From our state House studio in Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacy, welcome to Capital Journal.

Today was the 22nd day of the Alabama Legislature's 2026 regula session, meaning there are just eight legislative days remaining between now and early April.

And it was another big day for state budgets.

The Education Trust Fund was on the House floor today.

The $10.4 billion spending plan covers the range of education programs, from pre- all the way through higher ed.

It represents another record budget, about $570 million more than the current fiscal year.

Teachers and other educatio workers would get a 2% pay raise in this plan.

And the public Educatio employee health Insurance plan, or Up, is bolstered by a $180 million infusion, which is just less than half of what the program's shortfall is expected to be.

House Education Budget Chairman Danny Garrett crafted this budget this year, and he carried it on the House floor.

This budget wa challenging because we had a lot of, issues out of the gate that were huge demands.

We could only grow the budget for $570 million, and initial request was $380 million.

We had a teacher raise.

It was another $100 million.

So that's $480 million of the 570.

And that left very little to spread around all pre-K, all the wa through the higher ed community.

We also had to look at funding the state House, which of course, is being constructed, under the oversight of the retirement system.

So, there have been that's one of their investments, we one of their investments and we're helping to fund that.

We had to fund this $37.5 million payment for that.

We also had to to pick up some of the children's health insurance providers from the general fund.

Their general fund is very tight.

As you know, we have a more room in the revenue.

So the growth in chips program, we picked up in the education side of the budget and, those were just some of the initial things that started out that were we had to navigate around and, we were successful in, I think addressing all and meeting those needs and addressing other needs as well with, with, Pip, we funded an $180 million of their, $300 million request.

That was less than what the governor had funded, but they've not had any insurance premium increase in well over ten years.

And that model just needs to be examined.

We did, it's it's what's happening right now is not sustainable.

The legislature is putting in over $1.6 billion already into the retirement system.

We're going to continue to do that.

But, we're going to have to be have some help from their side of the fence on these health insurance cos if they're just out of control.

The budget passed unanimously and now goes to the Senate.

And I'll speak with Chairman Garrett in more detail about the ETF tomorrow on Capital Journal's weekend show.

The Alabama Senate today unanimously approved a major proposal aimed at changing how electricity rates are regulated in the state Senate Bill 360.

Known as the power to the People Act, would expand the Alabama Public Service Commission from three members to seven and create a new cabinet level energy secretary to oversee the commission's operations.

The measure moved quickly through the chamber this week and passed 32 to 0, drawing bipartisan support fro both Republicans and Democrats.

An amendment was adde on the floor that also protects the current commission employees.

As the panel expands, the legislation comes after significant public backlash earlier this session to a proposal that would have eliminated elections for the commission and replaced them with appointed regulators.

Lawmakers say this approach instead keeps the commission accountable to voters, while addressing frustration over electricity rates.

Well, when people are elected by the people, you become responsive to the people.

So that's why I was adamant our body was adamant that we were not going to go to appointed positions.

We want elected positions so they would be responsible to the people and anyone who puts themself up for these type positions because they are giving that authority.

Given that authority by the people, they're goin to be responsive to the people and obviously there may be a some point that someone's not.

Well, then you have an election coming up where the people can change that.

So in all ways, it gives that power back to the people.

Not only for the original election, but also for, okay, they're not responding, so we'll get rid of them.

It's so interesting ho light might just come together.

And then when you put the final touch in Clyde put the final touch on it and the amendments and all that came to make this better.

I think that the state of Alabama, as they see it, going to see that we did the right thing that tried to do the right thing, but we did the right thing to make sure that all of the people of the state of Alabama had a voice.

That's what's important.

I feel confident that this will reduce rights.

Number one.

Number two, I feel like as we move into this, the commissioners that will end up being elected is going to make the right decisions for the people of Alabama.

And that's really where the rights will be reduced.

The key for us is being able to allow the people that are doing that job there every day and putting the shoes on and having to go to work and focus on energy as the future of Alabama.

What they can do to help reduce that?

We've given them the structure to do that.

And that's what we've formulated through this bill.

And that bill now head to the House, where a separate PSC reform proposal is being sponsored by State Representative Mack Butler of Rainbow City.

And it's already passed out of committee this week.

Butler's bill would requir the commission to hold mandatory open rape case hearing at least once every three years.

Formal proceedings where utilities must justify the rates they charge under sworn testimony.

As I mentioned at the top, there are just eight legislative days remaining this session.

That means we're coming up on the homestretch.

The plan is to meet for two days next week, then take spring break and come back at the end of the month for the final six days.

House Speaker Nathanie Ledbetter today told reporters there's still a lot of work remaining in these final days, including on that PSC issue.

Just got word that the Senate passed.

There's that pretty strong today.

So in talking with back, I think it's something that you can look at both of those bills and probably join them together and make a really good deal.

