FRANKFORT — Kentucky's rainy day fund has run dry.

        State budget officials drained every dollar from the fund to help make up a revenue shortfall that is approaching $700 million this fiscal year.

        In an order compiled Thursday, budget director James Ramsey took $120,014,383 from the budget reserve trust fund, leaving it empty. To make up more of the expected $150 million shortfall, the order also grabbed $14 million from what were termed surplus health care insurance funds for education employees such as teachers.

        Smaller amounts were grabbed from various other places across state government, including $2 million from the appropriation for Gov. Paul Patton's office.

        Faltering revenues to the General Fund had already prompted several other rounds of budget cuts this year amounting to $533 million. The $150 million in the latest round meant a total reduction of nearly 10 percent of the original $7 billion budget.

        The bad news may not all be in hand. Receipts to the General Fund in June have not been tallied and final spending figures are not usually available until a week or two after the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

        The executive branch, which accounts for the vast majority of General Fund spending, had to absorb most of the cuts. But the judicial and legislative branches took even smaller hits proportionally.

        Of the roughly $200 million judicial budget, cuts this fiscal year amounted to just over $2.3 million, or about 1 percent.

        The legislative branch took about a 4 percent hit out of its $57 million budget.

Forensic expert hired to review Owensby case
Pact with nurses averts a walkout
County may seize company buildings
City orders house demolished
Family frustrated by lawyer's silence
Food stars at Panegyri fest
Jury agrees shooting was self defense
Obituary: J. Louis Warm was longtime attorney
Stricter rules on old homes mulled
Tristate A.M. Report
Trustee to leave job with youth sports
Whistleblower signs disputed
RADEL: Renewal
SAMPLES: Scandal
Coalition on Aging turns 10
Freedom festival a fun celebration
Gas plant worker's death probed
New dispatching faster, smarter
Spokes-man is year-round work
Audit names child-support problems
Columbus Zoo funds help to shore up game preserve
Democratic leader had wins, but not in statewide offices
Group cleaning up its political ads
Wanted: Suspected Mideast terrorists
Kentucky News Briefs
Corinth small enough to slip through loophole
911 dispatch consolidated
Effort to clear top admiral at Pearl Harbor rejected
Ky. empties fund to plug budget hole
Roads go up creeks