A new version of the Kentucky Legislature’s one-time spending bill more than doubles the total funding for projects across the state compared to previous iterations. With hours left to beat the clock to withstand a potential veto, the bill hasn’t yet been publicly released.

A long list of projects totalling more than $1.7 billion is the result of a Free Conference Committee Report on House Bill 900, which was hashed out between members of the House and Senate Wednesday.

The product had not yet been voted on by the House and Senate as of early Wednesday evening and is still subject to change. The report was not publicly available at that time.

Earlier Wednesday, the Legislature gave final passage to House Bill 500, the recurring Executive Branch budget bill allocating $31.1 billion over the next two fiscal years.

The $1.7 billion in the latest version of House Bill 900 would come from the state’s Budget Reserve Trust Fund, also known as the “Rainy Day Fund,” and goes toward more than 300 projects across the commonwealth. That’s still significantly lower than the $2.7 billion House Bill 1 from 2024, which similarly split off one-time spending from the recurring Executive Branch budget.

The highest-dollar allocation is $230 million for road projects designated by the recently-finalized two-year road plan bill.

But in contrast to 2024’s House Bill 1, this year’s House Bill 900 proposes fewer high-dollar projects, spreading the money out to a wider range of individual projects.

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, told reporters Wednesday evening that the Senate would take up House Bill 900 “sometime between now and midnight,” and fully expects it to pass.

Similar to the last budget cycle, downtown Louisville would be a big winner in the bill. In the 2024 budget cycle, the city was granted $100 million; this year, it would be slated to get $90 million for projects like the Belvedere, the convention center corridor and the Downtown Vacant Buildings Revitalization/Downtown Development Fund, among others.

Lexington projects would receive almost $30 million total, with another $20 million going to a regional effort that includes Lexington.

The bill includes nearly $20 million for a terminal expansion project at the Blue Grass Airport. That project was dependent on funding to move the air traffic control tower, for which federal funds were recently secured by Sen. Mitch McConnell, and the state also allocated $5 million toward in the bill.

The Aviation Museum of Kentucky would get $4 million to continue its relocation efforts.

A total of $20 million would be allocated to the Central Kentucky Business Park Authority, a regional collaboration between the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government, the Madison County Fiscal Court, the City of Berea and the Scott County Fiscal Court.

The Lexington Children’s Museum would receive just over $3 million for an expansion project. The Lexington Children’s Theater receives $750,000 in the bill for repairs and improvements.

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government received $250,000 to support the “Next Generation Workforce Development Project.”

$1.5 million would be allocated to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government to support a scholarship through the Ed Brown Society.

Another $1.5 million would be granted to Goodwill Kentucky “to support an expansion to a second location in Fayette County.”

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