Kentucky lawmakers still have not reached an agreement on a two-year state spending plan.
House and Senate leaders had hoped to have a deal by midnight Monday. That would have given the legislature time to override any potential vetoes by Republican Governor Matt Bevin. But leaders ended budget talks shortly after 10 p.m. Monday with plans to resume Tuesday morning.
Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo said the two sides are growing farther apart. He blamed the poor negotiations on Bevin, saying he was interfering with the process.
Bevin told reporters everything was negotiable. He said Stumbo had changed the tone of the negotiations by telling reporters they were unlikely to agree to a budget this year that could result in a partial government shutdown.
And Kentucky Chief Justice John Minton has made a final appeal to state lawmakers for an extra $60 million to keep the court system running over the next two years.
Minton said the judicial branch budget as approved by the state legislature would leave the state court system with a more than $76 million deficit. He said it would require 600 layoffs and force the state to shut down its drug court program and scale back pretrial services. He said that would put 17,000 people at risk of being sent to jail while awaiting trial on criminal charges because there would be no one available to supervise them during their release.
But the extra money would have to come from the executive branch budget. Lawmakers have not been able to agree on how to spend that money.