Kentucky Panel Backs Push to Boost Imagination Library Enrollment as Budget Shift Puts Funding at Risk

Overview

• The House Families and Children Committee unanimously advanced Senate Joint Resolution 54, sending it to the full House for consideration.
• The measure urges the Department for Libraries and Archives and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to coordinate outreach that prioritizes foster children, low-income families, and areas with low participation.
• A Senate-passed budget bill, HB 500, keeps $2.5 million for the program but changes the match so the state would cover one-third of book costs, with the bill now returning to the House to resolve differences.
• Program leaders warn the new formula could force many local partners to close, saying more than 80% surveyed expect to shut down within a year as the program delivers books to over 138,000 Kentucky children each month.
• Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library mails one free age-appropriate book monthly to children from birth to age five, and Kentucky data links participation to kindergarten readiness gains of up to 13 percentage points.