June 5 – Mental health, gambling, ethics and traffic congestion on Interstate 565 were among the many issues tackled during a “controversial and difficult” spring session, the Morgan County delegation said Tuesday during the Legislative Update breakfast.
State Senator Arthur Orr and representatives Scott Stadthagen, Terri Collins and Parker Moore gave the annual Legislative Update at the breakfast sponsored by the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce. Wade Weaver, chairman of the House Policy Committee, moderated the event.
Stadthagen, the House majority leader, said the legislative session that began in February “lasted only three months, but it seemed like 12 months.”
The state Legislature approved a General Fund budget of $3.3 billion for fiscal year 2025. Lawmakers said a major achievement was an increase in mental health funding. Moore, a member of an ad hoc committee on mental health, said they increased funding for mental health by 11.3% to $238 million.
“We’ve made a huge increase from where we were five years ago,” Moore said.
Moore said a big part of this increase is adding more mental health professionals to school systems. At a cost of $500,000 per unit, he said, they have allocated money for three more mobile crisis units, so now there are 21. Each unit has a mental health professional who can travel to underserved areas of the state, he said.
Orr, chairman of the Senate Finance and Taxation and Education Financing committees, said they have approved $2.5 million for a 16-bed crisis unit that the Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama is building on US 31 South, where it once State Trooper building stood.
Lisa Coleman, CEO of the Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama, said the unit is expected to cost between $10 million and $11 million and will open in late 2025.
Orr noted that the city of Decatur and the Morgan County Commission are also helping fund this project.
Collins said a top issue for her is increasing funding for roads in North Alabama to the level of South Alabama, a necessity she said given North Alabama’s faster population growth.
She said that’s one reason she’s glad $28 million has been allocated to widening the rest of I-565 to six lanes.
Stadthagen said funding for the second study for an additional Decatur bridge over the Tennessee River is a key project for Morgan and Lawrence counties.
“There is a plan to fund the study,” he said of the study expected to cost up to $4 million.
Stadthagen said the spring session focused on the need to limit property tax increases, which could have risen as much as 40%.
“That would have made it extra difficult for some people to survive,” Stadthagen said. “Ultimately, 40% would end up evicting some people from their homes.”
The Legislature passed a law in May limiting increases in annual property taxes and taxes to 7% per year.
“Personally, I thought that was too high,” said Stadthagen. “But we also had to make sure that things would go well for the provinces and cities.”
Orr said sales tax revenues that fund the Education Trust Fund were flat because the Legislature cut grocery taxes by 1 cent on the dollar and exempted income taxes on overtime.
“We’re not like Washington, where we can pass a tax cut and then increase the budget deficit,” Orr said.
Collins said they have planned for future declines in Education Trust Fund revenues by creating reserves. She said Alabama has done better than most states in managing revenues to support education.
“We haven’t seen proration, the No. 1 ugly word in my book, like we did when I was first elected (in 2010),” Collins said.
Collins said one issue to be addressed this session involved in vitro fertilization, which was put in jeopardy when the state Supreme Court ruled in a wrongful death case in February that frozen embryos were “ectopic children.”
She said the Legislature passed a bill addressing the IVF issue within two weeks, but she admitted there is still work to be done.
Collins sponsored the Choose Act, which created a school voucher program that will provide eligible families as much as $7,000 to help pay for private school and $2,000 toward homeschooling costs.
“More families will become more involved in their children’s education, and that’s a positive thing,” Collins said.
Collins said they also passed a Parental Right to Know Act, a Teachers Bill of Rights and a law defining the proper process steps for students facing expulsion.
“If a student is facing a lengthy expulsion of more than two weeks, they have the opportunity to tell their side one time,” she said.
Moore is part of a joint task force on artificial intelligence. He introduced and the legislature passed a law criminalizing the manipulation of an image or video using artificial intelligence without the consent of the subject of the image or video.
Moore said they are also looking at other limitations on AI, especially in situations where it could cause mass chaos or be used to manipulate stock prices.
The failed attempt to pass a lottery law was probably the most controversial issue during the spring session of Parliament, lawmakers agreed.
“It wasn’t clear,” Moore said. “It was very complex. What is gaming? What is a game of chance?”
Moore said there are 18 constitutional amendments in specific counties regarding gambling, including those that made VictoryLand Casino and Greene County Entertainment Center legal.
He said there are also a number of illegal casinos and bingo halls in almost every county, including Morgan County.
“As a state, we need to get a better handle on regulating gaming,” Moore said.
Moore said there isn’t enough Republican support to pass a gambling bill, so they need bipartisan support.
Collins said she hasn’t given much thought to the 2025 legislative session, but one issue she expects to return is ethics reform.
Stadthagen and Collins said the ethics law should be changed to provide elected officials with more clarity about what they can and cannot do.
Stadthagen said they need a bill that helps city employees, city council members and other elected officials because previous bills “made it difficult to know what is black, white or gray.”
The law update took place at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Decatur Riverfront.
— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432
