Lawmakers talk about their plans, ambitions for upcoming session

Mar. 3—OXFORD — With the start of a legislative session looming March 7, local lawmakers gathered at Hubbard's Off Main for Politics on Tap Tuesday night.

The downtown Oxford event was organized by Jakob Williamson, public affairs director for the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce, to let both new and seasoned elected officials spell out their goals and ideas for the upcoming session in a casual atmosphere.

Wine, beer, pickled okra, crackers and cheese were on the menu for a small crowd of about two dozen who listened to newly elected State Sen. Keith Kelley and State Rep. Mark Gidley along with incumbent State Rep. Steve Hurst.

KEITH KELLEY

Representing District 12, Sen. Keith Kelley is a newcomer to the state Senate but a veteran of Montgomery politics, having served on multiple local and state boards, committees and other entities.

"I am newly elected and I'm in a learning phase," Kelley said, noting 38 new members are in the House and six are in the Senate.

Kelley started his nuts and bolts speech about Alabama politics by going to the heart of it all: money.

"For those of you that are unaware, in the legislature you have two budgets in Alabama, we have an education budget and a general fund budget. The general fund budget is really fun because roughly around 85 to 87 percent of it is earmarked," Kelley said.

Kelley has the inside scoop on the budget proceedings, having been chosen to sit on the general fund budget committee that has held hearings this past week.

"I was very honored to be chosen to be on that — for a freshman that was a big surprise and I'm very thankful for that," he said.

Kelley said that the Legislature hammers out the state budget a year in advance.

"So the budget that we'll be discussing right off the start will be for next year's budget," Kelley said.

"You might have heard we have a little surplus and I don't know that you'd be surprised but we've had a lot of people that's figured out how to use that money," Kelley said.

Kelley said the education budget has a surplus of $2.7 billion and $1 billion of that is unspent money from the American Rescue Act.

"We were all excited because we had this excess, the excess by the way was created by the COVID money that came in, the money came in and propped up our economy," Kelley said. Other parts of the surplus came from sales tax revenues, Kelley said.

Kelley said he would be in favor of giving rebates to taxpayers with the surplus.

"I like that idea, it gives the money back to you which is where it came from but it also gets it back into the economy," Kelley said.

Kelley then went on to highlight other financial data in the state system.

"Dr. Eric Mackey (Alabama State Superintendent of Education) asked for $984 million in new K-12 funding on top of the $8.2 billion approved last year mainly for increasing teachers' salaries and recruitment; they're short on teachers by about 300," he said.

Kelley said that Jim Purcell, executive director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, requested $2.36 billion, an increase of $227 million.

Kelley said that there is a shortage of 680 correctional officers in the state prison system. He said that the Alabama Department of Corrections' request was $726 million, up from $659 million.

Kelley then touched on the controversial early release of prisoners from the prison system.

"That's one thing that's generated a lot of talk especially in light of some of the things that's happened with the deputy getting killed and another shot," Kelley said.

In 2022 an inmate was released after four years on a 10-year sentence on the "good time law" and went on to murder a deputy and injure another.

Kelley said he hopes that the Alabama Jobs Act is renewed. Alabama Jobs Act is an incentive to stimulate economic growth through new job creation and capital investment.

Other things that Kelley spoke about and supports:

— An education savings account of $6,000 that would follow a student and could be used for public or private schools.

— Teacher safety in the classroom from unruly students.

— Voting integrity that would mandate a paper ballot for all voting machines. Additionally, the voting machines could not be connected to the internet or Bluetooth.

Kelley said he is looking forward to the new legislative session.

"Honestly, it's kind of fun until next week. Everybody likes you right now but you haven't cast that first vote, when you're new like me and Mark [Gidley] are, but after you cast that first vote you've got people mad at you," Kelley said.

MARK GIDLEY

Mark Gidley, a Republican, is a member of the Alabama House of Representatives, representing District 29, and like Kelley he's ready to roll his sleeves up and get to work.

"I'm proud to be here and represent a good portion of Calhoun County, including Piedmont, Alexandria and Ohatchee. We do have excess money and what we do with that is extremely important, and I think it's going to require a lot of our time and a lot of our strategy to know how to wisely use that," Gidley said.

Gidley's working career includes 21 years in the insurance business, which he left in 1998 to go into the ministry full time.

"I pastor a church just up 431 right in the edge of Glencoe, been there 22 years and I still currently fill that spot," Gidley said.

