Kentucky General Assembly enacted a budget rider letting state child-placement contractors refuse services on religious grounds
On April 13, 2022, Kentucky's General Assembly enacted the 2022-2024 executive branch budget (House Bill 1, delivered to the Secretary of State as Acts Chapter 199), which included a rider barring state contracts for Department for Community Based Services child-placement work from interfering with a contractor's exercise of religion and letting a contractor who cannot perform a service due to religiously held beliefs have the state substitute another licensed contractor. The provision codifies a religious-refusal carve-out for state-funded foster-care and adoption placement contracting.