The state's Education Fund and General Fund budgets are passed and in the governor's hands with just a few days left in the 2025 Legislative session, reports AL.com's Mike Cason.
The General Fund budget came in quite late Tuesday night at $3.7 billion. That's a 10% increase over the current year's budget. The General Fund is for non-education state spending and includes Medicaid, prisons, state troopers and courts.
There wasn't much drama in getting it passed -- the Senate tweaked it and approved it 29-0 and sent it back to the House, where the budgets originate. The House passed the final version 100-0.
The vote went late into the night because state Sen. Rodger Smitherman, a Birmingham Democrat, requested the entire budget be read aloud. Which probably sounds exciting if you like to watch CSPAN even when there's no salacious confirmation hearing going on.
This budget is 125 pages -- like my copy of "The Old Man and the Sea" -- and was delivered by an automated reader.
Smitherman said he requested the budget be read in order to slow down the process and have more time to review the budgets and other pending legislation. It's a tactic the woefully outnumbered Democrats can use to try to avoid a late-session Republican steamrolling of measures.
House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Rainsville Republican, chalked it up to being part of the process.
But state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, a Trussville Republican, was even less fired up, blaming the delay for stymieing his bill to tweak sex education in the state, making public schools teach "sexual risk avoidance" and abstinence.