Gidley said he wanted to run for state office when the District 29 seat was vacated.

"It was my time to do what I have encouraged other people to do and that's get involved," he said.

"I think it's extremely important that we're involved in what's going on in our cities in our state and know what's going on," Gidley said.

Gidley said that average people "don't have a clue" of what's going on.

Gidley said one of the things that's important to him is getting a cost of living raise for retired state employees and school teachers, an increase they've not had since 2006.

Gidley said that hopefully some of the budget surplus will help some of them.

"Education is extremely important to me, I've met with our superintendents and some of our principals before the primary back in the beginning of last year. I made sure I went to every school in my district and met with as many principals as I could," he said.

Gidley said that education is absolutely essential and is the foundation for the next generation.

Gidley listened to the teachers and educators on the campaign trail and learned that schools are short-staffed and they desperately need help. To that end, Gidley said, all schools should have an assistant principal. Currently state law mandates a school must have 600 students to qualify for an assistant principal.

Gidley hopes the cutoff number for assistant principals will be eliminated as the legislative session proceeds.

"If it's an operating school it should have an assistant principal," he said.

Gidley said another educational program that is important is workforce development.

"I think that workforce development is one of our greatest opportunities to prepare the next generation of workforce," he said, adding that dual enrollment in high school also helps students in their higher education.

Gidley said that industry is attracted to a skilled and trained workforce.

"I want to do everything I can to help promote that. Last week we were at a groundbreaking there in Gadsden of a new $30 million dollar advanced technology center," he said.

Located on the campus of Gadsden State Community College, the new center will be completed in the fall 2024 to start training thousands of students so they can move into technical jobs.

Gidley said that he is pro-life and will be behind the effort to keep Alabama a pro-life state.

Gidley said that one of the things he has learned from his days as a pastor and wants to carry on to his tenure as a state representative is to listen to what the needs are of an individual.

"Can't solve every problem but if I can help, if I can listen and I told some earlier my number one responsibility is not just Montgomery," Gidley said, "I'm going to have to spend some time down there but my number one responsibility are the 46,000-plus people that have trusted me to serve as their representative for District 29 and that's what I want to do."

STEVE HURST

State Rep. Steve Hurst, R-Munford, said he's been in politics since he was appointed by Gov. George Wallace as a Democrat to the county commission in 1985 to fill an unexpired term. Later, Hurst ran for the legislature as a Democrat but later flipped over to the Republican side.

Hurst said he has held his seat for the last 24 years adding that the last two terms he faced no opposition in the elections.

"I do what I do because I enjoy helping people. I think God put me on this earth for one reason and that's to help other people," he said.

Hurst said he stays up at night and works seven days a week for his constituents and talks to them about issues at church and other locations.

Hurst said when he began his legislative career in the house there were many years of proration that had to be dealt with.

Regarding the discipline of children in a classroom, Hurst said that nine times out of ten, when that child gets to acting up and the teachers sends that child to the office a little later on, the principal tells the teacher, "'Don't send them down here to see me anymore, you take care of the problem.'"

Hurst said the teachers don't have a mechanism to take care of the problem.

"If I had my way and I thought we could pass a piece of legislation, I'd say we could establish a room, like a time-out room," he said.

Then the parent would have to come to the school to pick up their child, inconveniencing the parent, he said.

Hurst said after about the third time the parent is inconvenienced on their job the parent will make the necessary measures to make the child act right.

As for the Alabama prison system, Hurst said there is not enough money in the budget due to so many people being incarcerated.

"You can't turn them out, you've got to lock them up, you've got to have security. A lot of these prisons today, they're using prisoners to look after the prisoners, we don't have the proper staffing we need," Hurst said.

Hurst said the bill passed last year authorizing early release prisoners was a good bill, however, prisoners were released who were not supposed to be let out.

One of Hurst's pet peeves he would like to fix includes littering.

Hurst said that the littering problem in the state is getting worse and he wants to pass the strongest littering bill in the nation to help curb people trashing the state.

Hurst said the first offense there should be a fine of $500, on second offense the violator should pick up trash each weekend for a month and on the third offense the person's driver's license should be suspended for 90 days.

"We've got to do something, look at what Alabama resembles when people come through Alabama, and who's fault is it, it's ours," he said.

Another problem Hurst wants to fix is how some schools no longer accept cash at athletic events; that's an inconvenience to those who don't have a credit card to buy tickets.

Staff writer Bill Wilson: 256-235-3562. On Twitter @bwilson_star.