In 1936, Chandler urged implementation of the state's first rural roads program and development of electrical infrastructure with assistance from the federal Rural Electrification Act. He implemented an old-age assistance program authorized by an earlier constitutional amendment, and in 1938, he proposed another amendment that would add dependent children and needy blind people to the state's assistance rolls. He increased funding to the state's hospitals and asylums, and he personally aided with the evacuation of the Frankfort Penitentiary during the Ohio River flood of 1937. Following the flood, Chandler convinced the legislature to construct the new Kentucky State Reformatory, at La Grange.