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WUKY takes a look back and ahead with Kentucky's Governor and First Lady

Team Kentucky

We sat down with Governor Andy Beshear and First Lady Britainy Beshear to close out 2024 and discuss priorities and goals leading into 2025 and beyond.

Czar: “I'm being joined by Governor Andy Beshear and First Lady Britainy Beshear for our annual end of year interview. Governor, as we put a period on 2024, what are you most proud of in your 1st year of your final term in office?”

Gov Beshear: “Well, I'm really proud, that we have continued, the biggest best economic development win streak in our history. This will be our fourth best year in Kentucky's history for private sector investment. We'll have had about $6.9 billion of new investment, about 94-hundred new jobs, great new employers like the Shelbyville Battery Manufacturing Company bringing in 1,500 new jobs, making big industrial grade batteries that help power the Super Bowl this last year.”

“I love how we've expanded health care all over Kentucky, including opening the first hospital in West Louisville in 150 years.”

“I think about what we're doing in infrastructure. The Mountain Parkway got a really big federal grant that's going to help speed it up. We're running Internet access right now to about 80,000 homes, and that's even before the bead money comes in.”

“So, I'm proud of Kentucky. I'm proud that in this last year that seems so divisive as a nation that we seem pretty united here, wanting not to move to the right or the left, but to move forward, to make real progress.”

“And as I travel, I see a state that is optimistic, you know, in the midst of a country that is pessimistic. So very proud of all of our people, and because of it, I mean, we're being looked up to. We're being seen as a model and having a chance this year to be able to talk to a national audience for different reasons. But to tell not my story, but our story as a Commonwealth, that was pretty special.”

Czar: “And governor, heading into this next legislative session, what do you hope are the top goals of lawmakers, and what are your priorities?”

Gov Beshear: “Well, as we look at the upcoming two years, because this will be a short session and the budget session comes after, I think we've got to do a couple of things.”

“Number 1, we have to continue to invest in public education. Amendment 2 that tried to move public dollars to private schools lost by 30 points and lost in all 120 counties. So that discussion should be done. Now should be when we come back together and say, how do we improve public education? Well, we do that with a couple of things. We've got to continue to make compensation for educators better. We have to have universal Pre-K. Many of our surrounding states have it, and we're at a competitive disadvantage for not having it.”

“We needed to get people back into the workforce. We got to continue to invest in our career and technical pathways because you go to these centers and you get to see nursing students, robotic students, and welders all working together and cheering for each other on those good career paths where no matter what you want to choose, now we're with you, and we want to get you the training for it to work. We’ve got to look at affordable housing. And I think in this next session, there's going to be some opportunities to do more, to speed that up. We've got some great existing programs that leverage private dollars. You know, everybody out there that's working a good job ought to be able to at least look at affording a house in in the next couple of years, and that's gotten harder, and harder.”

“And then we need to do just a couple small things in economic development to make sure we continue to be competitive. You know, with all the investment we have from South Korea, about $10 billion we're one of the only one of states in our region that doesn’t have an office there. So, we’ve got to make sure that we are looking at what other states competing states are doing and securing foreign direct investment and make sure we're doing enough.”

Czar: “Earlier this month, you talked about your plan to extend benefits for employees in the executive branch in an effort to keep more people here in Kentucky working here in Kentucky. Can you elaborate on that?”

Gov. Beshear: “Our state employees work so hard, and they went without raises for over a decade. It used to be the way you would recruit state workers is, yes, you didn't make as much as a private sector, but you had a pension. In other words, the state made up for decades of service and underpaying you on the back end with a with a lot of security.”

“But when the legislature cut the pensions, they didn't raise salaries. And so what we saw is not enough corrections officers, not enough department of juvenile justice, workers, not enough social workers, and that ends up harming, the people across Kentucky. Well, we've been able to get a lot of raises these last couple of years, and recruiting has gone up. More state troopers, more corrections officers. We are seeing real improvement in some of the areas we needed it the most. But the other way we compete with the private sector is to have good benefits.”

“And so, we now have health care on day one, which is really exciting. Britainy and I and our family had to wait a month when I became attorney general from the job that I left to this one, and that's hard on families. And now, paid family leave. Now when you welcome a new child through birth or adoption or foster care, that 6-week period you could have or, if you become seriously ill. And basically, you have 6 weeks during the first ten years and another, and then six weeks during the second and then 6 weeks after that.”

“It makes us competitive from a benefit standpoint, but it also says thank you to our state workers that we care about you, that we know things can happen in life, and we value you, and we want to be there with you.”

Czar: And First Lady, I want to turn to you. Education has been a priority of yours. What is your focus going to be on when it comes to education in the upcoming year?”

First Lady Beshear: “The education system in Kentucky has so many amazing teachers and faculty who show up every single day and care about the kids in their classroom, and they find the most creative ways to reach every student.”

