By Sherri Blevins
On June 12, 2023, Alabama Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter joined MVN/NJP host David Marks to discuss the 2023 Legislative Session.
Marks asked the Speaker what he thought was the biggest impact bill passed by the legislators. The Speaker replied, “It is really hard to say because we had several bills passed that will greatly impact the citizens of Alabama, but one of the biggest was the grocery tax cut. It is the largest tax cut in Alabama’s history – $300 million when it is all implemented. I think the overtime tax reduction was a big deal for the working men and women who have put in over 40 hours a week. They don’t have to pay state tax on overtime hours. One thing we really tried to get out was the fentanyl bill. It lets people know that if they bring fentanyl into our state and are caught, they will spend a long time in jail. I think that is important because it is killing people across our state. The incentive packages will ensure we grow our economy and bring good jobs to the folks in Alabama. I think that was vastly important.” Ledbetter added that it took a team effort to pass the legislation.
Marks asked Ledbetter to expand on what the grocery tax cut would actually do. Ledbetter said, “The State of Alabama got four cents on grocery tax. It is one of the few states that still has a grocery tax. Of course, there are different reasons why. Alabama has one of the lowest tax rates in the country, but the growth in our economy has allowed us to look at being able to do that. We took one cent off of $150 million and will do the other one once the Education Trust Fund (ETF) growth reaches another 3 ½ %. We have guard rails to make sure we don’t short education. That was important to all of us to make sure the budget is maintained.”
Ledbetter said the legislators have to be cautious, but the budgets over the last few years have been the best they have ever been due to conservative efforts. He was excited because he thought the entire grocery tax could eventually be cut. He said he thought Alabama was economically better than any other state in the Southeast.
The conversation then shifted to the education budget. Two important items for teachers were the two percent pay raise and the allocation of classroom supply money at the beginning of the school year instead of in October. The change in the time the supply of money is released will make a large impact in helping teachers prepare for the upcoming school year. Ledbetter commented, “We increased the classroom expenditure money to $500 once and then reduced it to $300 when the economy was bad; now we are up to $1,500 per classroom, so it has been impactful.”
Several other items were discussed, including the requirement for all ninth graders to take financial literacy classes in public schools, the return of accepting cash payments for tickets at high school sporting events, the business incentives packages passed, and infrastructure improvements across the state.
One important area Ledbetter expounded on was the state’s ability to increase the education budget over the last few years, with this year’s budget having a $2.8 billion surplus. Ledbetter said, “When I first came into office in 2014, we didn’t have enough money to pay the light bill, but over time, the process of being conservative, passing bills that helps bring jobs into our state that grow our economy, plus some good luck with the influx of federal money that we will never see again, we have been successful. Alabama’s financial status has an A+ rating, and you can’t get much better than that. I think the success will continue. One of the things we did with the education trust fund surplus – some people would like us to spend it all, but we didn’t – was to give some of the money back, we gave tax cuts, we saved some, and we spent some. We put over $300 billion in a savings account just to make sure. There will be a day when the economy is not doing as well, and we have to go back for some money; we will have it.”
The full interview with the Speaker can be viewed on Mountain Valley News’s Facebook page and website.