wave essentially shuts down Kentucky for days.

The state legislature misses a day for the weather, but they return to reveal a bare bones House budget proposal.

Many schools start to closely watch their NTI days in Washington.

Senator Rand Paul calls for the country's three immigration officials to testify before Congress, looking hard for warmer weather.

Comment is next on KET.

Good evening.

I'm Bill Bryant, and we welcome you to comment on Kentucky, a look back at and some analysis of the week's news in the Commonwealth and the guests on our panel of working Kentucky journalists tonight are Sylvia Goodman, Capitol reporter for Kentucky Public Radio, Alex Acquisto politics and health reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and Isaiah Kim-Martinez political reporter for WHAS11 in Louisville.

We've all lived through some history and challenges this week with the snow, the ice and bitter cold.

Tragically, the death toll from the winter storm in Kentucky has climbed to 12.

President Trump signed an emergency disaster declaration, and Governor Beshear returned to the state from a trip overseas in time to oversee Kentucky's response to the tough weather.

>> We started preparing earlier last week.

Steps included pre-treating our roadways, preparing equipment and coordinating with partner agencies.

It involved bringing in contractors to increase the size and the speed of our response.

It included designating warming centers, pre-positioning water, coordinating with the guard and other state agencies, and ensuring our utilities had increased their number of linemen and were ready to seek mutual aid.

>> And still, the aftermath was tough.

Isaiah, the worst of this, of course, is the death toll.

Many of the stories are tragic.

In some cases, people froze to death.

>> Bell many, of course connected to hypothermia, according to some to some local coroners across the state.

And that was what was unique about this storm is there was really no area that was truly unscathed.

You had West east side of the state.

Northern, Lexington, Louisville, South Central, all having something connected to the storm.

Now, I will say there were some that unfortunately dealt with not exactly just being out in the cold like we had one in Louisville who was an individual who was unhoused.

We had others where I think one individual had a heart attack because emergency personnel or not because of, but emergency personnel couldn't get to that person in time.

We had a case in eastern Kentucky, West Liberty, to be specific, a prison there, a correctional complex where an inmate who was, according to officials, shoveling snow, cleaning ice there, basically trying to get it out, fell, apparently.

And we're not exactly sure kind of the nature of what happened there, but he had died as well.

So truly, when the temps get this low and the ice is like how it is, some pretty tragic things happen.

>> They said in his case, it was due to his good behavior that he had the opportunity to be a part of that crew, that.

>> They were helping with significant crew there.

>> That is a tragic, certainly.

Well, there were tens of thousands of power outages, and the utility crews worked hard to get the power back on, and those outages did quickly decline.

Here we are a week later and most of the electricity is back most.

>> And that's always the big worry with a storm like this.

You know, it's one thing to lose electricity from a thunderstorm in the summer.

It's a totally other to lose electricity or power during a winter storm because again, people freeze to death.

It was around 80,000.

Now it's just under 10,000, which is pretty good in a week's time.

A lot of that was repaired really quickly.

What's unusual about this storm is, you know, it covered such a large portion of the South that typically we would get help from other states.

But, you know, states to our south, like Tennessee, are still contending with their own outages.

I believe I heard on the way here that Tennessee still has close to 70,000 people without power.

So all things considered, it was restored fairly quickly.

>> You know, we saw it coming.

And so people were able to make some preparations and maybe that even though it's a tragic to have lost a dozen people, but maybe that did mitigate some of what we were facing.

>> I feel like it has to a little bit.

I think the first warning I saw was almost a full week before we knew it was coming, so people were able to again get positioned, make secondary plans if their power did go out.

And I think it's safe to say that if the power had been out longer for a lot of people, we would have seen more deaths.

>> Sylvia, the roads were, and in some cases are, tough.

State crews cleared the main roads, some cities and counties did better than others, and improving the smaller roads and some residential streets in some areas have not been touched yet.

>> I know it in my own neighborhood in Louisville, there are still several residential streets.

Luckily not my own direct street that have not been plowed.

And now at this point, enough people have driven over them.

They're basically blocks of ice at this point.

And you know, when the temperatures stay low like this for so long, they're not going to melt on their own, at least not for a while.

So people are really trapped in their homes in a lot of places.

And especially it seems like in Louisville and Lexington, there's not an immediate plan to plow those streets.

