Stimulus, budget, hurry up and wait

EdWeek's Politics K-12 asks "So which eight states are dragging their feet, using every last hour of their time?" and answers: Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

In Kentucky, here's the state of the bidding. The revenue forecast saw new problems, the Governor called a special session to enact solutions, the legislature cut some spending, added some spending, and cut some taxes, and now the Governor is back to designing new solutions to fit the new monetary situation.

In today's installment, the Bluegrass Politics Blog reports that:

A new fiscal year begins Wednesday but state agencies won’ t know until mid-July how deep they must cut their budgets to balance the budget, Gov. Steve Beshear said Monday.

That almost certainly means the federal application will take at least that long.

More helpfully, Bluegrass Politics adds that:

Beshear said Monday that Medicaid, K-12 and post-secondary education will not be asked to cut their budgets to make up for the additional revenue lost to the tax incentives.