That's kin of what we talked about earlier.

He kind of talked to me at the diocese, this morning, and we spoke about that.

So Mac's open to that.

I think he is has got some guardrails.

It would be good, probably.

And what the Senate's go so certainly be looking at that.

I mean, everybody in Alabama wants to have better rates.

And you know I think the oversight that this would bring with it would help do that in, in my understanding, it probably would put a freeze on the rates for 2 to 3 years, probably three years.

So, I know it's something to look at.

And listen, this is the thing.

I think everybody's missing this point.

You know, Alabama is growing at a pace we've never seen in our lifetime because of the bills that we've passed.

And given the incentives we gave it, Alabama's become one of the best place in the country to do business.

And if we're going to continue to do that we've got to have electricity.

I mean, that is th driving force for the economy.

And my statistics are absolutely.

And showing it will grow anywhere from 30 to 30 5 to 40% in the next ten years.

If we do not have somethin in place to be able to capture that growth, we're going to be in trouble.

We'll take a quick break and be back with Trish Crain.

Stay with us.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online any time at Alabama Public Television's website.

aptv.org.

Click on the online video tab on the main page.

You can also connect with Capital Journal and link to past episodes on Capital Journal's Facebook page.

From 1820 to 1826, Cahaba was the first capital of the state of Alabama.

The capital city was located at the convergence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers.

Because Governor William Wyatt Bibb had arranged for a free gift of land for that purpose from the federal government.

An ancient India earthwork was found on the site, so the governor reused it as a dramatic centerpiece for the town plan.

The sale of Lots and Cahaba built the state treasury for the new state and paid for the first state house.

Soon, the frontier capital had two newspapers numerous businesses, a theater, and nearly a thousand inhabitants.

Despite the loss of the capital to Tuscaloosa in 1826 as a county seat grew into one of the wealthiest communities in the nation and did not become a ghost tow until well after the Civil War.

Cahaba was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Today it is known as the Old Harbor Archeological Park.

APT is Alabama's storyteller.

Stories of Alabama history.

The arts.

Alabama music.

Learn more online at aptv.org .

Welcome back to Capital Journal.

Joining me next is Trish Crane, our senior education reporter here at Alabama Public Television.

Trish, thanks for making the time.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Well, big day for education today.

Obviously, the education trust fund but it passes the house, right?

We'll get to that a little bit later.

But you spent part of your day at the Board of Education, the state Board of Education, as it went through textbooks for social studies.

This has been like a really controversial and a big issue for years or months.

Talk about what they did today.

So today was the actual vote where without getting into too much detail, a textbook committee made of a made up of experts, reviews, all these textbooks, and they are looking mostly for alignment with standards.

And, you know, we just revise our course of study and I like things are changing.

Civics is moving.

Seventh grade civics is going to be a different topic.

And I can only imagine if I'm that teacher, you know, thinking, how am I going to do this?

But, but the textbooks, they, the state board has given a list of textbooks, and they were supposed to vote on it a couple of months ago.

And then doctor McKe pulled it off of the agenda at, you know, well, he never put it on the agenda to be technically correct because he said there were board members that had questions that some board members, after reviewing them, were really concerned about the way information was presented, because this is about America and this is about, you know, their climate chang and ecological things in there.

And some of the framing they had concerns with.

And people came this mornin to the public hearing and said, we they're telling you, you know, what they have concerns with.

And I think most people probably would.

But the board had to vote.

Governor Ivey was there.

She's president of the of the board, and I wasn't quite sure which way the vote would go, because I knew the board was split.

Four people wanted to go ahead and adopt the list, and four people had concerns and wanted to wait and try and do something different.

Now what?

That something different was became an issue, because if they didn't vote or if they if they just voted not to approve the lis and all of our local districts and schools would have to go out and vet their own books.

Which also meant that if there were books, the list is going to contain.

I haven't seen the list yet, that the list is going to contain the approved books and any that were rejected.

If the book is rejected, a loca district cannot use that book.

Okay.

But if the list was not approved, they could have used even rejected books.

So yeah, kind of a lot of uncertainty.

Yeah.

I mean, right now it's March, but August is coming, right?

So I'm guessing if you're a school district out there, if you're a superintendent, if you're a principal, you need to make these decisions really soon.

Absolutely.

And that is why Doctor Mackey put it on the agenda.

He said, we've got it.

We've got to vote on it and move on.

We either need t give him a list or we need to, let them go out and find their own books.

So the vote today was 5 to 4 to approve the list.

I guess you could say Governo Ivey had the tie breaking vote, because she's she doesn' attend all night.

Every meeting.

Yeah, but she is there actually quite a lot.

So, the vote was 5 to 4, and the list is approved.

And then there' some more steps.

There's some, you know, contractual things that have to go on.

And then local districts can get their hands on.

