09-04-2025
Alabama Senate committee approves $10 billion education budget
Senate Finance and Taxation Education committee Chair Arthur Orr leads the committee's meeting opn April 9, 2025 in Montgomery, Ala. (Alander Rocha/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama Senate committee Wednesday approved a nearly $10 billion education budget for 2026 that increases funding in some areas and prepares for an attempt to overhaul how state schools get money.
SB 112, the main budget bill sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, would increase the education budget for the fiscal year 2026, which begins October 1, by $543.3 million, or 5.81%, to $9.89 billion.
'We're still in a good place with resources for our public educational institutions, be they universities, colleges, junior colleges, and K-12, Pre-K and other elements,' Orr said, though he added that they have 'to be very mindful going forward' not only due to future economic uncertainty but also because of efforts to create a new funding formula.
The budget includes $9.6 million to fund a new parental leave law for state and education employees, as well as $15.6 million for an injury compensation program for education employees awaiting legislative approval. The budget also appropriates $2.5 million for a pilot project to provide teletherapy, or mental health counseling via phone or video, in schools and increased funding for prison education by $3.7 million, or a 19.3% increase, for a total of $22.8 million.
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'We know that there's a lot of mental health challenges in our schools today. Well, there are companies that do via video telecounseling, and because it's so hard, as you heard in the committee, to find school counselors, this will be an assist,' Orr said.
The Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) would receive an increase of 31%, increasing it's funding by $32.2 million under the Senate committee substitute. The Alabama Reading Initiative'sfunding would increase by 6.4% percent, a $9 million increase. Transportation funding would be increased by about 9.1%, or about $40 million.
The state's share that it pays for state and education employees is also increasing. PEEHIP would have to contribute $904 to each education employee's health insurance premiums, up fron $800, while SEIB would have to contribute $1,025 to their state employee's health insurance premiums. The Alabama Public Library Service would keep their funding level from the current fiscal year.
The budget does not include a $100 million supplemental appropriation to transition the state's student funding formula to a hybrid model from the Education Opportunities Reserve Fund for the same fiscal year. SB 111, also sponsored by Orr, would appropriate $375 million over three years for that transition, which aims to get more money to students with particular needs, including children in poverty and English Language Learners.
The committee also approved SB 113, sponsored by Orr, which appropriates an additional $524.3 million to schools in the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. That includes $100 million to local school boards for new school buses and $166 million to the State Department of Education for one-time expenses, such as college and career readiness grants and providing additional school safety training and services.
Orr said that higher education institutions received additional funding in the supplemental to keep the current funding ratio between K-12 and higher education due to an increase from the student funding formula changes.
'Colleges and universities usually get around 25%, 27% of whatever the K-12 world gets, so they're going to be getting additional resources in this budget because we remove $375 [million] from the savings account [and] put it towards K-12,' Orr said.
SB 114, also sponsored by Orr, is another supplemental appropriation bill that would allocate $1.25 billion from the Education Trust Fund Advancement and Technology Fund for the current fiscal year, ending September 30. That supplemental also includes about $908 million for the Department of Education to be distributed to local school boards and other education state entities, such as the Board of Trustees of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind and the Board of Youth Services School Districts.
The committee also approved separate funding bills for Tuskegee University, totaling $15.8 million, Talladega College with $1.33 million, and Southern Preparatory Academy, a boarding school in Camp Hill, totaling $450,000.
Orr said he expects the Senate to consider the funding bills Thursday.
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