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Budgets top concern of legislators

By Mark Harrison
The Times-Journal

Published December 4, 2009

Sen. Lowell Barron said Friday that “massive cuts” in the state’s education and general fund budgets in 2010 could lead to layoffs of teachers and state workers.

Barron, D-Fyffe, said budgetary issues would be the main focus of the next legislative session in January.

“We’ve got an absolute critical problem with both the education and the general fund budgets,” Barron said. “Unless the economy picks up significantly, we’ll be wrestling with massive cuts that will ultimately create layoffs both in education and on the general fund side.”

Barron said the state’s education budget is currently set at $4.5 billion, about a $1.5 billion drop. He said the state has been able to stave off layoffs in recent years by focusing on cutting supply and transportation money, and also because of help from federal stimulus funds.

“We’ve reached a critical point now,” Barron said. “You can’t cut that much out of the budget without getting into personnel. I believe it’s essential to try to keep teachers in the classroom but unless we have some funding that shows up like the stimulus did, we might not have a choice.”

Barron said the state’s general fund budget is even worse shape than the education budget.

“We’re about $500 million short there,” he said. “We’re talking about a $2 million budget being $500 million short, so that’s really the biggest crisis we face.”

Barron said the downturn is due to a loss in both income tax and sales revenues across the state, brought on by unemployment and underemployment.

“It’s a double whammy, when people are not working then they aren’t paying income tax, they aren’t going out and buying things and generating sales tax,” he said. “Plus, we are having to take government money and pay unemployment. We’re going to have to see a sustained increase in tax revenues in order to avoid these cuts.”

Barron said he expects “no talk” of raising taxes, despite the looming budgetary crisis.

“I think the only additional taxes we will talk about would be in regard to gaming,” Barron said. “We don’t currently have taxes on gaming, and I think we ought to be regulating and taxing that so it can go to benefit education.

“It breaks my heart to think about cutting education, but we in the legislature don’t create money, we will cut and do what we have to make our budgets fit.”

Barron said the legislature would also look at ways to further benefit small business and stimulate growth and employment.

“We will look at ways to create jobs – that and balancing the budget will be our prime focus,” he said. “Hopefully, we will see an upturn in the Spring and Summer – but I’m concerned federal policy has been such for the past 10 years or so that too many jobs have been shipped offshore and the jobs just aren’t there for people to return to them – we in the legislature will work hard to minimize the economic impact on people across the state.”

Rep. Todd Greeson, R-Ider, said he also believes budgetary matters will be the main focus of the upcoming legislative session.

“The budgets and the economy will definitely be our top priorities,” he said.

Greeson said his other priorities for the session include pushing a bill related to TVA revenues previously passed by the legislature but vetoed by Gov. Bob Riley. The bill would return about $200,000 in funding to DeKalb County that TVA pays in lieu of taxes. That money is currently going to counties in south Alabama that are not supported by TVA.

He said he would also introduce a “gun rights bill” that would allow Alabamians to own manufactured short-barrel shotguns that meet federal requirements. Greeson said the bill would mainly benefit gun collectors.

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