Education budget pending, tensions building as Alabama Legislature reaches last day

Alabama legislators are expected to end their 2024 session Thursday with a budget and several bills still pending.

The House and Senate should take up a proposed 2025 Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget. A conference committee approved a final version of the budget Tuesday with mostly minor changes after it came out of conference committee Tuesday. If the House approves the changes made in conference committee, the proposal will move to the Senate.

The $9.3 billion ETF includes 2% pay raises for education employees and is about 6.8% bigger than this year’s $8.8 billion budget. It increases funding for local school boards and many education programs, including the Alabama Reading Initiative and the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative.

The state’s $3.3 billion General Fund budget, which pays for most noneducation services in the state, went to Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday.

The final day, known as sine die, comes after a long session and several days of tension between the House and the Senate over funding retiree benefits, passage of bills and a gambling package that dominated the session but died in the upper chamber last week.

Before the two chambers adjourned on Wednesday, the House passed fewer bills than previous days. Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, who spoke on every Senate bill whose sponsor voted against the gambling proposal. Blackshear was the main sponsor of the package.

“You try to find new ways to generate new revenue to this state. And we’ve done that this session. Multiple times. But now since that bubble seems to have burst, we’ve got to make sure that we become more frugal in how we spend our money,” Blackshear said.

The Senate passed several local and House bills, including a bill sponsored by Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-Tuskegee, requiring students to pass kindergarten or an equivalent program to enter first grade.

On the second-to-last day of session, a bill to reform the state ethics law died after a Senate committee decided not to hold a vote on it.

Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, the sponsor of the package, later introduced a House Joint Resolution on the floor directing the Legislative Services Agency to hire an outside consultant to consider state ethics laws. The resolution passed on a voice vote.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “If there are 49 other states that have ethics law, let’s look and see what they’re doing. There is a national government ethics law. Let’s look and see what they’re doing and let’s look at a broader aspect of what ethics laws are across this country when we make these decisions.”

Beside the budget, several other bills could pass on Thursday.

HB 385, sponsored by Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Indian Springs, could lead to the arrest of librarians if a person accuses them of distributing obscene or harmful materials to minors or exposing them to people dressed in revealing clothing.

The bill, if passed, would expand the term “sexual conduct” in state law to include conduct that “knowingly exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd and lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities in K-12 public schools, public libraries, and other public places where minors are expected and are known to be present without parental consent.”

HB 130, sponsored by Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, would expand the limitations on teachers addressing sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through fifth grade to kindergarten through the eighth grade. The bill would also limit pride flags in the classroom.

HB 195, sponsored by Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover, would require any sexual education in public schools to exclusively teach “sexual risk avoidance,” or abstinence.

HB 36, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, would ban the possession of any part or combination of parts designed or intended to convert a firearm into a machine gun. It would make possession a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The four bills await a Senate vote.

Either chamber could still vote on a bill to exempt taxes on certain female hygiene and baby and maternal products. Two bills, one from the House and one from the Senate, is set up for final passage in both chambers. The bill would remove state sales tax Alabama levies on baby formula, baby bottles, baby wipes, breast milk pumping equipment, diapers, maternity clothing, and menstrual hygiene products for personal use. It would also allow local governments to remove their local sales taxes if desired.