Senate Passes Education Budget, Keeps Teacher Pay Raise
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Education in Alabama ranks pretty low compared to other states, but lawmakers hope they can work to buck that trend.
Part of that includes the 4 percent pay raise that would go into effect next school year, the first since 2008. “The thing is with education and most businesses you have to attract good people and the way to attract good people is how are you going to compensate them. And so we need to compensate those in the education system accordingly to get the best that we can,” said Sen Arthur Orr.
The senate also added a little money to Pre-k and transportation, bringing those totals up from the house version.
Orr, who chairs the education budget committee, says there’s more he’d like to do next year to help retirees.
“It’s been some time since they’ve had a bonus. The state employees had a one time bonus two years ago. We would want to make that our highest priority when we come back in 2017,” said Orr.
Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh says he’s very pleased with how quickly lawmakers got through the budgets. They’re usually not finished until the final night of the session.
There are still issues that he wants to get through with the time left. “We’ll look at, we’ve still got the prison bill that’s out there in the house. There will be time to deal with maybe concurring with changes in the house. It’s just really watching those important pieces of legislation from here to the end of the session. No plans on leaving early,” said Sen. Marsh.
