MONTGOMERY — The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday passed a package of education appropriations bills covering the Fiscal Year 2021 budget.
SB 242, a $1.25 billion Public School and College Authority bond issue, received final passage and now heads to Governor Kay Ivey’s desk.
This came after House passage of HB 187, the FY21 Education Trust Fund budget bill, as well as supplemental education appropriations bills: HBs 190, 191, 192 and 193.
Those five House bills now head to the Senate for a first reading on Thursday. The soonest the education appropriations bills can pass the Senate is Saturday.
HB 187 currently represents a $7.2 billion budget, with $91 million in increases from the previous year.
The House gave House Ways and Means Education Chairman Bill Poole (R-Tuscaloosa) a standing ovation upon House passage of the package. House Majority Whip Danny Garrett (R-Trussville) called Poole’s work on the package “Herculean.”
You can follow a live-tweet thread from the legislative day here.
State Rep. Andrew Sorrell (R-Muscle Shoals) was the lone “nay” vote throughout all of the voting on the education budget package except on SB 242, when four additional Republicans voted “nay.”
In a statement to Yellowhammer News’ Jeff Poor, Sorrell explained his reasoning.
“While Alabamians are figuring out how to pay their rent and being told not to leave their houses, and unemployment is hitting highs not seen in 90 years since the Great Depression, the Alabama legislature is somehow appropriating approximately $250 million more in spending this year than last year between our two budgets,” said Sorrell.
“I fear this recession may last longer than projections indicate, and I cannot in good conscience come to Montgomery and cast votes that grow government and that don’t seem to take into account the economic realities of the times,” he continued. “The legislature should tighten its belt alongside the voters and level fund the budgets. Adjustments could then be made in a special session when we have more information to make our decisions off of.”
It should be noted that Alabama’s constitution requires balanced budgets every year, which is being adhered to in the current legislative budget process.
Responding to Sorrell in a statement to Yellowhammer News, State Rep. Andy Whitt (R-Harvest) pointed out that the education budget especially uses conservative budgeting. Poole and Garrett on the floor both highlighted out that the rolling reserve system instituted by Republicans last decade and still currently used for the ETF has provided that the FY21 education budget will be relatively stable, even amid a pandemic.
Whitt stated, “Since Republicans gained control of the Legislature in 2010, significant fiscal reforms have been enacted. Rather than appropriating dollars based upon risky, undependable revenue projections, for example, we now use a rolling average of previous years’ revenues. As a result, the proration that was declared in our budgets on an average of every other year under Democrat rule has not been declared even once in the decade since Republicans have taken charge.”
“Our rainy day funds, the Advancement and Technology Fund, and other Republican reforms have ensued that several hundred million dollars remain accessible and available in times of crisis,” he continued. “Record revenues were being realized at the time that COVID-19 struck, and almost $2 billion in federal assistance has come to the state under the federal CARES Act. The Alabama Legislature’s only obligation under the 1901 Constitution is to draft and pass balanced state budgets, and we are doing that job in a manner that is fiscally-responsible, conservative, and disciplined. Alabama will continue to live well within its means under the budgets we are passing, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply uneducated about the fiscal facts as they exist.”
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
