The 2015 regular session of the Alabama legislature came to a close at the beginning of June. These are a sampling of thoughts, in their own words, from Franklin County representatives on achievements during the session.

Sen. Larry Stutts

Republican – Senate District 6

During the past few months, I have worked very hard with my colleagues in the Senate to pass legislation that will advance Alabama with smart, conservative legislation to promote economic growth, give our parents and students additional educational choices and reform programs that are driving our state government’s spending.

It is vital that our students and parents have choices when it comes to public education. I don’t think a ZIP code should limit a parent’s choice on where their son or daughter can attend public school. So I was happy to support the School Choice and Student Opportunity Act to allow the formation of public charter schools in Alabama. Forty-two other states have already implemented this innovative education reform. Giving parents and students another education option is the responsible thing to do; public charter schools should encourage innovation in our education system and give parents more options.

The nearly $6 billion 2016 fully-funded education budget passed the legislature with unanimous, bi-partisan support. It increases funding for voluntary Pre-K by $10 million, with a $13 million increase for textbooks, and a $5.2 million increase for dual enrollment programs. The education budget is fiscally responsible and should avoid proration.

To spur job growth in our state, the Senate passed the Alabama Jobs Act, which provides pay-as-you-go economic incentives to companies that create a minimum of 50 new jobs in the state. A companion bill, the Veterans and Rural Jobs Act, provides additional incentives and tax credits to companies that create at least 25 new jobs in rural counties and for companies that hire veterans. These incentives will help us attract new businesses and encourage our existing businesses to expand by building new factories and job sites.

Protecting taxpayer dollars is a priority: the Prison Reform Act should prevent a costly federal takeover of Alabama’s prisons, and will help solve the problem of overcrowding in our prisons by instituting smart sentencing reform. The Mandatory Tax Expenditure Report will require the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Office to produce an annual report for the legislators and the public to show every credit, exemption, economic incentive, and deduction being used. These bills should save millions of taxpayer dollars and increase transparency.

The Senate passed a bare-bones General Fund budget (Alabama is one of only three states with split budgets: one for education, and the General Fund for everything else) with pretty steep cuts to a number of state agencies, including Mental Health and Medicaid. We expect Governor Bentley to call us back in for a special session to fix the $200 million deficit between state revenues and what the state spent last fiscal year. Hopefully we can use this opportunity to find a broader, long-term solution.

My Republican colleagues in the Senate and I will work hard over the summer to put together a plan that will re-structure the entire budget process and fix the state’s underlying fiscal issues once and for all.

On a personal level, I was happy to sponsor and pass legislation to reform the board of trustees for the University of North Alabama. Formerly, trustees serving on the UNA Board served twelve-year terms. My legislation shortens the term to six years, which is in line with other state universities. Twelve years is a long-term obligation some are unable to make. We have had respected leaders in business and academia decline to serve as UNA trustees because of the current term length. With staggered six-year terms, UNA will attract a wider pool of candidates and ensure the Board always has a good mix of experience and new ideas.

Rep. Ken Johnson

Republican – House District 7

The 2015 regular session brought many challenges this year. Unfortunately we don’t have enough revenue to fund all the things we need to from the General fund budget. As vice chair of the House general fund committee, I heard and had much discussion about the lack of funds available for needs such as Medicaid, DHR, mental health, State Troopers and others. Hopefully some solutions to that funding will develop before we get called back to a special session to deal with revenue issues.

In spite of all the publicity surrounding the general fund budget this session, there was some significant legislation that was passed.
Prison reform legislation will help reduce the overcrowded prison system and hopefully prevent federal intervention.

School choice is important to Alabama parents. We passed Public charter school legislation this session. Charter schools have been around for many years in other states. This allowed Alabama to learn from those states the things which haven’t and have worked in development of our legislation.

We passed the largest Education budget ever financed solely from taxpayer revenue this session putting more money into the classroom. Including more money for the nationally recognized Pre K programs for the state.
We passed the Right to Try Act which will allow terminally ill patients access to experimental treatments and drugs.
This session I was happy to be the house sponsor of bringing more improvements and accountability to the Alabama Accountability Act, which passed a couple of years ago. This legislation will provide more opportunity for the children in underperforming schools to have access to better schools. It will also provide more data from schools and scholarship granting organizations as we measure the success of the program.

Finally, the last bill was most special to me and I was glad to be the House sponsor of it. The ABLE ACT, which is under the Federal 529A legislation, allows families to save tax advantaged money for the future care of children with disabilities just like we save money for a child’s future education needs. It was fully supported by the entire legislative body.  It will be developed and administered by the Alabama State Treasurers office and will hopefully be available soon.

Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow

Democrat – House District 18

Since 2010, Governor Bentley, Mike Hubbard and Del Marsh have had complete control of the legislative process – meaning they could pass any bill any time they wanted. They were all elected by promising to bring a new direction and efficiency to state government.

We are now five years into this total control where they could pass any legislation and we are operating state government under crisis management.  We have one crisis after another.

Three years ago, to give an example, we made a commitment to Alabamians, that if you will let us borrow money from the oil and gas trust fund, we will have three years to pass legislation that would address issues of the general fund budget – the budget we failed to pass in the regular session. Not one bill has been introduced to achieve this. We had some revenue bills proposed this session, but they were not part of the strategic plan, but they were developed in isolation and not discussed with House members, including myself. How will this change between now and a special session this summer?

This is, without a doubt, the worst session in my twenty-five years as a legislator. This session has very clearly shown that we have no leadership and absolutely no idea of what we are doing or where we are going in the state. The Governor has his plan, which violates his campaign promises. Del Marsh has his plan, and Mike Hubbard has his plan, and they collided and nothing happened. It’s all about personal agendas. I didn’t vote for final passage of the budget because it was an embarrassment, even for the Alabama legislature.

Who are the losers? The children, senior citizens, and mentally disabled. We cut programs that served these very needy individuals to the point where they simply cannot operate.  We cut the court system to the point they won’t be able operate. How anyone can be proud of the proposed general fund budget is a complete mystery to me.

While I’m for increasing revenue and I would vote for a revenue increase, I will not increase revenue that is on the back of the hard working people of my district.  If you propose a revenue increase that affect constituents of the Business Council of Alabama and closes some of these loopholes on corporations it is dead on arrival in the Alabama legislature. Working people are taxed enough and I will not stand for any new tax that is directed at them.

If failure to pass the General Fund budget was not enough, we took another slap at public education by passing charter school legislation and revamped the Accountability Act to take more money away from public schools and give the money to private schools. The intent of some legislators, which make of the Supermajority, is to destroy public education. I just don’t understand why.

The only bright spot in this session was the Alabama Rural Caucus, a bipartisan group of forty legislators, of which I’m the vice-chair, We have Republicans and Democrats who have come together to solve some serious problems that are facing our districts and state. If we don’t learn from this as a legislature we have some tough roads ahead in the state of Alabama.