Alabama Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter spoke with reporters this week and reflected on the successes of the 2025 Legislative session.

“I think we had a great session,” Ledbetter said.

On the issue of taxes, the speaker said he’s happy with what they were able to accomplish, but admitted there’s more that needs to be done.

” think going forward, we still got to look at it,” he argued. “I’d like to completely do away the grocery tax. I mean, four cent on people’s groceries, that’s a big deal. I think the two cents probably is going to save them probably $350 to $400 you know, they certainly need that. That’s a week’s worth of groceries.”

Governor Kay Ivey signed HB386 this week, which reduces Alabama’s grocery sales tax to 2% from 3%.

RELATED: Governor Ivey signs bill further reducing Alabama grocery tax

Ledbetter said there were some things that he was able to get through the House, but died in the upper chamber.

“Some of the senior citizens that we expanded the dollars so they wouldn’t have to pay state taxes, didn’t get passed in the Senate,” he explained. “So I think that’s something we can look at. There’s other things we can look at.”

One of the more contentious tax relief bills that was introduced during the session was an extension of the tax cut on overtime pay. The bill didn’t end up getting approved because many lawmakers were worried about the loss of revenue to the Education Trust Fund (ETF).

“Listen, I’m not opposed to the overtime tax,” Ledbetter said. “I supported it. I was a co sponsor on it, but we got to do it physically, too. And I think we’ll, we’ll probably revisit that. I’ve spoken leader Daniels about that, and. You know, I think there may be a way to do it. It may have to be quarterly, however that is, but we need to look at it. But I do think there are a lot of things that we can continue to work on.”

Overall, Ledbetter said he’s proud of his colleagues this year.

“We I’m proud of the body and proud of the accomplishments we’ve had, and we’ve done it without sacrificing budgets,” he said. “You know, it’s easy to try to tout you need to do more. You need to do this. But the bottom line we the ones that’s got to govern and we’re the ones that’s got to make sure the money is in the coffers to pay those agencies. When they have to pay their employees, are to pay emergency services, whatever, with a lien. So it’s our job to do that. And at the end of the day, I think we’ve done a good job.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee