Category: Alabama Legislature
Bill Increases Tax Credit Limit for Accountability Act Donors
Legislation in the Alabama State House would increase the allowable tax credit for individuals and corporations that donate to private school scholarships through the Alabama Accountability Act.
The 2013 law allows for tax credit-funded scholarships for families leaving the state’s lowest-performing public schools. There also is a separate $30 million-per-year scholarship fund for private school tuition. Businesses and individuals who donate to the fund receive income tax credits — money that would otherwise go to the state education budget. Scholarship granting organizations, or SGOs, collect and distribute the money to low-income families. Those students are not required to come from failing schools.
House Bill 559 by Rep. Charlotte Meadows, R-Montgomery, does not change that $30 million cap but expands the allowable credit from 50% of an individual’s tax burden to 75%, capped at $75,000. Read more.
Bill to Allow Churches and Small Businesses to Stay Open During Emergencies Goes to Governor
The Alabama Legislature on Thursday approved a bill that would allow churches and small businesses to remain open during states of emergency. It now goes to the governor.
House Bill 103 by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, would allow businesses and places of worship to remain open as long as they comply with any emergency order, rules or regulations issued by the governor and state or local agencies. It would do away with the idea of “essential businesses.”
Kiel has said small local retailers shouldn’t have been forced to close last year under public health orders while big box stores remained open.
Democrats called the bill dangerous and said it could lead to super-spreader events in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, led Senate Democrats in a filibuster of the bill, arguing it put business interests over public health. Read more.
Transgender Athletes, Mandatory Kindergarten, Medical Pot, Double Voting, Police Database, Habitual Offender Laws Debated in Committees
MONTGOMERY — It was committee day in the State House Wednesday as several House and Senate panels met to consider proposals moving through the legislative process. Read more.
House and Senate Resume Legislative Session in Slo-Mo
MONTGOMERY — On their first day back in session after spring break, lawmakers in the House and Senate slowed down legislative action to draw out debate and call attention to lack of movement of bills. Read more.
More from the Legislature
House Passes Bill to Shorten Absentee Application Time
Open Records Bill Clears Committee, Lawmakers Want More Work On It
Will Alabama and Mississippi Expand Medicaid to Low-Income Adults This Time Around?
WBHM
After a fire destroyed their last apartment in 2019, Kenneth Tyrone King and his family recently saved up enough money to rent a new place in Birmingham.
But the relief was short-lived. Bills, mostly medical, quickly began piling up at the new address.
For King, 57, this was just the latest development in a cycle of debt. He has not had health insurance for years. He lost his most-recent job at a temp agency after having emergency open heart surgery in December. He barely has enough money for the two prescriptions that he needs each month.
“I can afford one of them, but one of them, it’s like a $60 medication,” King said. “Those types of challenges, if I had affordable health care, or a health care plan, it would have at least covered some of it.”
King falls in the coverage gap. He does not qualify for Medicaid and he cannot afford to buy a private insurance plan. If Alabama expanded Medicaid, that would mean opening up eligibility to people like him and other low-income adults who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level, which equates to less than $18,000 a year for a single adult. Read more.
Senator Looking for Fix on Tax-Filing Interest Issue
Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department and IRS extended the filing and payment date for individual 2020 income taxes from the traditional April 15 to May 17. Alabama automatically extends its state income tax filing deadline when there is an extension on the federal level.
But the fine print on the Alabama Department of Revenue’s guidance on the topic said that, while it can waive late penalties for payments made by May 17, it is “not authorized to waive interest, and any interest accruing from April 15, 2021, through the actual payment date will be due.”
It would take a change to state law to waive the interest payments required of taxpayers who don’t file and pay by April 15. Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, told Alabama Daily News he plans to file a bill to address this “wrinkle” in the state tax code when lawmakers return next week to Montgomery.
Read more.
Bill Would Cut Pensions for Future Birmingham Employees, Raise Employee Contributions
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin is supporting a bill in the Legislature that would both compel the city to fully fund its pension obligation and increase employee contributions to the pension fund by half a percent. The bill would be Woodfin’s latest step toward correcting the city’s longtime underfunding of the city’s pension plan, which he warned could cause a future financial crisis for the city.
HB510 is sponsored by Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, who was the Woodfin-appointed assistant chief of the Birmingham Police Department from 2018 until his retirement in October. Read more.
$7.6B Education Budget Moves to House
MONTGOMERY — The Alabama Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a record-setting $7.6 billion education budget for 2022.
The proposal includes a 2% across-the-board cost of living pay increase for K-12 and community college employees and two other more targeted pay increases for teachers. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.
The Senate also approved Senate Bill 327 to create a program to offer increased pay to middle and high school math and science teachers who meet certain qualifications. Additional money would also be available to those teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools. Read more.
Alabama House Passes Controversial Bills During Contentious Day of Debate
MONTGOMERY — A day full of contentious bills in the House of Representatives Thursday was paired with multiple motions to cut off debate, which many Democratic members said were “unjust.”
Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, said at one point during the debate that the cloture motions were taking away her right to debate on legislation.
“You’ve taken all my voice away when you give up that cloture,” Moore said.
House Majority Leader Nathaniel Ledbetter said the motions were necessary to keep Democrats from dragging out debate in an effort to delay or kill legislation. Read more.
Absentee Voting Bills Pass First Vote
MONTGOMERY — Legislation dealing with absentee voting in Alabama overcame the first legislative hurdle Wednesday as the bills passed through the House Constitution, Campaigns and Elections Committee.
A bill that would allow for more sites to be opened in a county to accept in-person absentee ballots was debated and approved, as was a bill to require absentee applications be submitted earlier. Read more.
More from the Legislature:
Committee-Approved $7.6B Education Budget Includes Multiple Pay Raises
Riot, Voter Bill Taken Up in Legislature
Read complete legislative coverage
