My Vision For Alabama (opinion)

Publisher’s Note: The following is a guest opinion-editorial from Alabama gubernatorial candidate David Carrington. To learn more about Mr. Carrington’s candidacy, you may visit his website at davidcarrington4us.com.

Alabama can do so much better than ranking in the bottom 10% in median family income and K-12 education, but it’s going to take a new brand of Republican leadership in the governor’s office – a fresh face in Montgomery who has a forward-looking vision and a proven track record of making difficult decisions in challenging times.

My “Four U’s 4Us Vision” for Alabama focuses on…

• • Unifying Us with Trustworthy Leadership
• • Upgrading Education In and Out
• • Unlocking Jobs In and Up
• • Untangling the Mess in Montgomery

Unifying Us With Trustworthy Leadership

Developing and implementing real solutions to the state’s problems is going to require trustworthy leaders – leaders with character and competence. It’s easy for a candidate for public office to proclaim his or her trustworthiness, but as we know from our many convicted politicians, including three of my four predecessors as president of the Jefferson County Commission, that isn’t always the case. I fully understand that it is up to me to continuously earn the public’s trust with my decisions, actions and statements, just like I had to do during Jefferson County’s darkest days. I can assure you that my relationships with God, my wife, my family, and those who have placed their confidence in me are too important for me to do otherwise.

Upgrading Education In and Out

My vision is that we embark on a strategic path to move Alabama’s K-12 education system from the bottom 10% to the top 25% in the next decade. Among other things, we need to fully fund Pre-K, restore funding for the Alabama Reading Initiative, expand vocational-technical programs and fully embrace dual enrollment. In addition to those “in school” initiatives, we need to double-down on our workforce development efforts for Alabamians “out of school”.  This includes expanding career tech training programs and offering basic math and reading courses to the more than 500,000 Alabama working-age adults who can’t escape the trap of a low paying job because they don’t have a high school degree or a technical certification.

Unlocking Jobs In & Up

Many of our college graduates don’t have a marketable degree; many of our high school graduates don’t have a marketable skill, and many of our minimum wage workers don’t have a high school degree.  My vision is that we embark on a path to increase our state’s median family income from the bottom 10% to the top 50% within the next 10 years.  This means we need to get more workers “in” the system and then have adaptive workforce development programs to help them move “up” in their careers.  Not only will more working-age adults enjoy a higher quality of life with a better paying job; minimum wage jobs will become available for young people to enter the workforce, and the state will enjoy higher revenues without raising taxes.

 

Untangling the Mess in Montgomery

In 2010, when I was first elected to the Jefferson County Commission, Alabama’s largest local government, the county had $3.2 billion of sewer debt in default; $100 million of general obligation debt in default; a court-appointed receiver who planned to double sewer rates in a year and then double them again the next year; a county-run hospital losing $10 – $15 million annually; and a county-run nursing home losing another $2 – $3 million a year.  All of these challenges and more have been cost-effectively resolved and the county is now operationally and fiscally restored with more than a 1,000 fewer employees.  Needless to say, I have first-hand experience cleaning up messes created by others.

Sir Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” It’s past time for the eagles in every Alabama county, city, town and hamlet to drown out the voices of the hand-wringing parrots who jabber, “We’re doing the best we can.”  That’s balderdash!  We can do better with the resources we already have – we must do better with the resources we already have – and we will do better with the resources we already have in a Carrington Administration – you have my word!