Earlier this week, Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R-Anniston) announced he was calling on Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore), the chairman of the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee, to begin holding budget hearings next month in preparation for future legislative sessions, as the state continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.
During an interview with Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Albritton elaborated on Marsh’s call, noting the need to get back together in Montgomery stems from the need to deal with the unknowns of the economic downturn resulting from the pandemic.
“It’s not so much that we are eager to get back to Montgomery, but the responsibilities and the circumstances that are like they are — we’ve got to start putting more attention to the matters right now,” he said. “We can’t until February. We can’t wait until fall. We need to keep good track of what’s going on now.”
The budgets passed by the Alabama legislature and signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey were primarily based on revenue projections, and Albritton stressed the need to convene meetings of his committee to see that those projections were holding up as the fiscal year winds down.
“The work to be done is a matter of making sure we’re on target,” Albritton continued. “Yes, we’ve passed a general fund budget. Yes, we’ve had a quarter of economic stalemate, if you will, or stoppage. But we’ve got to make sure we have revenue enough to meet the demands through the remainder of this fiscal year. That’s what we’re trying to pay attention to. The data that we have back in March, April and May seemed to indicate that we were OK, that things were going to take a hit, but nothing that we could not stand. But that’s kind of a tenuous matter when you don’t know where the end is going to wind up. So we’re calling the general fund budget committee together to have an open discussion of where we are at this point. July 9, we will have the figures through that quarter — March, April, May and June, whichever. We will be able to make sure the revenue flow is going to be adequate for the remainder of this fiscal year. That’s part of the purpose, and right now, from what we can see, we seem to be on target. But I want that to be noted and made as public as possible so that not only we will know, but the public will know where we’re headed.”
Albritton also said one benefit of having budget hearings next month is that it offers an opportunity to heal the wounds coming out of the tumultuous end of the 2020 general legislative session.
“Look, we can sit back and let these things fester, get worse and we can spend the whole time talking about each other and make things develop worse than they are, or we can get back on that bucking bronco horse and start working together and start talking with each other instead of about each other and try to bring about good government, as much as we can on this and I think that’s what we’re trying to accomplish here,” he stared. “We’re trying to pull the adults in the room to continue to work together. We’ve got two more years to work this through. We can’t just break down and sulk. We’ve got to work this, and that’s why we’re coming together on [July 9] to try to start talking with each other again.”
@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 Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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