{"id":2104,"date":"2020-05-22T17:16:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T17:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2020-05-22T17:18:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T17:18:20","slug":"alabama-legislature-concludes-its-2020-regular-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Legislature Concludes its 2020 Regular Session"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTGOMERY, Ala., May 22, 2020<\/strong> — The oddest session of the Alabama Legislature in recent memory, if ever, adjourned on Monday. Disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, more than half of the actual working days of the session were conducted in a State House closed off to the general public.\u00a0 Since returning on May 4 from a nearly two-month break, legislators, particularly members of the House, were forced to observe strict social distancing practices; many Representatives, for example, had to sit in the House gallery rather than at their desks on the House Floor.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, then, the scope of work during the session\u2019s final days was limited to budget-related bills and local bills.<\/p>\n

In the end, the Legislature fulfilled its constitutional requirement of passing the Education Trust Fund and State General Fund budgets for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.\u00a0 Thanks to proper planning and a robust economy, both budgets appear to be in excellent shape as of right now; the ETF budget is actually the largest in the state\u2019s history.\u00a0 But major items originally included in the budgets, such as a pay raise for state employees and educators, were not added to the final document.\u00a0 Legislators made clear that the budgets could certainly be revisited as needed, but wanted to help public entities, particularly schools, plan for next year as early as possible.<\/p>\n

In addition to the budgets, legislators passed a bond issue for school construction.\u00a0 The effort will inject approximately $1.25 billion into the state\u2019s public K-12, postsecondary, and higher education systems, making this the largest public school construction funding mechanism in over a decade.<\/p>\n

Finally, after much discussion between legislative leaders and the executive branch, Gov. Ivey approved a plan on how the state would generally allocate the $1.8 billion it has received from the federal government as part of the CARES Act.\u00a0 The plan is as follows:<\/p>\n