Kentucky legislature overrides governor’s vetoes on school spending bills

The Kentucky legislature on Friday overrode a veto from Gov. Matt Bevin (R) on a $480 million state tax increase aimed at providing additional funding for public schools. 

The Republican-held Kentucky House of Representatives vote came as thousands of teachers mobbed the state capitol on Friday protesting insufficient funds for classrooms, The Associated Press reports. 

{mosads}Bevin said a tax increase would not be enough to cover the the state’s new spending plan, which increased public school budgets. The conservative governor had vetoed both the legislature’s two-year plan and the corresponding tax increase passed last month. 

Lawmakers voted 66-28 to keep the spending bill, which would spend a record $4,000 for every student enrolled in the public school system, following a 57-40 override of Bevin’s veto on the tax hike. 

Kentucky’s protests come as lawmakers in Oklahoma and Arizona are also facing large-scale teacher strikes and protests, emboldened by a West Virginia statewide strike last month forced the deep-red state to raise teacher salaries by 5 percent. 

Teachers in Kentucky first walked out of their classrooms last month to demand changes to their pension system, and shut down eight school districts in two of the state’s largest metropolitan areas.