Henderson’s state legislators say they’re proud of the funding they’ve secured for the community in this year’s General Assembly budget session.
“When you look specifically at the Henderson items, I think we’re…feeling pretty good,” said Henderson Rep. J.T. Payne.
Payne said he and state Sen. Robby Mills met several times before the session began to ensure their local funding priorities were in line so that House and Senate budget proposals included each’s wants.
Mills said he was proud of what he and Payne got for the area. “I’m proud of the work J.T. and I have done,” he said.
Here’s a round up of some of the highlights the legislators are touting.
I-69 funding
At the top of the list is the ongoing funding drive to pay for I-69’s section two phase, which is the bridge portion of the project that has been estimated at a cost of $990 million.
Mills and Payne in a recent release said that they helped secure $374 million for the bridge project–$150 million of state general fund dollars that are ready to be used as a match to federal funds; $175 million of potential federal grant or federal loan funds; and $49 million of national highway funding for project utilities relocation and construction.
Mills said securing the funding for section two is dependent upon money coming from the state of Indiana as well as from federal funding—in whatever form that may take.
A recent release from I-69 Ohio River Crossing said the contract will be awarded in the fall with a scheduled construction start date in spring 2027.
The ‘Loop Road’ and a new addition to the plan
Another piece of funding with local significance—and connection to the I-69 project—is $2.1 million that will be used for the design work of what is being called the “Loop Road,” which is planned to allow for another entrance and exit to Walmart and the Bentley Point subdivision behind it.
Current plans call for the road to intersect with U.S. 60 across from Wathen Lane and then parallel the current I-69 before looping back to the subdivision. Local officials have said that the road is hoped to be a key portion of further retail development in the area as motorists on the interstate will be able to see the businesses. It will also allow for another entrance and exit to the neighborhood and Hoffman Plaza.
Mills said, additionally, that another road is planned as an entrance and exit to the area. He said a road allowing entrance and exit connected to U.S. 41 is planned. But that won’t be built until 2030 or 2031, he said.
K-12 education
Payne, also the principal of Henderson County High School’s Career and Technical Education unit, said this General Assembly’s budget included percentage reduction for most state agencies, but not K-12 public education.
To that point, he said the legislature increased SEEK funding the next two years. SEEK, or Support Education Excellence in Kentucky funding, allows for per student funding based on a school’s enrollment and attendance. The current rate is $4,586, and next fiscal year it goes up to $4,626 and then $4,792 the year after, Payne said.
Payne described the increases as “inflationary.” He said state education funding needs to continue to increase each year.
“To keep up, every single year we should be increasing a little bit,” he said.
He said like with advocates of other state departments, education advocates would have liked to see more funding. But he said legislators funded education in a manner the state could afford.
HB 1
House Bill 1 came under scrutiny locally and across the state earlier in the session because detractors saw it as public money being funneled away from public education. According to a Kentucky Lantern article, HB 1 would allow Kentucky K-12 students to receive scholarships for private school tuition, and it can benefit public school students as well. The scholarships can be used for tutoring services, books, internet access and more, said the article.
The money comes from people who donate up to $1,700 per year as a tax credit to scholarship granting organizations as part of the Education Freedom Tax Credit in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress last year.
Donors can receive the $1,700 credit even if they do not live in a state that has opted into the program, said the Lantern article. So, if Kentucky legislators didn’t vote to opt in to the federal program, the money from donors in the commonwealth would have gone to an SGO in another state.
Payne said he voted for HB 1 because if he didn’t, it was like giving money to students in other states. People who make the $1,700 donation can determine which scholarship granting organization they give to.
Payne said he believes a local organization, perhaps the Henderson Ky Education Foundation, will form a 501(c)(3) SGO and will then distribute the money to students throughout the county. As part of HB 1, the SGO must spend 90% of funding on student support, and it must benefit multiple students from multiple schools, Payne said.
State employee insurance
Another bill that saw early ire from people across the state, especially from state government employees, was House Bill 500, which is the executive branch’s budget. Early in the session, the House released a “skeleton”—according to Payne—budget bill that included increased insurance premiums for state employees.
That early skeleton bill would have required school bus drivers, as one example, to pay $535.18 more for health coverage, bringing take-home pay per month to $145.64, according to a letter from the head of the state Personnel Cabinet cited in a previous Hendersonian article.
Payne said Monday, however, that the Kentucky Employee Health Plan in this year’s budget is fully funded with minimal percentage increases of what employees are currently contributing.
The representative said that claims are only increasing, as well as the plan’s overall cost, and so a long-term conversation needs to be had to determine how to handle the rising costs.