You know, I will say they've been looking at these books.

Districts have known that they're going to have to get new social studies textbooks.

They want new textbooks.

They haven't had new textbooks in 12 years.

So they're looking forward to this.

And so they kind of know what they want.

But, you know, some of them might have been looking at the rejected textbooks and they'll have to start from scratch.

Well a lot has happened in 12 years.

There's a there's a lot of histor that has happened in 12 years.

And I understand how this can be a touchy subject because, you know, we we have different, you know, interpretations of history and everything.

But I've talked with some of the folks involved with the Social Studies Task force, I guess, or the other course of study.

Yeah.

Or textbook committee.

The textbook committee.

Okay.

What about the importance of including the Holocaust and expanding what the Holocaust was, you know, like things like that.

So important.

And I guess what I'm saying is from talking to some of these members of the committee, they put a lot of work into this.

Oh, absolutely.

And it would have been a little demoralizing had they had the board just not done anything and kick the can down the road.

And I think that's what happened when they didn't vote on it a couple of months ago.

You know, a couple of the state board members said, what does this tell the committee?

We asked them to come here and and give us, you know, 75 hours of their time.

That was the estimate that was given 75 hours of their time.

These are educators, an they got their full time jobs.

Right.

And and then we just discard it.

And to be fair, the state boar members who won, who voted no.

They said, you know, it's these they're going to have these books for the next seven years.

We want to make sure that they have good books.

They really weren't impresse with the quality of the books.

There was some talk about, Alabama writing its own social studies textbooks.

And actually Governor Ivey in the I think it was in the supplemental in her, proposal, she had $7 million to begin the year.

It's a multi-year process, right, to to go ahead and get that process started.

The House budget took that out.

Which doctor McKee said?

I mean, the House, the full House took that out.

But doctor McKee said that was because we're going to get a new governor.

And folks said, let's just wait.

Let's not start something and then have to change direction midstream.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for covering that.

I know those board meetings are very long and and it require being in that room to cover it.

So I appreciate that.

We'll talk about that budget.

The education trust fund passed the House today.

I'm going to be talking on the weekend show with Chairman Garrett about all his work on this.

But I wanted to ask you, you know, we've gotten all these national accolades lately.

And you've written about this, about, you know, how much work has been done.

Progress made in reading and math especially in the lower grades.

And it's fun.

Look, it's great when The New York Times is writing about us, you know, and all these other national publications are saying, hey, look at Alabama.

We like that.

But also remember I guess it was in the mid 2000 or to 20 tens when, you know, we also made a lot of progress in reading with the literacy or the, Alabama Reading Initiative.

Right.

And then we took the foot off the gas.

There was some budget cut and, you know, big budget cuts.

And so we lost ground.

We lost serious ground, which is why we've had to kind of redo this.

Right.

So let me ask you, in this latest education trust fund, do you think things like th Literacy Act, the Numeracy Act, those things that have led to success, are they going to be fully funded or are we learning that lesson from back then?

I think so because people do I've, I've, I've heard Senator or bring it up, you know that we don't want to stop funding these initiatives.

We know they're working.

You know, a lot of time when you start a new initiative, you just don't know how it's going to go.

Sure.

But we're a few years into this and it's going very well.

Everybody is rowing in the same direction.

So yes, I see money in ther in the budget that is, you know, continues this funding of the Literacy Act, and everything around it and early grades, math and everything around it.

So that's good.

There is one little point though.

One of the things that the Board of Education, the state Board has really wanted to do is get into, helping struggling middle school children because, you know the Literacy Act passed in 2019, the retention provision didn't kick in until two years ago.

So some kids probably slipped through the cracks.

Right.

And those kids are probably in sixth and seventh grade and eighth grade.

And we know teachers have sai middle school teachers have said we need help like we have kids that can't read.

You know, you hate to think that.

You hate to think that they made it all the way there without learning to read, maybe learning to read.

Well, because they're a bunch of parts of reading, right?

Including comprehension.

So the board has asked for you know, $40 million basically, ever since they realized that needed to be a priority.

And they were really excited this year, that Governor Ivey had put in north of $45 million, which is what they said they would need.

The House version.

Cut that back to $10 million which is how it has been funded.

So it's a level funded.

But the discussion today, they were disappointed.

They really want to make progress on this.

I get that because all right.

If you're a teacher in wel certainly pre-K, kindergarten, first, second, third grade, a big part of your job is teaching kids to read.

Right, right.

I mean, you learn to read, and then you, read.

Learn.

Yes.

But if you're a eighth grad teacher or a sixth grade teacher that's not in your job description, you're supposed to be teaching other things.

Reading it shouldn't be there.

So is that part of it?

Like, absolutely.

So they need help.

Maybe supplemental teachers or things like that.

Right.

Yeah.

