The General Assembly gave final approval Wednesday to the state’s transportation budget, HB 501, committing significant new investments in county road funding.
The budget includes unprecedented $70.2 million in fiscal year 2027 for the Local Assistance Road Program (LARP) to assist counties and cities with road projects, along with $20 million in FY28 for the program.
In recent years, LARP has been funded at around $20 million annually. The additional funding in FY27 provides enough funding to complete all projects ranked 8, 9, or 10 that were submitted for consideration last fall.
A list of the approved projects can be found in HJR 76, which the House also passed Wednesday.
The budget also includes $25 million each year for the County and City Bridge Improvement Program.
The final version also added funding for county roads through two additional appropriations.
In FY27, the budget includes a grant pool for counties and cities. Eligible projects include road improvements, new construction, sidewalks, multimodal projects and pavement resurfacing.
Each county is eligible for up to $100,000, except for Fayette, Jefferson and any county whose county seat is not a unified city are eligible for up to $200,000. Cities that serve as a county seat is eligible for up to $100,000.
Grants will require a dollar-for-dollar match and county road aid funds cannot be used to meet the match requirement.
Additionally, the budget includes $13 million from the general fund in FY28 for county road aid, supplementing the motor fuels tax receipts distributed through the revenue sharing formula.
Driver licensing
The transportation budget also takes steps to address concerns with driver licensing services by funding additional regional offices, allowing public libraries to conduct vision screenings and conducting a study on wait times.
Funding is included in the current fiscal year along with funding in the biennium to add three regional driver license offices in Barren, Bullitt and Oldham counties.
The budget allocates $125,000 in FY28 to allow vision testing for driver’s license renewals to be completed at public libraries. Libraries may participate in the program through a memorandum of agreement with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
Vision testing would be conducted at no cost to the public and KYTC would be responsible for all costs of implementing and operating the program.
Finally, the budget requires a level-of-service report on regional driver licensing offices, with data on wait times to be submitted to the Interim Joint Committee on Transportation by Sept. 1, 2027.
Photo: Rep. Ken Upchurch (left) confers with House Speaker David Osborne during House proceedings. Photo by LRC Public Information.
