Alabama Governor: Use Education Funds for Industrial Recruitment

Don't get me started on the appropriation of educational funds on the state level. We recently have had an issue here where parents no longer want to supply items on school supply lists because the news told them that each school gets around $140 a student for supplies. Problem is those funds have to be used for basics such as toilet paper, copy paper, etc because of the way funds are appropriated.

People legitimately don't realize that the state and federal government regularly funnels funding for schools in all different places before it reaches the student and/or school.

This guy has been an unmitigated disaster as governor. He ran on bringing jobs to the state, but the state has actually lost jobs. He's a doctor and has refused to even debate expanding Medicaid under the ACA. He has no backbone to stand up to Marsh, Hubbard, et al in the state congress.

Sadly though, he'll get re-elected because the residents are too dumb to see how horrible he has been.

One of the reasons I will never move back. I don't trust the people of the state of Alabama to choose decent leaders. They elected this nut governor and Roy Moore as the Cheif Justice. The people of Alabama are getting what they asked for.

There were good Republican candidates for Governor. This fricker won because of his lame "no salary" promise.

He is a Republican, and the irony is I actually voted for him in 2010. I know a couple of people that know him personally and they both assured me has qualified and wasn't the same type of Republican as most of the other Alabama Republicans. Boy, were they wrong, and was I duped.


He won by pandering to the teacher's union(largely Democratic) to defeat Bradley Byrne(now a US Rep in DC) in the Republican primary, then quickly turned his back on teachers. He tried this past session to get a teacher raise(they haven't had one in 4 or 5 years) being that it is an election year, but the Marsh/Hubbard team in state congress pulled his pants down in public and wouldn't even let it come to a vote. He's a political novice and has shown that at just about every turn.

The Governor and Legislature of our State are a fricking joke. Bentley got elected, as pointed out, because he was going to get jobs and not take a salary because he was so devoted to the working people of Alabama. It also disturbs me that he looks like Montgomery Burns.

Absolutely absurd. In trying evaluate where they want to put a factory, quality of schools is a major factor companies consider. Clearly certain things are more important than generous tax abatements because Boeing elected to build new planes in Seattle over Huntsville despite the Alabama legislature promising them everything under the sun.

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He won by pandering to the teacher's union

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The really funny part to me is that the overwhelming reason the AEA opposed Byrne is because he had the gall to clean up the 2 year college system - which had a negative impact on the checkbooks of a lot of mostly democratic legislators.

Had Byrne been elected, he'd most likely have been much more effective in the legislature and AEA members would be in a better place today.

They made their own bed.

This isn't even about party affiliation. No one should find it acceptable to finance corporations at the expense of education

Also, at what point do those in power in this state realize that companies need an educated and skilled workforce to actually produce the goods they are being incentivized for otherwise they can build in China or India

Before I pose this question, for the record I didn't vote for Bentley in 2010 and I won't in 2014. Just like the last time around, my vote in the Governor's race will go uncast. If there isn't a candidate I like I don't vote in that race.

Now, here's the topic for discussion. In terms of education funding, when is enough enough and at what point do you consider shifting revenue to other areas?

In Alabama, the vast majority of revenue sources are earmarked. In fact, Alabama earmarks more revenue than any other state in the country. 87% of Alabama's revenue is bound by law to be used for specific purposes. The national average is less than 30%.

Going further, most of the revenue sources that regularly show growth are earmarked for education. Income tax? 100% Education budget. Sales and Use tax? Roughly 95% education budget. Property tax? Roughly 75% education budget.

The general fund gets the crumbs that are left from a variety of other revenue streams.

Source.

So, in effect, neither the governor nor the legislature writes the budget. They just see how much money's going to come in and see how bad or good things are going to be for that year.

If you're running short at home, you can drop cable to make sure you've got enough to pay the electric bill. Imagine if you couldn't do that because the wages you earned Monday thru Thursday HAD to be used for entertainment.

Spleen mentioned expanding Medicaid. One could argue that having kids healthy would be a prerequisite to successfully educating them but Alabama simply cannot afford it right now because even the small percentage required at the end of the federal 100% pay period would break the general fund completely. If the legislature had the flexibility to move revenue around, one might decide that expanding medicaid was more important than, say, expanding the pre-k program. Alabama can't even have that conversation.

So, in a nutshell, when you're discussing education funding and budgeting in general at the state level in Alabama, things aren't nearly as simple as they seem.

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87% of Alabama's revenue is bound by law to be used for specific purposes.

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OMG.

That's an absolutely absurd way to budget. Is there not some recourse to fix that problem? Is it due to constitutional amendments or legislative stupidity?