Alabama’s House and Senate education budget committee members on Thursday got a first look at how much money education officials are hoping to get from next year’s budget.

Officials from early childhood, K-12 and higher education made their pitches to lawmakers at the statehouse Thursday morning.

They also discussed an upcoming fiscal cliff for federal COVID funding, which will run out before the start of the 2025-26 school year. Many initiatives in early math and reading currently are supported by federal funding; the state will need to decide how to support those efforts moving forward.

Officials asked for increases over this year’s budget, including:

• $6.2 billion for K-12 schools, and
• $2.36 billion for universities

K-12 education

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey was up first and walked lawmakers through parts of the Alabama Board of Education’s $6.2 billion request – $894 million more than the current year’s allocation of $5.3 billion.

Mackey emphasized the high cost of implementing parts of the Numeracy and Literacy Act, including the $30 million cost of summer math and reading camps lawmakers required through those laws.

Related: Alabama faces decisions about how to use $2.7 billion in unexpected education funds

After the meeting, Senate Education Budget chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, told AL.com he is concerned about federal COVID funding running out, too.

“That tells me we’ve got to be cautious because the costs are really going to go up as the federal money dries up,” Orr said, reiterating that the state will be responsible for the full cost of programs like math coaches and summer camps for reading.

Mackey’s request includes $264 million to add 3,000 teachers statewide. Mackey told reporters he wants to boost two types of teachers: kindergarten through third grade educators to support the requirements of the Literacy and Numeracy Acts, and fourth through eighth grade teachers to help lower class sizes.

“Our real struggle has for years been actually grades four through eight,” he said. “That’s where our divisors are the highest. It’s where children exhibit the most issues with mental health and behavior.”

The state’s Foundation Program currently provides funding for one teacher for every 20 students in each of those grades, but class sizes vary greatly because of the different numbers of students among grades.

Also in his request is more money for counselors and assistant principals.

Another problem for schools: inflation. “Inflation is absolutely eating us up on transportation,” Mackey said. “We have to buy tires for buses. We run 83 million miles a year on our school buses, and that’s a lot of tires, and tires cost a lot more money this year than they cost last year. So we’re asking for big increases in transportation operations.” His official request is for $465 million, $110 million more than the current year’s allocation for transportation.

House Education Budget Chair Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, told AL.com he expects teachers will get a “modest” pay raise “if there are teacher raises,” but didn’t give any details. Ivey would be the one to make a request for teacher raises in her final budget request.

In his presentation, Alabama Commission on the Evaluation of Services’ Director Marcus Morgan said the state needs to get better at both defining success and then collecting data to figure out if success goals are met. His agency, known as ACES, has produced multiple reports on the teacher workforce pinpointing where teacher turnover and retention is a problem.

Morgan told lawmakers Alabama teachers’ 2021 starting pay of $41,163 was the eighth highest in the country when adjusted for cost of living.

Alabama’s average teacher salary when adjusted for cost of living, ranked 24th in the country and second in the southeast, behind Georgia, he said.

Morgan did not ask for a budget increase for ACES, remaining level-funded at $571,000, he said.

Preschool

Secretary of Early Childhood Education Barbara Cooper told lawmakers their steadily increasing investment in the state’s First Class Pre-K program is working. Without sharing any dollar amounts, Cooper said her goal is to continue to add more classrooms, targeting areas where more than 20% of the population falls below the federal poverty level.

Children who participate in the state’s program are more likely to be proficient in reading and math and less likely to have disciplinary issues, she said.

Another goal is to expand the department’s pre-k through third grade initiative, a collaborative effort with the department of education, which Cooper said currently is in 264 classrooms statewide.

College

Alabama Commission on Higher Education Director Jim Purcell told lawmakers higher education needs $228 million more than the current year’s budget of $2.36 billion, an overall 11% increase. Two-year colleges would receive a 10% average increase, and four-year universities would receive an 11.5% increase on average according to Purcell’s figures.

Purcell said critics of rising tuition costs need to consider that Alabama funds colleges and universities at a lower rate than other states, meaning colleges make up the difference by charging students’ tuition.

After the meeting, Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, said after two days of state budget hearings – the general fund hearings were held Wednesday – she is concerned that lawmakers are not providing enough money for the resources and services Alabama’s children need to succeed.

Multiple state agencies beyond the department of education should work together to solve the problems facing Alabama’s children, she said.

“We’ve got to give our children the best opportunity possible for them to succeed,” Figures said. “And that is taking care of them from prenatal care, with nutrition, with education, with mental health [resources].

“Until we sit down and develop a master plan, a master strategic plan to deal with all of this, none of it is going away.”

Read more: League of Women Voters launches ‘The Alabama Channel’ to boost civic engagement

The state brought in record revenues for the education trust fund last year, due in part to federal COVID relief funding making its way into income and sales taxes. Of the $10.4 billion in actual revenue, only $7.7 was budgeted, leaving nearly $3 billion to be distributed in addition to the regular budget expectations.

But what to do with that excess revenue was not discussed during hearings on Thursday but officials did discuss some ideas with reporters after the hearing.

All presentation materials are posted online and a recording of the livestreamed meeting can be found on The Alabama Channel.

Gov. Kay Ivey will reveal the executive budget for different agencies when the legislative session begins.

The education budget will start in the Senate this year, but talks usually don’t start until the second half of the legislative session. The legislative session starts March 7.