GOP Rep. Kim Banta says the governor’s plan to expand pre-K to more Kentucky families won’t be funded in the next two-year budget in its current form.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has requested $50 million over two years to expand public pre-K to more Kentucky students over the course of several years. It was not included in the “bare bones” GOP budget released in January and the Republican from Ft. Mitchell said on Tuesday it’s unlikely to make it in by the final draft.
Banta, who chairs the House subcommittee in charge of education funding, said the governor’s plan would need serious work before she would consider supporting it. She worries it would put existing childcare providers out of business and come with exploding costs as facility and staffing needs grow. She is also opposed to using dollars currently apportioned to paying down the state’s pension debt.
“We're not going to take out of retirement. We're not going to put small businesses out of jobs. We want to do something. But I'm not sure that this is exactly the answer,” Banta told reporters after hearing about the governor’s Pre-K for All plan. “We're kind of talking about unicorns and rainbows right now. It's hard, expensive.”
The state already funds some public preschool for 4-year-olds below 160% of the federal poverty line and 3- and 4-year-olds with disabilities; the proposed budget would fund that program with $84.5 million, the same level as the current fiscal year, or roughly 14,200 kids.
Sam Flynn, executive director for the governor’s Pre-K for All Advisory Committee, described it as a measured approach to expanding pre-K to more Kentucky children. He said the long rollout time, dependent on the district and flexibility, would ease some legislator concerns about costs. Flynn said the state couldn’t afford not to invest in pre-K, which he argued would improve kindergarten readiness and allow more parents to get back to work.
“This is something that is happening in other parts of the country,” Flynn told the subcommittee Tuesday. “They are benefiting in terms of the educational output and kids being kindergarten ready.”
He pointed to a 2025 report produced by ChildCare Aware of Kentucky that found child care providers in many counties do not have enough capacity for children under 5-years-old.
In western Todd County, 925 children compete for just 129 slots. In southeastern Floyd County, there are only 425 slots compared to 1,923 children under 5-years-old.
GOP Rep. Josh Bray from Mount Vernon was highly critical of the plan, questioning Flynn over projected costs to increase staffing or build new facilities, especially in larger school districts that would need more than a few extra classrooms. He also said the governor was wrong to equate pre-K with childcare.
“Even with the runway, at some point in time, if we expand the number of kids in school, there will come budget requests to build new buildings, to build additional classrooms, for additional staffing,” Bray said.
Bray also hammered Flynn on the plan to use sports wagering funds to pay for expanded pre-K — dollars currently placed in the permanent pension fund by law. Flynn said the funds are sitting in the account but not actively allocated to paying down the pension debt.
Republican leadership has appeared skeptical, or in full opposition to Beshear’s Pre-K for All, saying it’s not the time to invest in new programs and questioning the effectiveness. But the Democratic governor has gone full steam ahead, pitching the program across the state. The same morning Republicans voiced skepticism of the plan, Beshear held a press conference in Bowling Green alongside local leaders to promote Pre-K for All.
Banta and at least one other Republican, Rep. Scott Lewis of Hartford, said they would support increasing the eligibility for public pre-K to 200% of the federal poverty line. That would, for example, expand eligibility to a family of four pulling in $66,000 annually in 2026. The General Assembly previously tried to expand eligibility to that level in 2016, but then-Gov. Matt Bevin vetoed it.
Lewis, who is also superintendent of Ohio County Public Schools and chair of the House education committee, said the expansion would catch more families stuck in the middle: unable to afford pre-K, but not eligible for the free program. That expansion would include roughly 5,500 more children, Lewis said.
“I don't think there'd be any districts with that amount of students spread statewide, would have building issues or anything of that nature,” He said. “At least we would capture that next group of kids and those parents are the ones that really need it.”
