FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Board of Education held discussions about the board’s priorities and strategic planning for the next state budget cycle during a virtual meeting on May 6, setting the stage for budget requests that will be submitted to the governor and legislature. The Kentucky Boa rd of Education makes recommendations to the governor regarding all formal Kentucky Department of Education budgetary requests before they are submitted to the governor and executive branch. These requests are submitted as part of the budget-making legislative session every two years. Brian Perry, KDE’s director of government relations, provided an update to board members regarding outcomes of the 2026 legislative session and presented a timeline for board members to consider for setting budget-related priorities for the 2028-2030 budget cycle. As part of the proposed timeline, KBE members were asked to use this summer to envision the critical items the board would like to address during the upcoming 2026-2028 biennium. Perry used House Bill 257 from the most recent legislative session, a bill to reimagine Kentucky’s state assessment and accountability system, as an example of legislation that required years of planning and work with legislators to get across the finish line. Governor Andy Beshear signed House Bill 257 on April 13, 2026, and the changes take effect before the 2026–27 school year. The legislation represents a major overhaul of how Kentucky measures student success and school quality through locally developed indicators and individual student growth metrics. Perry explained how several bills aligned to the board’s goals of supporting the educator workforce and addressed cleaning up statutory language to remove outdated references. He also reviewed other proposals that did not make their way through the legislative process or did not receive additional funding this year. Looking ahead, one of the ongoing challenges to address with the legislature is how to modernize school facilities funding, according to Perry and Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher. This issue has persisted despite the state’s recent budget priorities, which have included funding for K-12 education alongside health care and public safety investments. This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from Kentucky Teacher, enriched with 3 web searches. The original source is available at http://www.kentuckyteacher.org/news/2026/05/kentucky-board-of-education-talks-about-priorities-budget-planning-during-virtual-meeting/. The post Kentucky Board of Education Focuses on Budget Priorities for 2028-2030 Cycle appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less