The Alabama House has unanimously approved a nearly $6 billion education budget for 2016. All 105 votes from state representatives went towards approving the Education Trust Fund budget. A number of House Democrats and Republicans commended education budget committee chairman Bill Poole on an unusually smooth spending plan.
The budget would increase the state's pre-Kindergarten program by $10 million. It would also provide another $13 million for textbooks. The budget would increase the school transportation program by $4.5 million and increase funding for Advanced Placement courses by $1 million.
House revisions need to be approved by the Senate.
Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh said last week he believes the Senate will pass the education budget.
Supporters of state funded mental health services will gather in Decatur tonight to talk about possible budget cuts.
The meeting comes after the State House passed a spending plan that could cut two hundred million dollars. Twenty four thousand mental health patients could also be impacted.
Bill Giguere is the Senior Development Officer for the Mental Health Center for North-Central Alabama. He says budget cuts means a loss of housing.
“The Mental Health Center of North-Central Alabama provides seventy four beds across six different housing programs for people with debilitating mental illnesses. If those cuts go through, we know immediately that those state funds, twenty beds will disappear…twenty out of seventy four. So we’re talking almost a third of our housing capacity will be gone very quickly.”
Giguere also says the cuts would mean an estimated one million dollar loss to his mental health center. The gathering will start at 6pm at the Decatur Utilities meeting facility.
Young anglers will be bringing their fishing poles to Lake Wedowee** starting today.
The local Property Owners Association is hosting its annual Kids Fishing Day at the lake just east of Birmingham. Young fishers can get tips on bringing in the big ones and get some practice in a pond stocked with catfish.
Betty Glover is the Chairwoman of the association. She says she expects a lot of kids this year…
“This is an event about promoting fishing; Lake Wedowee is a wonderful fishing lake. This year Southeastern Ponds Management was wonderful enough to donate their fish for us, we have never had that happen before and we certainly do appreciate that. We generally have a large number of kids come and fish, sometimes for the first time.”
The free event is set to begin at 4 p.m. and will continue until 7. Children between the ages of 2 and 15 will be able to fish. Fishing poles and bait will be provided.