Proving that something positive may come out of a much feared legislative session, Representative Savannah Maddox has filed House Bill 178, a first step in restoring transparency -- not to mention informed decision making -- to the Kentucky General Assembly by requiring any bill taken up on the floor of the House or Senate chamber to have a publicly available fiscal impact note (alternatively known as a fiscal statement).

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/25rs/hb178.html

The bill appears to be a positive response to a disturbing investigation last year by Kentucky Public Radio reporter Joe Sonka in which Sonka detailed a secret legislative practice -- even as to the great majority of legislators -- of directing the creation of “confidential” fiscal notes. The practice precluded most of them, and the public as a whole, from knowing the fiscal impact of a proposal on the state budget.

https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-08-01/confidential-hiding-the-cost-of-leg…

In his unconvincing defense of the secret practice, Senate President Robert Stivers characterized fiscal notes as “quicksand” for bills leadership wants to move, “especially late in the session.” He offered hollow assurances that the select few with access to them “do a good job with the best information we have.”

Maddox counters, "If we have been tasked with doing the people's business, we have a responsibility to know how much money we would be spending on a piece of legislation. Those are taxpayer dollars. The public has a right to know how much of their money is being spent.”

https://www.lpm.org/news/2025-01-16/maddox-seeks-to-end-passage-of-bill…-

Passage of this bill should be a no-brainer even to the most rabid party loyalists who themselves likely had no prior knowledge of the secret fiscal note practice, until the publication of Sonka's story last year, and were thus deprived of the ability to form their own opinion and cast an intelligent vote.