“I was at an elementary school in Louisville where, one teacher had turned her entire classroom into a safari and had a tent that the kids sat under that week. So, each day was a different piece of learning about Africa and the animals that live there and the population that lives there. Another one had made a circus. He had literally created a three-ring circus tent in his classroom and dressed up every single day to just foster that creativity and love of learning in his children.”

“So, my point for the educational piece and seeing all of these hard workers who are engaging our students every day is engaging children and knowing that they're listening. And the way that you, I think, have children listen and respond is by listening to them and by asking them questions about what is on their minds. And you ask a kid a question and you open the Pandora's box of all kinds of things, and I love it. And I think it's also important as an adult that you don't laugh at what a child says because it's important to them, so it's important to me. And so, I think just for kids knowing that there are adults out there who care about them, it helps foster that sense of safety and security in a classroom setting as well.”

Czar: “And you're our own Dolly Parton because you believe in getting kids to read early, getting them to read often, and getting books into the hands of every Kentucky child.”

First Lady Beshear: “I do, but I don't have fairy dust like she does. She's magical. But Dolly's Imagination Library is such an amazing piece that Kentucky families all have access to. It is in every single county in Kentucky. Right now, we have about 48% of children enrolled in the program who are eligible.”

“If you have a child out there who is between the ages of birth and 5 years old, they are eligible for a free monthly book from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, and all the adult has to do is go online and sign them up at Dolly Parton's Imagination Library website.”

Czar: “And the first dog, Winnie, where is she?”

Gov. Beshear: She's over here. (Note: Winnie is slumbering behind the First Lady’s chair)

Czar: “You always joke that she's one of the favorites.”

Gov. Beshear: “She is the favorite.”

First Lady Beshear: “It’s not a joke. It's just facts.”

Czar: “She has her own book club. How did that come about?”

Gov. Beshear: “Well, Winnie just everybody loves Winnie. And she's now a two-time published author with 2 coloring books. So, it's Winnie 2, the governor and first lady 0 on publishing books. So, we thought it was a perfect way for her to reach folks, but she just, Winnie radiates love. That's just who she is.”

“She loves seeing people in the capital. She loves being around kids. And just a way to use how people feel about her to get them engaged in reading, we thought, was a great idea.”

Czar: “Where do you see the Beshears in three more years after your time governing Kentucky is over?”

First Lady Beshear: “Hopefully, we have one in college and one about to be in college.”

Gov. Beshear: “That's the that's the immediate. You know, right now, we're just focused on the next two years and 350 something days, that each one is a blessing. I mean, you're thinking at Christmas about your blessings, and this job for us has been special, important. We're with Kentuckians at a time when we're seeing record achievement. We're seeing people's lives change for the better every day, and I don't want to shortchange that at all.”

“I've also committed to the Democratic Governors Association, and we'll be helping on 36 races in, 2026, trying to make sure that there are good governors all across the country, that can lead their states forward. So, we're not looking forward. We're trying to live in the moment, do the best we can in these jobs.”

Czar: “You've said no to a potential senate run.”

Gov. Beshear: “Correct. I wouldn't give up one year of being governor at this special moment in time for six years of being a senator, and I just love what you can do as governor.”

Czar: “Presidential future?”

Gov. Beshar: “Oh, right now, we're just focused on this job. If I do my job right here, the Commonwealth is better off. If I do my job right for the Democratic Governors Association, we're going to have lots more names that are out there in that 2028 discussion. But what it'll mean is that there are more reasonable, practical leaders that are focused on the everyday concerns of people that start with their job and their health care, the roads and bridges they drive on, public safety, and public education. And if we can just have more leaders focused on that and less on the right and the left, I mean, more focused on moving forward, that’ll be a good thing for the whole country.”

Czar: “Every year, I close out with the same question with you, mainly because there seems to be something very heavy that has happened within the year. Your first year in office, of course, the pandemic, followed by the tornadoes of Western Kentucky. Then we had the flooding in Eastern Kentucky. This year, there was uncertainty about your potential heading into the slot of vice president for the Democratic Party in the presidential race. If you knew then what you know now, would you change the trajectory of anything?”

Gov. Beshear: “I got to talk about Kentucky to a national audience for multiple weeks getting hundreds of millions of dollars of coverage about us, about this state. And since I've had economic development prospects come here and talk about that, had opportunities to tell our stories in other and new ways. And while it was a really difficult process and while I very publicly did not get chosen, I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it at all because Kentucky, I think, got a great spotlight, got to be looked up to instead of looked down on.”

“I just think we're seen in a whole different light, today. And that was just one part of, hopefully, what made that happen. That's why we launched the new Kentucky Home Initiative. It's the idea that we can leave the stereotypes of the past in the past and take everything we love about Kentucky and invite the world to join us. Because when we look at all these battery plants that are going up, we look at jobs of the future, and suddenly, somebody from Kentucky is in one of those conversations, which we haven't had in a long time, you know, that that helps move us all forward.”

“And I hope I made everybody out there proud regardless of party and how I talked about how much I love, where I'm from.”

Karyn Czar joined the WUKY News team July 1, 2013, but she's no stranger to radio.