Kentucky Chamber president reacts to Bevin’s first budget proposal

In his first State of the Commonwealth Budget Address, Governor Matt Bevin proposed making some deep budget cuts in order to find money for the state’s ailing pension systems and begins stabilizing the state’s fiscal house for the future.

In the start of his speech, Bevin stressed the need to strengthen the financial foundation of the state. And he said that begins with working to shore up the state’s pension systems.

The budget proposal put forth by Bevin addresses many of the top issues the Kentucky Chamber has been advocating for in the past several years.

Among the key areas are steps taken to begin shoring up the state’s retirement systems, performance based funding for higher education and workforce training.

In reaction to Bevin’s budget proposal, Kentucky Chamber President and CEO Dave Adkisson called it a “bold, game changing” document.

However, Adkisson did express some of the items in the budget proposal that are cause for concern for the Chamber’s membership.

“One downside, and frankly there’s some heartburn in the business community over this, there is a significant budget cut to our universities,” Adkisson said (in the video below). “That’s a major, dramatic cut and we are hoping the legislature can find a way to soften that while at the same time implementing some performance-based funding, as the governor has called for.”

Hear Adkisson’s full reaction in the video below:

Read much more about Bevin’s budget proposal here.