Week 6

April 11 - April 15

Last night, The Partnership of Shelby County put on its 4th Annual ‘A Taste of Shelby County.’ My wife and went to the event, held at the Cahaba Grand Conference Center, and had a wonderful time. Thank you to everyone at the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce for your hard work to raise money for our teachers and students in Shelby County.

Speaking of education, that is exactly what the House of Representatives dealt with to start this past week in the Alabama State House. Last week, the Senate passed the smaller General Fund Budget out if its chamber and this week the House passed the much larger Education Trust Fund out of its chamber. This is much earlier than the budgets are typically passed, but each has a way to go still before being finalized.

Much of the day Tuesday was spent on bills that will help balance the budget. Such bills include transferring $30 million from a fund created for telephone services for the deaf into the Education Trust Fund. Others will require state employees and teachers to pay an increased amount of retirement contributions. This amount will increase by 50% over a two year period. In the end, the Education Trust Fund Budget passed the House by a vote of 64-36.

On Thursday, the House also voted to extend Forever Wild. Forever Wild is a program established in 1992 to purchase and preserve land for public recreation. The bill as passed by the House will extend the program for another 20 years. The program is currently set to expire in 2012 and must now be heard in the Senate for final passage.

During this week, the Alabama Senate moved on important legislation. It moved Sunset bills through just as the House did previously. On Thursday the Senate also passed HB61 by Representative April Weaver. The bill allows small business owners and their employees to deduct 200 percent of what they spend on health insurance premiums from their state income taxes. It has been delivered to the governor for his signature.

As always, thank you for keeping up with what is going on in Montgomery and please feel free to contact our delegation with any opinions, concerns or ideas that you might have.