Tax exemptions, smoother school transitions among ways Alabama is making life easier for veterans, State Sen. Andrew Jones says

State Senator Andrew Jones joined Capitol Journal this week to discuss his new raft of military-related legislation that he hopes will help to make Alabama the most military friendly state in the country.

“We have a pretty big package of bills,” said Jones (R-Centre). “Some are starting in the House. We’ve got others that are starting in the Senate. I believe four passed out of the Senate this week, two that I was carrying. One was related to athletics.”

Jones’ first piece of legislation discussed would allow high school student-athletes from military families to begin competing as quickly as possible after a move to Alabama.

“Military families that move to Alabama, ask can they get their student plugged in to High School Sports immediately without some sort of transfer portal or waiting period?,” said Jones. “It’s important that these families that maybe on temporary orders for a year or two. If they’re waiting a year to be eligible to play that costs valuable time in the child’s athletic career.”

“We want to make sure that they’re eligible to play and that they can come in here and a lot of them, you know, it’s not the child’s fault, not the parents fault that they’ve got orders to come move. We want to help them in any way we can.”

He addressed an additional bill in the package which focuses on tax exemptions in Alabama for those who serve.

“The other bill is one I’m very excited about,” Jones continued. “It deals with income tax exemption from state income tax for active duty Guard and Reserves. Thirty states, either have no income tax, have a full exemption for active duty military, or a partial exemption. This brings National Guard and Reserves into those ranks.”

He also noted that the exemption wouldn’t cost the state a large amount of money.

“Believe it or not, the the fiscal note on that is not too big of a hit to the budget. It’s about $2.1 million when it’s fully implemented. But that money is going to mean a lot to those military families that are that are working here in the state.”

Jones commended the Alabama High School State Athletic Association for being accommodating to military families.

“The high school athletic Association, has been to our understanding, working with military families. There was no clear law that military folks could point to and say, Hey, this is happening in Alabama, no clear information when they come here, what the status was going to be for their child so we wanted something that was clear in law can’t be changed, that assures them when you come here, you’re going to be eligible.”

He acknowledged that in years past Alabama didn’t rank highly among other states for military friendliness.

“You know, we were not very well ranked a few years ago and what we did for families and our rankings as it comes to our standing with the Pentagon in terms of family and community support.”

“It’s been said now that we’re second to Florida, in terms of military and veteran friendliness, and those are rankings that are put together based on things such as, how easy is it for your spouse to get a job when a military member moves to Alabama?”

Jones also discussed bills related to juvenile jurisdiction on military bases, special needs, and military dependents.

“Those kinds of bills may seem small in the whole scheme of things really help and support military families here in the state, and they help our rankings,” he said.

“So if there’s ever an unfortunate situation where folks are looking at a military base closure somewhere in the United States, our rankings are going to be good, and we’re going to help protect and defend our installations here in the state.”

Jones said that school choice legislation recently enacted in the state will attract military families.

“Were also very pleased about the progress Alabama has made with the school choice legislation because you can imagine military families will probably take advantage of some of those opportunities when they’re moving to certain areas of the state.”

The last piece of legislation touched on dealt with access to mental health care for veterans.

“Representative Chip Brown and I worked pretty much the entire spring break week, I think we had four or five zoom meetings with all the stakeholders, the major stakeholders, which are the Department of Mental Health and Department of Veterans Affairs for the state, bringing those folks together to talk about how we can have a program that’s going to provide treatment, mental health services for veterans better address those needs, have some pilot projects that are going to fund some specific treatment tailored toward veterans.”

Jones said that while gathering info for the legislation he observed that veterans are more likely to respond to other veterans in therapy situations. He also emphasized the addiction struggles veterans go through.

“I think I mentioned before that veterans face higher risk of suicide and opioid addiction, the rate of opioid or drug addiction and veterans over a decade doubled nationwide. So a lot of issues there. Having that support is tailored toward the specific needs and thoughts of veterans tailored toward that peer to peer service is essential.”

Jones said that “a few technical details” are still being worked out but that the legislators are very close to reaching an acceptable product.

“We look forward to having that bill probably next week.”

Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.