>> It's it seems to be a challenge to the leaders in these cities to figure out exactly a plan for how to address this.

>> Every year is different, right?

I mean, we've had some really bad snow and ice storms over the past couple of years, but I believe it was either 23 or 24.

That was pretty quiet for a lot of us.

And then keep in mind too, we are having more active tornado and flood seasons as well in the spring going into the summer.

So lawmakers really have to decide what is our priority.

And a lot of times they have to predict something that really can't be predicted.

>> Yeah, you have a lot of people ask the question, you know, with the brutal winters that we do occasionally have, why doesn't Kentucky spend more on snow removal and equipment like the northern states do?

That may be the answer we face a lot.

>> We do.

And I mean, you think about it now, the forecast for this storm were much greater.

The precipitation was far greater than what we actually ended up getting.

It's not an unmanageable amount of snow, but potentially because we don't invest in those things, it takes much longer for cities to fully get back to normal business because, as Sylvia was saying, a lot of roads just simply aren't plowed.

So it makes it hard for a variety of people to get out.

>> Yeah.

You wonder what the economic impact is of the closed restaurants and stores and all of that as well.

Isaiah police also stopped a lot of vehicles that had ice and snow chunks still on them.

There were situations where some of that ice fell off and struck other vehicles.

>> We had a couple freak accidents in Nelson County near Bardstown, where we had one case where I believe it was ice that fell off a truck and basically hit someone's windshield, who was driving in the other direction?

There was a big hole in it.

The driver apparently was injured.

Nothing life threatening, thankfully.

But, you know, the Louisville mayor sort of made like a half joke about the sort of having the Mohawk on your car, right, with like, the snow.

It's like you get everything off the sides.

But truly.

And he knows this as well as anybody.

It's no joking matter when you have ice on your vehicle, right?

It usually doesn't affect you.

But then if it falls off, then it could hurt someone behind you or someone next to you.

>> I think that law enforcement put out one picture of somebody who just sort of had a peephole, you know, to, to, to see out so that they could drive up.

Alex, many school leaders are trying to, at this point ration the NTI days or figure out what to do because they only get ten and some districts are already out of days before we hit February.

>> And many schools this week were out.

Not in person the entire week.

And so again, when we have a big storm like this, certainly the precipitation is a factor and why schools aren't in session in person, but also bitter cold is.

And with more cold coming this weekend, I think you have schools making decisions of, you know, should we make this an NTI day?

Should it eat into spring break?

Still several months of the school year left, so I think we can expect districts to start really grappling with that if they're not already.

>> Knowing full well that parents have made their plans for spring break and all of that.

So that's difficult.

Some of the coldest weather yet could come this weekend.

Kentucky health care providers have been sharing advice about dealing with the extreme cold.

>> If you're going to be outside longer than an hour, or your kids have been outside playing for longer than an hour, especially in weather like this, wet plus cold equals frostbite.

So especially kids, when they come back inside, you got to take their clothes off, warm them up, put a blanket on them if their hands, fingers, toes, nose and ears appear reddened, the best thing to do is to rewarm with just warm water.

Max temperature of 102 degrees for 30 minutes.

>> You want the kids to play and you want them to make those memories.

But there are those warnings.

Don't be outside too long.

>> Well, and this seems very obvious, right?

We all sled down hills as children.

>> But into something.

>> Into something over something.

But certainly, you know, when we are talking about this weekend, the low is going to be low single digits.

The wind chill will likely be below zero.

Frostbite frostnip happens quicker than people think, so it's good to be aware of.

>> We do have 111 shelters that are available across the state.

That is important.

So if anyone needs to get indoors, contact your local folks, local governments and they know where to to get you to somewhere warm.

The Kentucky legislature missed Monday because of the winter storm.

They'll make that up sometime later, like the kids will have to make up school.

But when they returned on Tuesday, the House unveiled its initial budget proposal.

House Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Jason Petrie said the theme is about cutting spending with a bare bones budget.

>> Today, we do not have a revenue problem, but we always have to fight spending that's out of control, and that's what a major theme of this budget is going to be.

Unlike in prior years, where we have prepackaged hundreds of decisions, if not thousands, and been able to move through the process fairly quickly this session.

And these bills are designed differently, especially the executive branch, so that we have a bare bones budget.

