State House Speaker McCutcheon touts FY 2020 education trust fund, general fund growth — ‘We have done some good work’

Earlier this month, the Alabama Legislative Services Agency reported both the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and the State General Fund (SGF) budgets ended the fiscal year on September 30 with positive growth.

While acknowledging an impact from the recession caused by COVID-19 to revenues, a memo obtained by Yellowhammer News from Legislative Services Agency fiscal division deputy director Kirk Fulford explained: “[T]he ETF revenues grew by 3.11% or $224.4 million over FY 2019 while the SGF revenues grew by 6.85% or $147.3 million over FY 2019.”

“Including the beginning balance, total available funds in the ETF for FY 2020 were $7.47 billion with total obligations of $7.16 billion,” Fulford wrote. “The excess revenues above expenditures were $314.4 million. Pursuant to the provisions of the ETF Rolling Reserve Act, the excess revenues will be distributed as follows: $71.6 million to the Budget Stabilization Fund and $242.8 million to the Advancement and Technology Fund. Including the beginning balance, total available funds in the SGF for FY 2020 were $2.66 billion with total obligations of $2.33 billion. The ending balance in the SGF before reversions was $330.3 million.”

In an interview with Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon (R-Monrovia) touted the growth, which he said was a credit to the fiscal policies enacted by the legislature and warranted more media attention.

“[W]e have done some good work,” he said. “You know, in politics, they say, ‘It’s not what you’ve done for me — it’s what you’ve done for me lately.’ And sometimes these good things that have been enacted in the legislature are forgotten. But when it comes to a situation like we’ve had with this COVID, for us to be able to sit down and say we’ve seen a growth, our budgets are sound — even for us to be able to come back in in May and even be able to move forward with the budgets and be able to pass something that we, according to the numbers, felt like was solid — I think it is something that needs to be talked about among the people. The rolling reserve, yes — it has been a huge factor in our education budget in being able to move us forward. The fact that we’ve got money in reserve that we can draw down on, and the way the growth is looking now — we’re going to be able to put that money back into that rolling reserve fund.”

“And then when you look at the general fund — the work that was done several years ago dealing with the internet sales and the tax on that, that was a big, big step forward for us and it has paid huge dividends in this COVID,” McCutcheon continued. “Another thing that people may forget about is when we started back in 2016, 2017 — we actually started putting money aside in the general fund. We had about $25 million, and we were being pulled in many different directions because we had a lot of people who were in need. State employees had not had a raise. We were struggling in several departments. But we actually saved $25 million right off of the top of that budget in the House and sent it to the Senate. It’s little things like that that have helped us through this pandemic that we’ve had to go through.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.