Heading into Week Three of the 60-day legislative session, all the talk has been budget, budget and more budget.
However, there’s more at stake in 2024 than just the state’s coffer and its appropriations.
District 8 Representative Walker Thomas said more than 250 bills reside in the House alone — and some of them more interesting than others.
Thomas said he has a bill that he’s “got to clean up,” following some unintended consequences created in 2023 — surrounding hazardous duty pay.
Thomas said even though Veterans Military Affairs has yet to meet this session, due to scheduling conflicts, he still plans to file his veteran’s retirement pension tax exemption bill for a seventh-straight year.
He believes it finally has the legs necessary to make it to the governor’s desk — and it could be a boon to those looking to leave Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, and stay in the Commonwealth.
Discussions are also ramping up around a bill that, if passed, would move the governor’s race and adjoining state offices to the U.S. presidential cycle — an idea, Thomas said, that merits strong discussion on its pros and cons.
District 9 Representative Myron Dossett, meanwhile, said the state’s budget won’t be ignored, and its legislative draft could be coming at the earliest in the next 4-to-7 days, and at the latest in the next two weeks.
The House and Senate both gavel in Tuesday afternoon, following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
