MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Legislation dictating how to spend Alabama’s oil spill settlement money - and provide a funding fix for Medicaid - is dead for the legislative session after senators could not agree Tuesday on how to use the $1 billion windfall.
The feud centered on how money should be used to pay state debts and how much should go to road projects in coastal counties. The Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee adjourned Tuesday without taking a vote on the bill, dooming the legislation for the session that ends Wednesday.
“We had pretty much a divided chamber on that bill and how it should be handled,” Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh said.
The committee was scheduled to vote on a House plan that would use settlement money - after getting $639 million in cash upfront by doing a bond issue - for $450 million in state debt repayment and $191 million for road projects in Mobile and Baldwin counties.
Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, on Tuesday said the $1 billion was intended to compensate the entire state and should be used to benefit everyone and, “not just one region of the state.” Orr said coastal areas were helped by a separate pot of restoration dollars that went directly to the coast.
Orr proposed a new version that would use $540 million for state debt, enough to pay back all money borrowed from state funds in past years to avoid budget cuts. The remaining $100 million, he said, would be used for road projects across the state, although the coastal region would receive a double portion equal to about $20 million.
“This pays off all of our state debts. That’s something I’ve been saying, along with others, since the beginning: that with the BP money we needed to pay back all of the funds that we owe as a state,” Orr said.
Committee Chairman Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, abruptly ended the meeting as members appeared ready to support Orr. Pittman said he thought the House-passed plan was the best chance of winning final approval this session.
“The chairman denied the members an opportunity to vote and adjourned the meeting and took his marbles and went home,” Orr said.
South Alabama lawmakers had sought a larger share of the $1 billion, arguing the coast took the brunt of damage from the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
“What I’m asking you to do is recognize what has happened on the coast,” Sen. Bill Hightower, R-Mobile, said in urging senators to stick with the House-passed plan.
Either version of the bill would help the state’s Medicaid program, but that fix died along with the legislation. Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar has said the agency needs an additional $85 million to avoid program cuts next year. Paying the debts early would have freed up an additional $70 million for Medicaid.
“We are going to be short of what their wishes were. Unless the governor were to call us back for a special session, they are going to have to live within their means like the rest of us and see what happens,” Marsh said.
Kimble Forrister, state coordinator for Alabama Arise- an advocacy group for low-income families - said the governor and legislators “need to act quickly to prevent these Medicaid cuts from becoming a reality later this year.”
Last month, Gov. Robert Bentley and Azar laid out potential Medicaid cuts if additional funds weren’t secured, including harsh options such as eliminating outpatient dialysis, eliminating drug coverage or requiring patients to go to one big-box pharmacy chain through a preferred provider program.
“Putting health care at risk for children, seniors, and people with disabilities is no way to build a stronger Alabama. Neither is lurching from one budget crisis to another because of our state’s failure to solve the General Fund’s long-term funding shortfall,” Forrister said in a statement.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.