Matt Bevin

A long-anticipated special legislative session will convene later this week in an effort to deliver relief for regional universities and quasi-governmental agencies strapped by surging pension costs, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin announced Monday.

Lawmakers will meet starting at 8 a.m. Friday at the state Capitol in Frankfort, the Republican governor's office said. An official proclamation listing the special session's agenda will be issued later this week, Bevin's office said in a news release.

It takes at least five working days for lawmakers to get a bill through the General Assembly. Lawmakers are expected to meet this Saturday and Monday through Wednesday of next week before wrapping up the session, Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer said.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear took another jab at Governor Matt Bevin Friday, one day after scoring a win in their on-going battle over whether the state will discipline teachers for participating in “sickouts” that closed Jefferson County Public Schools six days this spring.

Beshear’s challenge is the latest highlight in his campaign to unseat Bevin as governor.

In a campaign appearance Friday, Beshear said Bevin should “do something right” and fire his Labor Secretary David Dickerson for pursuing an investigation into teachers who called in sick to protest education bills at the Capitol. 

Gov. Matt Bevin will return to the Fancy Farm picnic stage this summer after a two year absence from Kentucky’s premier political event.

Bevin has criticized the rowdy festival, which encourages politicians to trade insults on statewide television in front of a crowd of hecklers, and hasn’t attended the event since his first year in office.

But the governor is running for re-election this year and will share the stage with his opponent in the general election, Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear.

A Kentucky judge has ordered the state to pay more than $72,000 in attorneys' fees and costs in a lawsuit over the release of an economic analysis of Gov. Matt Bevin's administration's analysis of the 2017 pension reform plan.

Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled Monday the Bevin administration intentionally violated the Kentucky Open Records Act in refusing to release a copy of the analysis. The Courier Journal reports Shepherd ordered the analysis be released and directed the state to pay fees and costs to the person requesting it.

With Kentucky’s regional universities and other agencies facing a massive spike in pension costs starting July 1, Gov. Matt Bevin’s office says he won’t call a special legislative session to address the issue until later in July or August.

The delay means that the agencies will rack up larger-than-hoped-for pension costs, which will be due at the end of July, and which stakeholders say could lead to cuts in services or even closures.

A fired aide to Kentucky's lieutenant governor asked the state's personnel board on Friday to reverse her dismissal, which deepened an election-year rift between Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton and Gov. Matt Bevin's administration over Hampton's depleted staff.

In her appeal, Adrienne Southworth is seeking reinstatement as Hampton's deputy chief of staff with back pay and benefits.

Southworth's appeal claims that Bevin's staff lacked legal authority to fire an aide to the lieutenant governor. The reasons given for her dismissal were "factually inaccurate," she said.

Neither Hampton nor Bevin's office immediately responded to emails seeking comment.

The drama between Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton and Gov. Matt Bevin continues following the firing of one of her staffers at the hands of the Bevin administration.

Hampton issued a statement on Tuesday saying Bevin’s chief of staff Blake Brickman “clearly overstepped his boundaries” when he fired her deputy chief of staff last month.

“Every Kentuckian should be concerned that an unelected bureaucrat appears to have power over the office of the Lieutenant Governor,” Hampton wrote in the statement. “I am perplexed by the vacuous decision to deprive an active, productive Lieutenant Governor of her staff.”

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s chief of staff says he authorized the firing of a key aide to Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton.

Blake Brickman said in a statement on Saturday to The Courier Journal that he authorized the firing of Adrienne Southworth, saying she repeatedly demonstrated poor judgment.

The firing last month prompted Hampton to send out a tweet praising Southworth’s work as “stellar” and asking for prayers in her fight against “dark forces.”