GOP Lawmakers Nix Governor's Budget

 MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Republican legislative leaders said the state budgets proposed by Alabama's GOP governor Wednesday won't pass because they use money traditionally spent on public education to operate state agencies.

The chairman of the House General Fund budget committee, Jim Barton, said he appreciates the governor's efforts to help state agencies, but the Legislature has traditionally opposed spending education tax revenue on non-education programs. "The temperament of the Legislature is it's dead on arrival," said Barton, R-Mobile.

The chairman of the Senate education budget committee, Trip Pittman, said he won't even bother to introduce the governor's proposed education budget because there is widespread opposition.

"It's a bad proposal and it's not going anywhere," Pittman, R-Daphne, said.

Pittman said he had numerous meetings with the governor before the legislative session started to discuss state budgets, and nothing was said about transferring money from education until after the session began Tuesday. The senator said he will begin working with other legislators to come up with a new education budget.

Bentley's state finance director, Marquita Davis, said the consequences for non-education agencies will be dramatic if the Legislature rejects the governor's spending plans because Alabama lacks the money to maintain basic state government operations.

"They can release 11,000 prisoners. They can decide that children won't have child care," she said.

Bentley's party members weren't the only ones turning against his budget plans.

The state teachers' organization, Alabama Education Association, paid for TV ads in 2010 that helped Bentley get elected, but AEA accused him Wednesday of trying to take money out of classrooms to maintain prisoners. "That makes no sense whatsoever," Executive Secretary Henry Mabry said.

Most states have one budget, but Alabama has separate budgets for public education and for non-education programs. Some taxes are set aside for the education budget and others for the General Fund budget.

A month ago, Bentley proposed creating a unified budget, but that ran into opposition from legislators in both parties. Instead, he took a step toward that goal Wednesday by proposing using education tax revenue for non-classroom purposes.

He proposed shifting $185 million in Medicaid costs for children from the General Fund budget to the state education budget. He also proposed transferring $45 million in tax revenue from education to the General Fund budget to help state agencies.

Davis said the governor's proposed $5.4 billion education budget cuts 1,381 teaching and administrative positions in public schools, but attrition should take care of that. It also cuts spending for community colleges and universities.

Bentley's $1.4 billion General Fund budget for fiscal 2013 is based on merging some small state programs into larger agencies, including putting the Department of Labor into the Department of Industrial Relations.

Bentley's General Fund budget would fund prisons and state troopers at about the same levels as this year's budget, but other agencies would take cuts ranging from a few percent to 24 percent, which Davis said could lead to personnel cuts.

Under Bentley's plan, the Legislature would see its appropriation drop by more than one-third. That prompted jokes from lawmakers about Bentley pruning government from three branches to two.

Davis said the governor designed his General Fund budget to maintain social services for the neediest Alabama, but his plan is hinges on several things happening. For instance, nursing homes and hospitals would have to agree to take less money for the Medicaid services they now provide.

Republican legislators said there is a crisis in the General Fund budget because federal stimulus money and other temporary funding used to prop up the budget in recent years is gone, but they expressed confidence they can craft a budget that avoids releasing thousands of prisoners.

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