999 and 2004. A student at the University of Kentucky graduating in 2005 paid 42 percent more in tuition and fees for her senior year than she did as a freshman.

* Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education reports the state's higher education system needs $250 million more to catch up with comparable schools in other states.

* Kentucky faces a $425 million shortfall in the Medicaid program that serves 700,000 low-income and disabled Kentuckians. To fill this gap, the legislature must appropriate an additional $132 million (that would be matched by federal dollars) or cut spending by the full $425 million.

* Kentucky's network of regional mental health/mental retardation centers served 165,000 Kentuckians last year. The legislature has provided these centers just two cost of living increases since 1990. As a result, by 2001 Kentucky had fallen to 44th in funding of mental health and substance abuse services and 49th in funding services for individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

* Kentucky's public defenders carry an average load of 485 cases, nearly double the national standard. According to Kentucky's Public Advocate Ernie Lewis, "We are approaching that point when our public defenders are simply unable to perform their essential task of defending the accused due to crushing caseloads." An additional $10 million per year is needed to adequately fund the public defender system.

* In 2004, Governor Ernie Fletcher cut state funding for Legal Aid Services by 27 percent. One expert estimates that Kentucky's Legal Aid offices turn away about 50 percent of people who need their help due to a lack of funding. An additional $1.5 million would help close the gap.

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Balancing the Scales article on the release of Raising The Bar: Kentucky's Real Budget Report

Speaker Statements from the KEJA Raising the Bar Teleconference

Raising the Bar Executive Summary

Raising The Bar PDF of Full Report

Raising The Bar Press Room

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