FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- Some students in Jefferson, Fayette and Kenton counties may be eligible for help paying for tuition at private schools, and Kentucky will finance full-day kindergarten as part of a school choice measure that cleared the House of Representatives Thursday after it ballooned in scope through a series of floor amendments.
House Bill 563, which also creates a $25 million tax credit pool for those who finance flexible spending grants for students and allows state school funding to follow students who transfer to districts in which they don’t live, passed the lower chamber on a 51-45 vote after a floor debate that lasted about three hours.
The late revisions to HB 563, sponsored by House Majority Whip Chad McCoy, were made hours after the legislation cleared the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee on a 14-8 vote.
Lawmakers nearly added a provision allowing families throughout the state to spend education opportunity accounts on private school tuition, which has drawn fierce opposition from public education groups in recent sessions. One such floor amendment offered by Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, failed on a 45-52 vote.
But Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Eastwood, offered a floor amendment that limited the scope of such spending flexibility in education opportunity accounts to Jefferson, Fayette and Kenton counties and passed on a 49-45 vote.
“This is about people in poverty, and there are three counties which happen to be our most populous counties – Jefferson, Fayette and Kenton – who have the greatest concentration of people in poverty,” Miller said.
“I’ve been trying to support and make sure that the rural part of this Commonwealth is elevated to the best it can be. I ask for your support to help Jefferson County, to help Kenton and to help Fayette,” said Rep. Ken Fleming, R-Louisville.
House Minority Floor Leader Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, said it was “disingenuous” to carve out special provisions for students in Kentucky’s three largest counties.
“There are poor children throughout our commonwealth, and I am puzzled,” she said. “Why we are suddenly going to say we got special rules for kids in Louisville, Lexington and Kenton County?”
Some Republicans balked at giving exclusive access to private school aid to Kentucky's three largest counties.
Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon, said he originally planned to vote for HB 563, saying full-day kindergarten funding would be "huge" for school districts in his legislative district.
"However, in good conscience I couldn't vote yes for something that singled out three counties," he said.
While HB 563 cleared the lower chamber, House Speaker David Osborne determined that the bill would need at least 60 votes for final passage because of the spending included for full-day kindergarten.
The lack of school choice measures like education opportunity accounts in Kentucky “is just one more thing stopping Kentucky from being as good as it can be,” said McCoy, R-Bardstown.
“It's going to start to be an economic development issue for us,” he said.
The legislation, if it becomes law in its current form, would make $25 million in tax credits available for those who donate to organizations that will dole out grants to families for education expenses like tutoring, textbooks and uniforms beyond the private school tuition allowances for students in Jefferson, Fayette and Kenton counties. The proposed program would only be available to families who earn 175% of the federal limit to qualify for reduced-price school meals, or about $86,000 for a family of four in the upcoming school year.
Donors to account granting organizations could recoup up to 95% of their contributions not to exceed $1 million in state tax credits, and organizations can keep up to 10% of their annual donations to cover administrative expenses, according to HB 563.
Exactly how much the full-day kindergarten provision, which has been among priorities for public education advocates, will cost the state remains to be seen. The state currently finances half-day kindergarten, with most school districts covering the remaining costs to cover full-day kindergarten.
Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, told his colleagues on the House floor that the Kentucky Department of Education provided him an estimate of about $100 million per year. Toni Konz Tatman, KDE’s chief communications officer, said the state requested $140 million per year to cover full-day kindergarten in the budget last year and that a fiscal analysis conducted by the Legislative Research Commission on a similar bill put the cost at $109 million annually.
McCoy said lawmakers have committed to providing full-day kindergarten in the upcoming budget.
Still, the addition of full-day kindergarten was not enough to persuade some Democrats from supporting HB 563.
“I have heard of taking a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down,” said House Minority Whip Angie Hatton, D-Whitesburg. “We have piled the sugar on this deal. We have watered it down and added sugar till we're all going to get cavities from it, but it's still a bad bill.”
Rep. Josie Raymond, D-Louisville, unsuccessfully sought to include several floor amendments that would add provisions like requiring education service providers pass background checks and adding demographic data of education opportunity account recipients in state reporting requirements.
Even had her amendments been included in the final package, Raymond said she would not support HB 563.
“My amendments are good ideas to make a bad bill better,” Raymond said. “It doesn't change the mechanism or the motivation.”
The whirlwind debate on HB 563 came after swift opposition from some public education groups, though some superintendents expressed supported for allowing state education dollars to follow nonresident students.
“Competition pushes schools to find their strengths to do better and to be better for all students,” Bowling Green Independent Schools Superintendent Gary Fields said.
KDE Government Affairs Director Chuck Truesdell warned lawmakers on the House budget committee earlier Thursday of possible unintended consequences of the bill, which did not include full-day kindergarten or private school tuition aid for some students at that time.
“I don't think there's time necessarily in this session to make all the changes that will need to be done, and we are scared that if this bill passes now, we won't be able to make the changes necessary once it's already in law,” Truesdell said during Thursday’s committee meeting.
Although a floor amendment was passed to alleviate some of the state’s concerns, KDE does not support HB 563 in its entirety.
“While I appreciate efforts to improve this legislation, these are incredibly complex and consequential decisions the General Assembly is contemplating and do not lend themselves to ‘off the cuff’ solutions from the legislative floor,” Education Commissioner Jason Glass said in a statement.
“We hold that this effort would be much better served by a more deliberative and thoughtful approach that will result in better public education policy for Kentucky.”
Glass was among a group of state leaders, including Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, who spoke against HB 563 on the steps of the Capitol shortly before Thursday's marathon voting session began.
Kentucky Education Association President Eddie Campbell, who was not allowed to testify against HB 563 in committee due to time constraints, said the legislation "proves that legislators have no intention of meeting their constitutional obligations to fund public schools adequately and equitably."
"It's a sham," Campbell said in a statement before Thursday's vote. "And it's also a shame."
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