$12 million over two years.

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky General Assembly will provide the Beshear administration with $12 million over the next two years to implement a 2024 law to help kinship care families. 

The two-year state budget that passed the legislature Wednesday includes a $6 million appropriation for Senate Bill 151 for each fiscal year, an increase over the $5 million annual appropriation in earlier versions of the budget.. 

The budget heads to Gov. Andy Beshear, who can make line-item vetoes to the budget bill. Lawmakers will return to Frankfort April 14-15 and have the chance to override any vetos at that time. 

The legislature approved and Beshear signed SB 151 in 2024. It would provide financial relief to grandparents and others who are raising children who otherwise would be in state care by making it easier for the family members to qualify for foster care payments.

The measure was not funded at the time of passage. The legislature, auditor’s office and Beshear’s administration have, ever since, debated the funding issue — including in court — over who is responsible for it and where the money should come from.

KY Senate proposes funding for kinship care law long in limbo. Is it enough? 

The House, in its initial budget proposal, included no funding for the law. The Senate appropriated $5 million per year and also directed the Beshear administration to seek out federal funds to help implement the law, which the Cabinet for Health and Family Services has said could cost around $15 million per year.

Beshear, in his budget request, asked the legislature to appropriate $14.6 million in each fiscal year — nearly $30 million over the biennium. When the Senate initially added funds for SB 151 implementation, Beshear said “If they provide us $5 million, we’ll provide $5 million to those families.” 

The budget also includes a $22 million appropriation for Out of Home Care “to maintain existing support for foster care and kinship care programs to enhance specialized services for children with exceptional needs to assist in identifying and securing supportive placements.”

House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, told reporters Wednesday night that the increase reflects the law being “a priority.”  

“The administration ignored that direction to take care of those things,” he said. “So we are just being very explicit about it this year.”

During his weekly press conference Thursday, Beshear again pointed to his request for more money to fund SB151.

“That costs about $15 million they only have $6 million in it. They keep talking about pulling down federal funds, but the only states that can do that are ones that go to trial for every single foster care kid about custody,” Beshear said. “We don’t believe right now you can pull those (funds) down. And the feds have actually told us that.”

In a Wednesday evening statement Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, said the budget “continues the progress we’ve made over the past decade, restoring fiscal stability, strengthening pensions and making responsible investments without overcommitting taxpayer dollars.”

“The agreed-upon spending plan between the House and Senate stops the political gamesmanship,” McDaniel, the chair of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee, said. “It acknowledges and appreciates the value of every taxpayer dollar while stating that unsustainable government spending cannot be tolerated.”

This story was updated Thursday with comment from the governor.