By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Barren County representative Steve Riley has sponsored six bills that range from education and income tax to home-based food processors and identity documents less than a week into the state’s 30-day legislative session.
Riley is listed as a sponsor along with 46 other Republican representatives on the House Bill 1, which aims to lower the individual income tax rat from 4 to 3.5 percent. The bill plans to bring Republicans one step closer to their eventual goal of eliminating the tax altogether. In 2022 they lowered the 5 percent tax to 4.5 percent and lowered it again by half a point in 2023.
The bill was filed on the first day of the assembly and by Jan. 9 had cleared the House by a vote of 90-7.
Riley joined nine others in his sponsorship of House Bill 48 that would “increase the time period between mandatory summative evaluations for tenured certified school staff from once every three years to once every five years.” There was little to no movement on that bill in the four days before the break. On Jan. 7, it was introduced to the House Committee on Committees and has remained there.
Another educationally minded bill Riley has put his name on is House Bill 118, which aims “to help meet Kentucky’s growing workforce needs” by allowing Western Kentucky University to offer up to five doctoral degree programs the Council on Postsecondary Educations deems “directly affecting the workforce and economy on Kentucky.”
If passed the bill would put WKU in the running for a “R2” classification by Carnegie Classification — the first university in the commonwealth to be classified R2.
Like HB 48, no action has been taken on the bill save introducing it to the committee on committees.
Riley’s other three sponsored bills also are in that committee, according to the Legislative Research Commission. His other bills include expanding the definition of home-based processors to include “roasted coffee beans in the list of foods a home-based processor may produce,” allow third-parties to apply with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to process identity document applications, and the exclusion of military pensions from the income tax.
The commission reports 213 House bills have been filed so far. The last day to introduce a House bill is Feb. 19.
Riley was reelected to the state House of Representatives in 2024 with 16,517 votes.