>> Sylvia.

The Commonwealth spent more than $30 billion in the current two year budget that was passed in 2024.

The proposal for 2627 is to spend less than 30 billion.

>> Yeah, it's a decrease overall in this current form of the budget, which, as you heard from Representative Petrie, is very likely to change.

There's I think there's going to be a lot of fluctuations.

That's all the signals we're getting.

But I think a lot of state officials are already worried.

You know, a lot of them kind of hope for at least a small increase to account for inflation.

Or, you know, in some areas the inflation is much higher than others, like construction costs, things like that.

So I know that there are some officials who are worried that this budget is overall puts in place some level of cuts in a lot of departments.

>> And Isaiah, Chairman Petrie, says groups can come forward and make their case for more funding.

So to Sylvia's point, this is a work in progress.

>> It is.

And House Speaker David Osborne, it was notable.

He told a lot of us yesterday that the caucuses maybe not divided, is the right word, but there are more differences of opinion, maybe some extreme on different ends of the spectrum as far as what to do in this situation, even amongst Republicans.

He said that some acknowledge they want to dip into the rainy day fund or consider it for certain expenditures, but then others are saying no, we have to be cautious because of the sort of the national uncertainty.

I think no matter how you divvy it up, though, it is a year of tightening your belt, at least to some degree, is what most officials have said.

>> And this proposal differs substantially from the governor's budget proposal, which he noted is balanced as required by the Constitution, although it relies on some money coming from the rainy day fund.

As you said, he wanted more for Medicaid.

There's less.

He really wanted pre-kindergarten funding.

There is zero for that.

>> Yes.

I don't think it's surprising to us that it differs quite a bit from the governor's budget.

Like you said, it dips pretty heavily into the rainy day fund, which Republicans are typically more reticent to do.

Yeah.

And so you're right.

It doesn't have any funding for the pre-K program that the governor wants to begin.

That's also not surprising to us.

There are several Republican leadership, members of leadership who have said that they are skeptical of the program.

They're not interested in starting new programs.

Like Isaiah was saying, I think there's a difference of opinion of how conservative to be in this budget, but I don't necessarily think the disagreements over pre-K and also, like you mentioned, Medicaid current budget is $815 million less than what Beshear was asking for.

Some of that might be in new waiver slots.

For example, the governor wants to expand waiver slots to help people stay in their communities instead of being institutionalized.

But there's also just a decrease in the general spending on Medicaid.

And the CFO of the Medicaid program told a subcommittee this week that he was quite worried about that, that he's concerned that they won't be able to maintain everything that's currently part of the program.

>> Isaiah, this is a there really is a stark difference between the governor's stance on pre-K, which he says could be a game changer for Kentucky kids, many of whom arrive at kindergarten not ready to do the work.

And Republican lawmakers who do not want to spend that money at this point.

>> Yeah, well, the governor bill has, you know, presented this more and more as a wedge issue.

The way he's phrasing it now is, in his words, to Republicans, you're either playing politics or you are choosing to basically not help four year olds in the state be ready for kindergarten.

But the bottom line here, you know, with a lot of budget issues, the discrepancy is how much money the governor might want this, but Republican leadership wants this.

In this case, a lot of Republicans are not even convinced universal pre-K works or is even the way the state should go.

So this has been they're on opposite sides of the spectrum here.

Most of us didn't expect this to be seriously considered.

I will say we were talking before the show.

Public education funding is a major issue right now.

We might talk about this a little more, but right now the per pupil spending is basically going to be the same as last time.

>> Well, let's do that because yeah, it is.

It appears to be flat.

Right.

And of course this all comes to the the SEEK formula.

That is hard to explain, but is nevertheless the way the local schools are funded.

>> It is a deeply complicated formula, as any lawmaker will tell you.

Any school official will tell you.

But.

Right.

So we typically for just an overview, we look at the per pupil base number.

And that is the same as the current fiscal year.

So they would keep that level over the next two years.

So there's no increase say for inflation.

And so I think we're going to get a lot of conversations about that.

School officials wanting an increase.

But Republicans have said in the past they believe they give ample money to this school districts and that they need to do some internal work to make the money that they're given more effective and more efficient to educate students.

>> There has been some indication, though, that the SEEK formula does need updating.

It's been decades from both parties.

