Rep. Bill Wesley

Amend KRS 95A.292 to allow rescue squad members to participate in the Alan "Chip" Terry Professional Development and Wellness Program; and create a new section of KRS Chapter 39F to direct the Division of Emergency Management and the Kentucky Fire Commission to enter into an agreement to ensure that rescue squad members have access to the program.

Direct local school districts to provide a one-time payment of $2,000 to certified employees, excluding superintendents, in each year of the 2024-2026 biennium, and a one-time payment of $1,000 to classified employees in each year of the 2024-2026 biennium; appropriate $153 million from the Budget Reserve Trust Fund in each year of the 2024-2026 biennium to the Department of Education to provide the payments; APPROPRIATION.

Amend KRS 164.295 to permit Eastern Kentucky University to offer doctor's degrees required for professional practice and licensure in osteopathic medicine.

Amend KRS 164.295 to permit Murray State University to offer doctor's degrees required for professional practice and licensure in veterinary medicine.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 164 to define terms; prohibit a public postsecondary education institution from providing differential treatment or benefits on the basis of an individual's religion, race, sex, color, or national origin; from influencing the composition of the student body or scholarship recipients on the basis of religion, race, sex, color, or national origin; from implementing a student housing assignment plan on the basis of religion, race, color, or national origin with designated exceptions; from expending any resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the promotion of discriminatory topics, or bias incident investigations; from soliciting statements on an applicant's experience with or views on religion, race, sex, color, or national origin; from requiring a course or training on diversity, equity, and inclusion or discriminatory concepts as a program requirement; and from permitting credit from a course dedicated to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion or discriminatory concepts to count towards the total number of credits required for a degree or certificate, or disseminating or profiting from any research, work product, or material that promotes or justifies discriminatory concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion; establish exclusions; require each governing board of a public postsecondary education institution to amend the institution's policy on nondiscrimination to include a clause on ideological neutrality that prohibits institutional discrimination on the basis of an individual's political or social ideology; prohibit a public postsecondary education institution from requiring or encouraging any individual to endorse or condemn a specific political or social ideology or make any inquiry into the political or social ideology of students, faculty, and staff or from providing preferential or prejudicial consideration or treatment to an individual on the basis of that individual's actual or perceived political or social ideology; prohibit the Council on Postsecondary Education from providing differential treatment or benefits on the basis of an individual's religion, race, sex, color, or national origin or from expending any resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion or discriminatory topics; establish exclusions for legal compliance; require each governing board of a public postsecondary education institution to ensure compliance with specific sections of this Act no later than June 30, 2024; require the council and institutions to collaborate on a standardized procedure to consider denying transfer credit earned in courses dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and to develop data collection and reporting methods; authorize the Attorney General to bring an action for a writ of mandamus to compel the council or a public postsecondary education institution to comply; create a cause of action to permit a qualified individual to file a civil action against council or a public postsecondary education institution for injunctive relief and damages arising from a violation of this Act; waive sovereign and governmental immunity; prohibit retaliation; require each public postsecondary education institution to submit and publish a certified annual report on governmentally mandated discrimination to the Legislative Research Commission by October 1 each year; provide that a public postsecondary education institution or the council cannot claim a federal, state, judicial, contractual, or accreditation mandate as a defense to a civil action filed under this Act unless the policy, practice, or procedure upon which the complaint is founded is listed and clearly and accurately described in the public institution's annual report on governmentally mandated discrimination; require the council to develop and publish an annual assessment to evaluate intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at public postsecondary education institutions; require each institution to annually distribute the assessment to all students, faculty, and staff and publish the results; require each public postsecondary education institution to provide the Personnel Cabinet and State Treasurer the name, job title, duty station, salary or wages, and amount of any contracted severance or other form of post-employment compensation of each employee of the institution by the twentieth day of each month beginning January 1, 2025, and to post its itemized annual budget; amend KRS 164.020 to prohibit the Council on Postsecondary Education from approving a degree, certificate, or diploma program