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Alabama NewsAlabama Politics
AEA Wins, Alabama Continues to Lose
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: May 15, 2005
Now that we are mercifully at the end of the 2005 legislative session, it is time to determine who were the winners and losers.
The big winner of course is Paul Hubbert and the education union. Once again the people of Alabama see clearly who our state legislature answers to and it is not the voters. At a time when the state legislature had an opportunity to fill a little of the financial hole the state is in, they dug it a little deeper by passing an education budget that will likely put the state in proration next year.
Before anyone thinks this is a slap at the Democrat dominated State House and Senate, let the record show that all but nine Republicans voted for Hubbert's budget. Facing re-election next year, it appears that these "conservatives" put politics above principles and way above the best interests of the people.
Clearly the legislators fear having Hubbert against them. Primarily, they fear his ability to recruit and fund opponents to run against them in the next election. So they did what so many politicians in this state do, they capitulated to him. And in so doing they made the state's budget and revenue problems worse and further justified the public's ever deepening cynicism of state government.
To recap, by the end of the next fiscal year the state's education revenues are projected to be over $550 million higher than the current education budget. Faced with over half a billion dollars in additional funds, you would think state legislators would seek to meet some critical needs and perhaps even hold some of the revenue in reserve to cover future revenue short falls. But this legislature does not think like that.
Instead, Paul Hubbert demanded a pay raise of six percent for all education employees and retirees, even though the revenue forecasters in Montgomery have predicted that there will not be enough money to pay for it. What this means is that the state legislature has passed a budget that will more then likely put the state in proration next year, meaning cuts in education would have to be made. This usually translates into layoffs of untenured teachers and other education personnel and program cuts.
You might think that the six percent pay raise would have unanimous support among Alabama's teachers, but it doesn't. While they supported a raise, many did not support a raise that would potentially put them in proration. A more sensible alternative budget was proposed by Governor Riley that would have given education employees a four percent raise with an additional two percent added next year if education revenues grew by 5.9 percent. But Hubbert would not support that, and as pointed out above, as Hubbert goes, so goes the state legislature.
In real terms of the costs, the pay raise for all education employees, which is about 100,000 employees, will cost the state almost $185 million a year. In addition, Hubbert included a four percent increase in pensions for 57,000 education retirees that will start October 1, of this year and another two percent starting on October 1, 2006. This will cost the education budget another $42 million per year. It should be noted that state retirees are not required to pay state income taxes so none of this raise will come back in the form of income taxes to help meet education revenue needs.
On a positive note, the Alabama Reading Initiative was fully funded at $40 million and the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative received $15 million. Given that the Alabama Reading and Math tests indicate that 43 percent of Alabama eighth graders cannot read at a grade appropriate level and 44 percent of sixth graders cannot meet state standards on mathematics, you would think that these programs would be given a high priority. But again, you would be mistaken. If the growth in education revenues is not enough to cover everything in this irresponsible budget, these much needed programs could very well be cut because the state cannot reverse the pay raise nor can the state reduce the increase in pension pay outs to the retirees.
If the state's education budget is forced into proration because of this irresponsible budget, there is almost certain to be a hue and cry from Montgomery that education is woefully under funded and that stingy Alabama taxpayers and big timberland owners are to blame. But the majority of taxpayers and voters in Alabama should not buy that line. Whatever the revenue needs for education and the general fund might be, there cannot be a legitimate and meaningful discussion about it as long as the head of the education union is calling the shots in the state legislature.
AEA Sets Alabamaba Legislature's Priorities, February 24, 2005.
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