Family members of Kathy Kinney gather around her in a vehicle near her flooded home at Ramsey Mobile Home Park in Pikeville, Feb. 17, 2025. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
FRANKFORT — A bill to set up a state aid fund for Kentucky communities affected by recent flooding received Senate approval Thursday a couple of days after passage in the House.
Gov. Andy Beshear has said the bill, which appropriates no new money, “isn’t enough and won’t be enough.”
The Senate version raises a $50 million cap that the legislature had imposed last year on the Beshear administration’s emergency spending without receiving legislative approval.
Senators unanimously passed House Bill 544 in a vote of 38-0. Rep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, introduced the bill in the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee Tuesday morning. Hours later, the House passed the bill by a vote of 99-0.
The bill would establish a new SAFE fund, or State Aid for Emergencies, like Kentucky started after earlier floods and tornadoes. The bill allows $48 million to be transferred from the previous SAFE funds to the new one created by the bill.
The Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee adopted a new version of the bill Wednesday morning, which would allow $100 million to be spent on flood aid from the 2024-26 state budget for governor-declared emergencies, instead of the $50 million limit per fiscal year set by the legislature last year.
Beshear said the Senate changes make the bill “a little bit better from where it originally was” by allowing funds allocated for next fiscal year to be used now. But that also could present a problem if the funds used now end up being needed for a future disaster.
Beshear said the bill as it is now means cities and counties responding to the February floods will have to pay for cleanups and infrastructure repairs and then “carry significant amounts of money” while waiting for reimbursement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency “which can take years in some cases.”
The governor said the state has had 13 federally declared disasters in the time he’s held the office — which is about two a year.
“We will run out of money, not just in responding to this natural disaster, but we won’t have any that has been authorized, and in fact, has been limited and capped for the first time ever, when we’re hit by our next natural disaster,” the governor said.
Beshear has previously called on lawmakers to remove the caps for the executive branch. When the legislation was introduced earlier this week, his spokesperson Crystal Staley said in a statement lawmakers received a substitute bill Monday night that would have provided up to an additional $100 million in possible reallocations by the governor for flood recovery, but that provision was eliminated in Tuesday morning’s committee meeting.
On Thursday, Beshear raised concerns that Kentuckians facing the aftermath of the February floods won’t receive the same help Kentuckians affected by the 2022 floods or 2021 tornadoes did. He called that “wrong.”
“In the end, my job is to help people as much as we can, and so while the bill isn’t nearly enough, I’ll sign it,” Beshear said.
Earlier in his press conference, Beshear warned Kentuckians about possible severe weather this weekend.