And I don't really know everything that entails.

I'm kind of digging into that right now to see what would it take.

And, yeah, it's, you know, supplemental help, maybe tutoring maybe.

I don't know that the eighth grade teachers want to lear how to teach children to read, but they want resources for their students.

Yeah.

And and it's not fair necessarily to send these kids to special ed or something.

It's that's a different, ballgame.

So that's interesting.

I want to follow that as it goes for because you're right.

That's the whole reason they pass the Literacy Act.

We understand it.

Kids shouldn't be just socially promoted.

Right.

But you know, it's relatively new.

So, we'll we'll be following that.

All right I wanted to ask you about this.

I had, Representative Terri Collins on recently to talk about he wanting to update the A through F grading system.

Yes.

Not for students, but for schools.

Right.

Right.

Each schoo gets an A through a report card based on their performance and all that.

It was passed back in 2012.

Didn't really get implemented until 2018 or so or.

Right.

But you know it's her law.

She passed it and wants to update it wants to essentially raise these standards.

Right.

Big dust up in committee the other day where essentially superintendents and some school board member were saying, please, no, we, we, we like our grades the way they are.

Right.

But she's kind of revised her proposal.

And it came up today.

Yeah.

She actually held an education policy meeting after the House adjourned.

So they took up a coupl of bills, and one was her bill.

And so what she did, she sai it's basically a brand new bill.

And it is it's a new bill number.

So all it does is create a group called the Accountability Council, and it's a group of, you know, representatives from the wha they call the education family plus representatives.

That from, you know, that the our legislative leaders get to choose and what they're going to do is sort of their advisory capacity only.

And, you know, they can take up issues related to the report card.

It doesn't really give them direction.

But it didn't meet much opposition.

So I think the Accountabilit Council was one part of the bill that she was really excited about.

She told me she was excited about it because, you know, if you just keep the same standards in place, she believes that you need to challenge, you know, raise the bar, raise the bar.

Superintendents on the other hand, said, look, you know, we know how to get a B, we know how to get an A. If you change the the measures and you change the weights, we might slip backwards.

And of course nobody wants to slip backwards.

But these report card grades have become very meaningful in people's communities.

Right.

And of course, I think that' what we wanted the whole point.

Right, right.

For for folks to pay attention and be invested in their school outcomes and things like that.

And I understand resistance to that.

So it seems to me that, okay, obviously, that Bill was not going to get the support, you know, because it had, resistance.

So, you know, when in doubt, form a task force.

Yes, for for committee.

But I understand that too, because.

All right, let's let's task a committee with coming up with the recommendation.

And if you can't take it from that committee then then you know, what are we doing here?

Because at least it's not one lawmaker in this case.

Chairman Collins.

Right.

Making the decision.

It's a committee, right?

Right.

And I think the idea is we're out there.

We're looking at this.

I mean, the literacy, literacy task force meets, and they they don't really have any authority.

They have a couple of duties that are part of their authority.

But the recommendations.

Right.

Right.

And so that's what this is.

And I think, you know, listening to the opposition, she had worked with the education family for a couple of weeks, and I thin maybe she just realized I didn't I didn't ask her about it, but maybe she just realized it wasn't going to make it.

It's interesting.

Well, we'll be followin that bill and all these others.

And look.

Thanks.

Thanks so much for your reporting.

We rely on it.

And I've heard so much feedback from our viewers wh we really rely on your reporting because we can't be there.

We're not going to sit through for our state Board of Education meeting.

So thanks for your reporting.

And thanks for making the time to come.

Tell us about it.

Thanks, Tom.

We'll be right back.

Since 1997, Alabam Public Television has provided programs, services, and resources to childcare professionals, teachers and parents.

Visit AP tv.org/education to learn more.

Born in Fairfield, Alabama.

Willie Mays is one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game in 22 major league seasons, mostly with the New York and later San Francisco Giants.

Mays had a 302 lifetim batting average and amassed 3283 hits, 660 home runs, and an untouchable total of 7095 career putouts from the outfield.

Mays was the National League Rookie of the year in 1951, and played a significant role in the New York Giants World Series victory in 1954.

The most memorable moment and Mays.

His career occurred in the first game of that series, when he made a running over the shoulder catch at the warning track, popularly known as The Catch.

Mays earne two MVP awards, was awarded 12 Gold Gloves, made 24 All-Star game appearances, and was a first ballo Hall of Fame inductee in 1979.

In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded May a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online any time at Alabama Public Television's website.

aptv.. org.

Click on the online video tab on the main page.

You can also connect with Capital Journal and link to past episodes o Capital Journal's Facebook page.

That's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back tomorrow night for our Capita Journal week and review episode.

That's Friday at 7:30 and Sunday at noon here on paper for our Capital Journal team.

I'm Todd Stacy.

We'll see you next time.