that is not aligned with Section 2 of this Act; direct the Council on Postsecondary Education to consider alignment with Section 2 of this Act when considering the elimination of an existing program; direct each public postsecondary education institution and the Council on Postsecondary Education to discontinue designated programs and follow designated procedures when implementing this Act; provide specific instructions for public postsecondary education institutions and the Council on Postsecondary Education to follow in implementing this Act; direct public postsecondary education institutions and the council to submit a report on implementation of this Act; require public postsecondary education institutions to submit a series of reports on historical employment data for diversity, equity, and inclusion employees; EFFECTIVE, in part, February 1, 2025; EMERGENCY.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 164 to define terms; establish the Kentucky Aerospace, Aviation, and Defense Investment Fund Advisory Committee; establish the membership of the committee; establish the Kentucky aerospace, aviation, and defense investment fund to be administered by the Council for Postsecondary Education for the purpose of funding public and private partnerships to provide aviation training scholarships and aviation and aerospace equipment grants; require that the portion of the fund expended towards the council's administrative costs shall not exceed 4% of all gross moneys in the fund or $1,500,000 annually, whichever is less; direct the council to promulgate administrative regulations to carry out this Act; require those administrative regulations to be submitted to the Legislative Research Commission for comment prior to filing; require advisory committee members to abstain from voting on a matter involving a conflict of interest; require that the council shall reserve at least 65% of all net moneys in the fund for partnership proposals between aviation programs and aviation industry partners to provide aviation training scholarships to Kentucky residents enrolled in aviation programs; direct the council to prioritize accepting partnerships to proposals targeted to reduce the workforce demand of a specific eligible aviation credential that is determined by the council to be among the highest in demand in the Commonwealth; direct that a partnership shall require a written partnership contract and establish the minimum contract requirements; direct that disbursements of moneys from the fund to support aviation training scholarships shall be made directly to an aviation program pursuant to the terms of the partnership contract; require that an aviation program that enters a partnership contract shall solicit, accept, and review aviation training scholarship applications submitted by students enrolled in the aviation program; direct that an aviation training scholarship issued by an aviation program pursuant to a partnership contract shall be made directly to a recipient pursuant to a written scholarship contract between the recipient and the aviation program; set minimum contract requirements; direct that a grantor may place restrictions upon a contribution to the fund requiring specific criteria for an aviation training scholarship or scholarships funded by the grantor's dedicated funds; direct that the aviation training scholarship contract shall grant the aviation program, the Commonwealth, or the aviation industry partner the authority to initiate recoupment proceedings for the recovery of the total amount of all aviation training scholarships awarded to an individual that fails to complete the terms of a scholarship contract; direct the council to reserve up to 35% of all net moneys in the fund for aviation equipment partnership contracts between public aviation training programs and aviation industry partners to provide aviation and aviation equipment grants; requrie that an aviation equipment partnership shall require a written partnership contract between a public aviation program, aviation industry partner, and the council; establish minimum contract requirements; direct the council to collaborate with the advisory committee to select proposals for partnership contracts; direct that the council may prioritize designated contracts; provide that the council shall require the public aviation program to submit proof that the entire amount of the aviation equipment grant is invested in the maintenance, acquisition, or lease of aviation or aviation training equipment utilized by students enrolled in a public aviation training program; require the council to submit a report to the Legislative Research Commission and establish minimum report requirements; sunset the bill on June 30, 2030; provide that this Act may be cited as the Aerospace Education Reinvestment Opportunity (A.E.R.O.) Act; APPROPRIATION; EMERGENCY.

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 277 to require a crew of at least two persons during the operation of a train; provide exceptions; amend KRS 277.990 to include penalties for crews of less than two persons.

Amend KRS 278.264 to prohibit the Public Service Commission from approving the retirement of a fossil fuel-fired electric generating unit unless the commission finds that the utility has no undepreciated investment in the unit and that the costs to operate the unit are greater than the revenue that it generates.

Amend KRS 139.010 to define "disability" and "service animal"; amend KRS 139.480 to exempt veterinarian services and charges for veterans' service animals from the sales and use tax; EFFECTIVE August 1, 2024.

Amend KRS 139.495 to exempt all sales made by resident nonprofit educational, charitable, or religious institutions.