Morgan delegation discusses recent legislative session

By Bayne Hughes 

For the Enquirer  

Mental health, gambling, ethics and Interstate 565 congestion were among the many issues tackled in a “contentious and difficult” spring legislative session, the Morgan County delegation said Tuesday at the Legislative Update breakfast. 

State Sen. Arthur Orr and Reps. Scott Stadthagen, Terri Collins and Parker Moore gave the annual Legislative Update at the breakfast sponsored by the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce. Wade Weaver, chairman of the chamber’s Policy Committee, moderated the event. 

Stadthagen, the House majority leader, said the legislative session that started in February “lasted only three months, but it seemed like it was 12 months.” 

The state Legislature approved a $3.3 billion General Fund budget for fiscal 2025. Legislators said a major accomplishment was an increase in mental health funding. Moore, who serves on an ad hoc committee on mental health, said they increased mental health funding by 11.3%, to $238 million. 

“We’ve made a huge increase from where we were five years ago,” Moore said. 

Moore said a major part of this increase is adding more mental health professionals in the school systems. At a cost of $500,000 per unit, he said, they allocated money for three more mobile crisis units so now there are 21. Each unit has a mental health professional who can travel to underserved areas of the state, he said. 

Chairman of the Senate Finance and Taxation and Education Finance committees, Orr said they approved $2.5 million for a 16-bed crisis unit that the Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama is building on U.S. 31 South where the state trooper building once stood. 

Lisa Coleman, chief executive officer of the Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama, said the unit is expected to cost between $10 million and $11 million and open in late 2025. 

Orr noted the city of Decatur and Morgan County Commission are also helping to fund this project. 

Collins said a top issue for her is increasing north Alabama road funding to the level of south Alabama, an imperative she said given the faster population growth of north Alabama.  

She said this is one reason she’s happy that $28 million was allocated to widening the remainder of I-565 to six lanes. 

Stadthagen said funding the second study for an additional Decatur bridge across the Tennessee River is a key project for Morgan and Lawrence counties. 

“There’s a plan in place to fund the study,” he said of the study that’s expected to cost up to $4 million. 

Stadthagen said a focus in the spring session was the need to limit increases in property tax, which could have risen as much as 40%. 

“That would have made it extra hard to survive for some people,” Stadthagen said. “At the end of the day, 40% would ultimately put some people out of their houses.” 

The Legislature in May approved a law that caps increases in annual property tax assessments, and taxes, at 7% per year. 

“Personally, I thought that was too high,” Stadthagen said. “But we also had to make sure the counties and cities would be OK.” 

Orr said sales tax revenues that fund the Education Trust Fund were flat because the Legislature reduced the grocery tax by 1 cent per dollar and exempted income tax on overtime pay. 

“We’re not like Washington where we can give a tax cut and then increase the deficit,” Orr said. 

Collins said they have planned for future decreases in Education Trust Fund revenue by creating reserves. She said Alabama has done a better job than most states in managing its revenues that support education. 

“We haven’t seen proration, the No. 1 ugly word in my book, like we did when I was first elected (in 2010),” Collins said. 

Collins said an issue that had to be handled this session involved in vitro fertilization, which was placed at risk when the state Supreme Court in February ruled in a wrongful death case that frozen embryos were “extrauterine children.” 

She said the Legislature passed a bill that addresses the IVF issue in two weeks, but she admitted there’s still work to be done on the issue. 

Collins sponsored the Choose Act, which created a school voucher program that will provide eligible families with as much as $7,000 to help pay for private school and $2,000 for homeschooling expenses.  

“More families will be more involved in the education of their children, and that’s a positive,” Collins said. 

Collins said they also passed a Parents Right to Know law, a Teachers’ Bill of Rights and a law that defines due process steps for students facing expulsion. 

“If a student is facing a long-term expulsion of over two weeks, they have the opportunity to tell their side one time,” she said. 

Moore is serving on a joint taskforce on artificial intelligence. He introduced and the Legislature passed a law criminalizing the manipulation of an image or video using artificial intelligence without the consent of the subject of the image or video. 

Moore said they are also looking at other restrictions on AI, particularly in situations where it could cause mass chaos or be used to manipulate stock prices. 

The unsuccessful attempt to pass a lottery bill was probably the most controversial issue in the spring Legislative session, the legislators agreed. 

“It wasn’t clear cut,” Moore said. “It was very complex. What is gaming? What is a game of chance?” 

Moore said there are 18 constitutional amendments on gaming in specific counties, including those that made VictoryLand Casino and Greene County Entertainment Center legal. 

He said there also a number of illegal casinos and bingo halls in almost every county, including Morgan County. 

“As a state, we’ve got to get a better handle on regulating gaming,” Moore said. 

Moore said there’s not enough Republican support to pass a gaming bill, so they need bipartisan support. 

Collins said she hasn’t thought much yet about the 2025 legislative session, but one issue she expects to return is ethics reform. 

Stadthagen and Collins said the ethics law should be amended to provide more clarity for elected officials on what they can and can’t do. 

Stadthagen said they need a bill that helps city employees, city council members and other elected officials because previous bills “made it difficult to know what’s black, white or gray.” 

The Legislative Update took place at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Decatur Riverfront.