Alabama is heading for another record-setting education budget after the Senate passed an $8.8 billion spending bill.

The budget includes pay increases for teachers and staff, plus bonuses for special education teachers and speech therapists. The spending represents a 6.5% increase over the current year’s budget of $8.3 billion.

Senate Education Budget Chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, presented the budget Thursday as one of eight bills related to spending. The legislature also is considering a $2.8 billion supplemental appropriation and a $273 million tax rebate bill.

“For you new members, this is an unprecedented budget and an unprecedented time,” Orr said. “There were a lot of decision points in it.”

The regular budget proposal funds increases in K-12 and higher education, including pay increases for K-12 teachers, school support staff, and a bonus for special education teachers. The plan calls for more teachers in the middle grades and more school nurses, too.

The Senate proposed spending $362 million more on K-12, $14.8 million more on higher education and $33.1 million on other education-related expenses.

Total funding is as follows:

• K-12 – $5.99 billion, a 6.4% increase over the current year,
• Higher education – $2.26 billion, a 6.7% increase, and
• Other education-related expenses – $551.5 million, a 6.38% increase

Pay raises

Hard-to-find special education teachers could get a $1,000 stipend under the Senate proposal, at a cost of $4.6 million. The state board of education originally requested a $5,000 yearly stipend that would have cost $68 million.

Speech therapists would also receive a $1,000 stipend, funded by a $500,000 line item in the proposal.

The Senate added $15 million that wasn’t in Ivey’s proposal to give additional pay to school support staff. Because there is no statewide minimum salary schedule for support staff like there is for teachers, Orr said, the amount is a “guesstimate.”

“It’s a starting point,” Orr said, “to help schools across the state bring those salaries up for your bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the custodians – people who are very important in what they do because if we didn’t have them, we’d certainly notice.” Secretaries and administrative assistants will be included as well.

All public education employees will see a 2% raise next year, making it the third year in a row in five of the last six years that teachers received a raise. All teachers received a 4% raise this year and those with nine or more years of experience received raises between 5% and 21%.

K-12

K-12 schools will receive $66 million for school nurses, up from $50 million this year. That’s more than the $60 million the state board of education requested and would be enough money to ensure there’s a nurse in every school, Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said previously.

The proposal adds more than 100 teachers in fourth through sixth grades, Senate Education Budget Chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said, to help lower class sizes.

In a separate funding bill passed by the Senate, teachers would receive half of their classroom supply money before the start of the new school year, rather than having to wait until October, the start of Alabama’s fiscal year. The other half is funded in the Senate’s regular budget proposal.

The Senate kept Ivey’s proposal to add $25 million in funding for the requirements of the Alabama Numeracy Act, an initiative to strengthen math skills in elementary-aged students. The program’s total funding will rise from $15 million to $40 million.

The Senate also included $15 million for college and career ready grants. This program would help schools obtain resources to help students earn one of 10 college and career readiness indicators such as passing an Advanced Placement Exam or earning a career technical credential.

Other spending

Higher education would also see increases, with $1 million added for step raises for employees in the community college colleges with more than 30 years experience.

The state would spend $4.5 million on a program to recruit teachers who have a STEM major, with the Alabama Commission on Higher Education steering that effort.

The Senate proposed adding $9 million to the Department of Mental Health for institutional and community treatment and care programs bringing the total to $76.9 million for next year.

Alabama’s next fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2023.

There’s an additional $8 million for the state’s Pre-K program in the bill, bringing total funding to $182 million.

Some of the new spending was made possible because the Senate dropped $25 million from the Department of Economic and Community Affairs’ Rural Broadband Program. “They’re over capacity as far as what they can deliver, as far as laying fiber across the state,” Orr said.

The budget now moves to the House Education Budget Committee for consideration. The House will reconvene Tuesday at 1 p.m.