Vote shows it was the best for a bad situation
By Staff
Johnny Mack Morrow
Columnist
Bipartisanship is a word you hear a lot nowadays. It is understandable that in times of trouble folks would want elected officials to find common ground to move forward on the things that need to be done.
Yet it seems that in our own difficult time, bipartisanship and cooperation seem to be in short supply. Petty politics and personalities dominate the landscape, often to the detriment of finding solutions to today’s problems.
That is why when you come across a solid act of bipartisanship, one where people from across the aisle worked together on a major difficult problem, it is a good thing in and of itself. The 2011 state education budget is just one of those bipartisan efforts.
It recently passed the Alabama House of Representatives 104-0, not one dissenting vote, and you can’t get more cooperative than that.
The budget that passed received unanimous support because it was the best solution to a profound and difficult problem: how to fund our schools during one of the worst economies in a generation.
Alabama pays for schools by dedicating the state income tax and the state sales tax to the Education Trust Fund, every penny raised by these two revenue sources goes to the ETF. These two revenue sources are also the most susceptible to economic downturns.
Since the recession began in 2007, as state unemployment rose faster than anytime in modern history, Alabama lost more than 20 percent of the revenue going to the ETF. For the 2011 budget, this meant there would be $1.5 billion less for the classroom this year than just two years ago.
During these difficult past two years, we have already lost 2,000 teachers, and thousands more support personnel. As we started on the education budget, the fiscal troubles indicated that we may lose more than 3,500 additional teachers and thousands more support folks, devastating schools and the thousands of families whose breadwinner would lose their job.
What the entire House agreed upon is that saving teaching jobs and making sure the classroom is protected should be the priority. Understanding the difficultly of the fiscal crisis meant that even temporary fixes would be better than school closures and layoffs.
This was agreed upon by all Democrats and Republicans as the budget work went forward.
In order to find the funds to balance the $5.49 billion budget and save jobs, one-time funds were used. In order to maintain safe buses, the state will use a bond of $66 million for fleet renewal instead of budget funds from this year.
There is a $34 million tax settlement by Kimberly Clark going to the ETF. There will be $30 million more corporate income taxes paid because the state is hiring more auditors. And last year’s much maligned federal stimulus will add $500 million that goes directly to saving teaching jobs.
The budget is not pretty.
Schools will have to put duct tape on the bindings of textbooks to make them last another year because there is no money. Teachers will have to dig deeper into their own pockets for health care because there was no money.
Technology, classroom supplies, and library materials are all eliminated in this budget.
Yet, the bipartisan and unanimous vote shows it was the best solution to a bad situation.
Members from both sides of the aisle came up to praise the chairman and all the members of the committee for keeping teachers in the classroom.
We worked together to make it through a tough time.
With only days left in the legislative session, there is still much work to do. Hopefully, the cooperation shown on the education budget can continue.
Johnny Mack Morrow is a state representative for Franklin County. His column appears each Wednesday.