It's been a bipartisan comment.

The problem is, according to House Speaker David Osborne, is he actually sort of joked that he doesn't know how they were able to come up with it to begin with because it is so complicated.

And in his words, you can't just tweak one element when it comes to this state education funding formula.

You would have to overhaul the whole thing.

And a lot of people are sort of hesitant to do that.

So how much longer is it going to stay the way it is?

It's unclear.

>> Well, we'll probably chew up a lot of time to do it when they're in session.

It sounds like the kind of thing that needs to be studied over time.

Right?

Okay.

So will there be an attempt again to lower the state income tax, even though the triggers apparently were not met?

>> I don't believe that that's currently on the table.

You know, during the interim, Representative Jason Nemes said that he would push for it, but we haven't seen anything filed yet.

The Senate leadership seems pretty against changing the triggers at all, or going against the trigger to lower the income tax.

So it doesn't seem like it's currently in the cards.

But never say never, right?

>> The House has been looking at a fluoride bill that would let local water districts opt out of adding fluoride to water and hold them harmless from liability, regardless of what decision they made.

Alex.

>> Yeah, this is a perennial bill.

I believe it's the sixth or seventh time it has been filed.

Last year it made it the farthest, I believe, like 1 or 2 committee hearings.

It passed out of committee this week, has 30 ish Republican co-sponsors.

And the whole point, as you said, is to make it optional for water districts to fluoridate their water Kentucky has fluoridated its water for more than 50 years, oh point 7mg/l is the standard going rate.

But there are Republicans who I will say are at odds with many dentists and orthodontists who have spoken up in legislative committee meetings who think that, as Representative Mark Hart said, it poses an unreasonable risk.

So they want to make it optional, with a not so unclear goal of expectation that some water districts will in fact ban it.

And new this year is, as you said, there will be a clause giving immunity to water districts who face some sort of civil consequence as a result, one way or the other.

>> Well, this would shift the debate.

It would shift local communities.

>> And that's the whole thing too, is like, you know, it it cedes this power to water districts to make this big decision that affects their communities.

We don't really know what that will look like, but it's moving through the legislature, so we'll see.

>> All right.

Senate priority bill, Senate Bill one would give the superintendent of the Jefferson County school system more control.

But Superintendent Brian Yearwood has now addressed the issue and said he shouldn't have more power.

>> It seems that you want to give me the more authority, but I'm here to tell you I shouldn't have it.

This bill is about adults, not students, and that is where our focus should be.

This bill is about a power dynamic of the past, and I want to focus on what's ahead.

The future of our children in our Commonwealth.

>> It's my opinion that to turn a blind eye to the situation, Jefferson County would not only be unethical, it would be immoral.

And we've gone on down this path for too long.

And I want to thank Senator Gibbons for bringing this important piece of legislation that forces us and allows us to do something different.

>> Isaiah, the panel sent that bill on to the full Senate.

>> Yeah, no, it's moving along.

And every expectation that we have is it will probably end up like the last time this was passed.

Long story short, one Supreme Court upheld it.

Then the one with different justices struck it down as unconstitutional.

But big picture, right?

This is a new superintendent JCPS right.

He's only been on the job a few months.

We're in the year 2026 and you have a chief executive said, don't give me more power.

Granted, he was sitting right next to one of the board members who hired him.

So take a little bit of that with a grain of salt.

The district is in one mindset here, and that is the system that we have now.

The elected board members allow this new superintendent to get his bearings, help turn around the district, that is millions and millions of dollars under for next school year.

But you have Republicans like Senator Steve West using the words educational genocide, saying past KDE commissioner has said that that's what's happening in West Louisville.

You get this sense that they are more fed up than they have been in past years, at least reflected in a legislative perspective.

>> And, Sylvia, the Supreme Court seemed to be saying it goes against Kentucky's constitution to make a law for one school district.

>> Right.

They said you can't unreasonably target just one school district, or in this case, it was one type of government of which Louisville is the only type in the state, and tell them that they have to do something differently than the rest of the state.

So basically, they're telling the legislature wants to enforce that the seed authority from the elected school board toward the superintendent.

So that's what's at issue here, taking authority away from the elected school board towards an unelected appointed official.

The.

Now, I should say that past audits have found that some of the JCPS most significant issues have been caused by lack of transparency from top administration.

