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.
Legislation to strengthen Alabama’s open records law and create penalties for government agencies that don’t comply in a timely manner cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday. But Republicans, Democrats and bill sponsor Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said more work is needed before the legislation gets a full Senate vote. “We’re 51st in the country on this issue … we can do better,” Orr told his colleagues about the current law that does not specify a response timeline or set fees for records requests filed by citizens and members of the media. After a public hearing Tuesday morning, Orr said he’d continue to work with groups that expressed opposition to his bill, including the Association of County Commissions of Alabama. Read more.
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 Transgender Athletes, Mandatory Kindergarten, Medical Pot, Double Voting, Police Database, Habitual Offender Laws Debated in Committees
A proposed bill to revise the city of Birmingham’s pension plan gained the official support of the City Council Tuesday. HB510, which is pending in the Alabama Legislature, would compel the city to fully fund its pension obligation and increase employees’ contributions to the fund. Not doing so, Mayor Randall Woodfin argued, could spell future financial disaster for the city. The city’s pension had been underfunded since 2002, and when Woodfin took office in 2017, the pension liability stood at $750 million. Since then, Woodfin has nearly doubled the city’s annual contribution to the pension. but its liability has continued to increase and as of 2019 stood at $900 million. It would still take the changes proposed in HB510 to put the pension fund “on solid ground,” Woodfin said. As reported last week, HB510 would increase current employees’ contributions from 7% to 7.5% and would reduce retirement benefits for new employees hired after July 1, 2021. The bill would also reduce disability allowances for new employees and replace spousal survivors’ benefits with the option for an “actuarially reduced retirement benefit.” Read more.
WASHINGTON — Alabama’s senators split votes last week on a bill to extend the paycheck protection program as well as on several of Biden’s nominees to top positions. The House was in recess. Read more.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville rode into Washington as a ride-or-die Trump supporter, campaigning as being more of a Trump booster than Trump’s own former attorney general, then making headlines by saying he would challenge the counting of some electoral votes even before he was sworn into office. With that drama behind him and a whopping three months on the job under his belt, Tuberville seems to be less of a bomb-throwing gadfly and more of a regular working politician, albeit an extremely conservative one. He voted against President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill, saying it cost too much and didn’t do enough to fight COVID; opposed the president's nominee for secretary of health and human services; called Democrats' election reforms a "power grab;" and continues to push for a border security. But he voted for Biden’s nominee for secretary of labor, former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and says he will work with the administration on issues such as job creation. He said he does not want to be obstructive. Read more.
Jefferson County Commission President Jimmie Stephens closed today’s commission meeting with gratitude for county employees and staff who fought their way through the “wartime” environment of the pandemic. “It was a wartime atmosphere,” Stephens said. “We were at war with this virus. It actually changed our day-to-day lives and how we conducted business. I wanted to commend and thank our county commission and our county staff for being able to stay on top of this wartime environment and to be able to win as many battles as we have. Read more.
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.
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.
MONTGOMERY -- Legislation in the State House would prevent local municipalities and counties from spending local gas tax revenue on anything other than roads and bridges. Alabama law says revenue from gasoline and other motor fuel taxes levied by the state can be used only for infrastructure and similar uses, but there are no such restrictions on the local gas taxes collected by hundreds of governments. House Bill 556 by Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville, and Senate Bill 281 by Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, says that all taxes on motor fuels, “whether called an excise tax, license tax, or otherwise, levied by a municipality or county or by local law may be used only for road and bridge construction and maintenance.” href="https://birminghamwatch.org/bills-would-limit-cities-gas-tax-spending/ "> Read more.
