State agencies must cut budgets by 17% to avoid $200M shortfall, Bevin says
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Matt Bevin on Friday asked most state agencies to slash their budgets by more than 17 percent to cope with an anticipated $200 million revenue shortage and to beef up an emergency fund.
"The cuts are huge and I don't see how they can be carried out without diminishing services to the public, and maybe employment within these agencies," said state Rep. Rick Rand, a Bedford Democrat and former chairman of the House budget committee.
To the affected agencies, the massive cuts come on the heels of previous big budget reductions. They follow a 9 percent cut that is part of the state's 2016-18 budget as well as a series of other funding cuts stretching back to the onset of the Great Recession in 2008.
Some state agencies have already lost more than a quarter of their annual funding — and that's before this cut.
Read more: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/08/kentucky-governor-bevin-budget-cuts/646157001/