Kentucky’s New Governor Andy Beshear Prioritizes Funding Public Schools, Strengthening State Pensions, and Protecting Medicaid Eligibility
On Tuesday night, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, was elected governor of Kentucky. By a slim 5,100 vote margin, which may be challenged in Kentucky’s version of a recount, Beshear defeated the state’s current governor, Republican, Matt Bevin.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made this race a priority and spent considerable time in Kentucky rallying Bevin’s supporters in the final weeks of the campaign. And Politico reports that the President’s 2020 campaign operation invested in an extensive get-out-the-vote effort across the state to ensure a Bevin victory. But it didn’t work.
Governor Elect Andy Beshear chose a public school principal, Jacqueline Coleman, as his running mate. He won on a platform for the common good, which features raising funding for public schools and school teachers, stabilizing the state pension fund, and eliminating restrictions on Medicaid eligibility.
Kentucky’s teachers marched on the state capitol in Frankfort in April 2018, as part of the beginning of the RedforEd wave, which has brought the nation’s attention to what have become outrageously large classes and shortages of counselors, school psychologists, social workers, nurses, and librarians as states failed to recover from the 2008 recession. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities names Kentucky as one of a dozen states where, by 2019, state school formula funding remains 13 percent below where it was in 2008 when adjusted for inflation.
In early October, Andy Beshear released an education plan to increase the state’s funding for schools. The Louisville Courier Journal reported: “A main feature of the Democrats’ plan is supporting an ‘education first budget’ that increases the state’s portion of SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky) funding and increases overall per-pupil funding. While per-pupil funding has increased under Bevin, Beshear said the total remains 13% lower than before the 2008 recession…. The Beshear campaign’s plan also calls for reducing class sizes, increasing the number of school nurses, adding mental health services, helping local CONTINUE READING: Kentucky’s New Governor Andy Beshear Prioritizes Funding Public Schools, Strengthening State Pensions, and Protecting Medicaid Eligibility | janresseger