>> We have a number of bills that are aimed at either Fayette or Jefferson County, or both.

Due to the financial questions that have been raised in those districts.

>> Yeah, and one of you all could probably speak better to that, but I think the last couple of years have really typified lawmakers frustration.

Almost seems like too light of a word.

They've been very vocal about how critical they have been when it comes to a lot of administrative spending issues.

>> The budget deficits are the last straw.

I think they kind of laid off for a second, made it a little more coy about it.

And then now all of a sudden, with these districts in a hole, they're like, absolutely not.

>> There's been a lot of discussion about an anti grooming bill.

It is House Bill four representative Marianne Proctor is the lead sponsor.

>> What it is seeking to do is criminalize the behavior of grooming.

When an adult engages in entices courses, or solicits a minor to prepare them for sexual conduct.

>> A teacher teaching Health or sex education to young people to a whole class, and then after the class, say one of the students wants to clear something up or come to the teacher and talk about it, my concern is it would prevent that.

Or the teacher may be nervous about discussing anything from the class.

>> Isaiah.

The bill appears to have traction, but there are lingering questions about unintended consequences.

>> That's kind of what it comes down to.

A similar bill, right?

Would basically prevent teachers from texting students.

I would say everyone wants the end goal to be the same, which is sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, not to happen.

The problem, I think, and this was raised by the Democrat there is how do you enforce this and what is considered grooming.

It can be such a gray area.

Although prosecutors who were at the press conference when this was introduced said no, it's very clear when someone is trying to manipulate a child for future abuse.

>> All right.

Quickly, what else are you watching?

>> I'm watching a lot of education accountability bills.

We've already talked about it quite a bit, but we have several Senate priority bills, for example, requiring more transparency in budgeting from school districts is already public knowledge, but putting it on websites and then also, for example, capping administrator salaries to be tied more to teacher salaries, things like that.

I'm watching really closely.

>> Policy for more housing, housing regulations as well as Medicaid or not Medicaid.

Excuse me.

SNAP what can qualify to use SNAP for?

We've heard that there might be a waiver in the works to basically prevent sugary drinks, candy, things of that nature from being used.

>> All right.

In Washington, Kentucky, Senator Rand Paul calling for the country's top three immigration officials to testify before Congress.

It came after an intensive care nurse, Alex Petit, was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend.

Isaiah, this is again, Senator Paul is at somewhat odds with the administration.

>> Yeah.

And he you know, he I think it's safe to say he may have his eyes on 2028.

And this is right, this issue specifically when it comes to gun rights, we've seen Republicans break with the president many times over the course of the last several months.

We've, Jeffrey Epstein government spending things of that nature when it comes to constitutional Second Amendment rights.

You see folks like Thomas Massie, you see folks like Rand Paul say, no, that's where we draw the line.

And that could be something that Rand Paul and others could use amongst voters who agree that that's the case.

>> Addiction Recovery Care was once the largest for profit drug treatment company in Kentucky.

Alex, you have reported they have now agreed to pay nearly $28 million to settle alleged Medicaid fraud.

But the owners say it's business as usual for now.

>> Write in an internal email this week.

Tim Robinson, who's the owner and founder of Arc, said basically reassurance to staff that despite this very public lawsuit that's happening, which is how this settlement was revealed in the first place, it's business as usual, even though it's really not.

A court has frozen their funds.

They tried to sell off and they haven't been able to sell off.

And as a result, part of at least partially, they've been under investigation by the FBI for Medicaid fraud for a year and a half.

And then we have the civil settlement, which requires them to pay back this money, which they got Medicaid from Medicaid for false billing, essentially.

So it's not a great look for them.

>> Continue to watch that.

Nicholas Wilt, a medically retired from the Louisville Metro Police Department.

>> He's considered a hero in our community.

Bill.

He ran first one of the first officers on scene when the gunman was still firing shots.

That tragic day in April of 2023.

Today, he officially retired, was celebrated by police Chief Louisville mayor, even giving him a key to the city.

>> As we all deal with the cold just to keep us going.

Derby festival events will start in a few weeks.

Keeneland opens its spring meet on April 3rd and we'll see what the groundhog says coming up on Monday.

For now, stay safe and warm.

[MUSIC] Make it a good week ahead.