Dolly Parton Imagination Library
A smaller project Payne is proud of working on is keeping funding for local programs that manage the Dolly Parton Imagination Library at a 50/50 split between the state and the local agency. He said an early proposal asked that the state fund 1/3 of the costs of the program, leaving local agencies to fund the other 2/3. He said some smaller counties said they wouldn’t be able to keep the program—which sends out books to children up to five years old—if they had had to fund 2/3 of it.
Watson Lane
Mills said the Watson Lane construction project has $7 million in this biennium, and on the money side of things, it’s ready to get started. He said he hopes the work which will extend from Sunset Lane across U.S. 41 North to about the Stone Gate subdivision area of the road can begin this year.
Ky. 425 Bypass
There’s also $6 million in the next biennium for work on Ky. 425 for about 2 ½ miles coming from I-69 toward the Henderson Riverport, Mills said. There’s more in the state’s six-year road plan to bring the concrete roadway up to par to carry truck traffic to Pratt Paper and other industries nearby. He said repairing the road may help with attracting other industry to the area.
Harbor House
Harbor House Men’s Christian Shelter has had plans to build a second building on its lot for years now. Mills said a $300,000 in funding “should get them across the line” to secure the money it needs for the about $1 million project.
Henderson County Riverport
Another local win was funding coming to the Henderson County Riverport. Ten riverports in the state forming the Kentucky Riverports Association were awarded a total of $33 million. Mills expects Henderson’s riverport to get its share, which could be a boon to business there.
Medicaid
“Medicaid is always going to be a question mark for many years to come,” Mills said. That’s because state legislators are not sure what will happen once federal Medicaid cuts come, which passes the responsibility to states.
Mills said the state will get $36 billion from the federal government while the state funds $6 billion for Medicaid in the next biennium. He said that $42 billion should be enough to keep the same Medicaid funding that Kentucky residents have had the past two years.
“We feel like we have enough money to keep on doing what we’ve been doing the last two years (while we) keep working our way through this,” Mills said.
He said Republicans will look for efficiencies to implement in the system to save money.
In the meantime, legislators have implemented a “lockbox” with $290 million in it that can only be used if the state Medicaid program runs into emergencies during the biennium.
“We’ve got to make sure the people who need (Medicaid) help are getting it,” he said, and added not those who are scamming the system.
Pre-K for All
Gov. Andy Beshear pushed two pieces of Pre-K legislation. One was universal Pre-K. A second was a plan that increased the number of students eligible for Pre-K. Payne was one of two Republicans who co-sponsored a bill which would have allowed children in households making up to 250% of the poverty threshold to attend Pre-K, up from the current 160% of the national poverty level. Neither piece of legislation made much headway.
Roadway will be named for Hopper
Also included in the wins for the local legislators is the naming of a new roadway in honor of Joel Hopper, a founder of the Henderson Leadership Initiative, community advocate, mentor and business leader who died in summer of 2025. That roadway is the current Ky Route 3690, which is the stretch of road that runs from the roundabout on U.S. 60 East (and near his former home) to where it connects with U.S. 41. Mills said he hopes for a sign dedication in the next six months. The roadway will be called “Joel Ray Hopper Memorial Highway,” according to the release.
Personal care homes including Henderson Manor
Mills’ attempt to increase per diem from the state to personal care homes, of which Henderson Manor is one, did not pan out, he said. According to a previous Hendersonian article, personal care homes get about $50 per day per resident. Mills said previously he’d ask for a $25 per day increase in 2027 followed by another $25 per day in 2028 that would put the per diem at that time at $100 per day. That did not happen in this session.
“There was just not any interest at all to give per diem for personal care homes,” Mills said. “I’ll continue to beat the drum for them.”
Funding for personal care homes remained the same. “It did not change at all,” Mills said.
Many complaints have been lodged about Henderson Manor since the Hendersonian wrote about its troubles last spring.
Additional funding
Additional funding included money for blacktopping on Garden Mile Road in Henderson and Hancock, Bell, Third and Seventh streets in Corydon. Mills said the money came from the Local Assistance Road Program. The streets in Corydon were funded for $151,000, and blacktopping Garden Mile Road was allotted $118,000.
Getting the funding for the increase of cost to the Audubon Conference Center was a big win for the legislators and the community. Payne said he coordinated many meetings between legislators and local stakeholders, such as Henderson Mayor Brad Staton and the Henderson Chamber of Commerce.
Payne also touted the $1 million funding for the Henderson Water Utility’s south water treatment plant to build a new water intake. That plant serves Tyson and Columbia in southern Henderson County as well as 3,000 residents in Henderson, Webster and McLean counties.
More highlights from the release:
- An estimated $3.8 million return to Henderson County from coal severance tax revenues during fiscal years 2027 and 2028
- $460,000 for Henderson Regional Airport to support general aviation
- $20,000 for Holy Name School to help fund a full-time School Resource Officer, reflecting expanded state support for SROs in private schools as well as public schools
