MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama House was nearly unanimous Thursday in its vote to adopt a $3.7 billion General Fund budget for fiscal year 2026, which included an additional $6.8 million for law enforcement and $7.5 million for airport development.
“The budget was solid, we were able to do some things that we needed to do and fund the agencies we needed to fund,” House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, told members of the press Thursday outside the House chamber at the Alabama State House in Montgomery.
“The highlights for me is we’re still funding agencies, funding the services that people need across the state and doing it in a manner where we don’t waste money.”
The 2026 budget represents an increase over this year’s of about $341.7 million, and an increase over Gov. Kay Ivey’s recommendation of about $6.3 million. While still a record high for the state, Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Hazel Green, who chairs the House budget committee, characterized the bill as being fiscally conservative, and attributed the state’s ability to advance the record-high budget to past years of fiscally conservative budgeting.
“I applaud this body for the conservative budget that you passed last year because there was available revenue due to the increased interest on state accounts, and we chose not to use all of those funds,” Reynolds said, introducing the budget on the House floor.
“Because of that, we began the year in 2025 with an increased balance, and that’s contributed to your work last year, and we are now up at the end of March about 2.8%, which is a little over $40 million going into this budget.”
Nearly all state agencies saw either identical or increased funding when compared to the previous year’s budget save for Medicaid and the Mental Health Department, which saw cuts of $5 million and $3.7 million respectively. However, Reynolds has noted the cuts were only made due to surplus funding enjoyed by those agencies, and that both would receive additional funding equal to the amount cut over the next two years.
Major increases include $6.8 million for law enforcement – a roughly $2.4 million increase over Ivey’s recommendation – with $2.5 earmarked for Capitol Police at the State Capitol complex in Montgomery, and an $3 million for the Alabama Metro Crime Suppression Unit, both of which Reynolds said he anticipated becoming annual appropriations.
A conditional $37.5 million was also included for construction on the new State House, currently well underway adjacent to the existing State House.
“That’s a big number,” Reynolds told ADN. “If we did have a downfall, then it wouldn’t commit Alabama to that amount.”
Another major increase was to the state’s Airport Development Grant Program to the tune of $7.5 million over Ivey’s recommendation, and $8 million over last year, requested by House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, who told Alabama Daily News that the increase would help the state draw additional federal funding.
“In Alabama, we have failed to pull down federal money, there has been in the past a lot of money from the aviation agency at the federal level and we have failed to get some of it,” Ledbetter told ADN. “Most of the time that’s like a 90/10 match, (so this) will allow us to pull down more money. Some of our airports certainly need the help, and we’re excited to be able to do that this year.”
On Wednesday, ADN reported that the $3.7 billion budget included cuts to several initiatives largely in Birmingham that caused concern among Birmingham’s representatives in both the House and Senate, including to the Magic City Classic and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, asked Reynolds on the House floor to speak to what she called the “controversial” cuts.
“This process was done really by software in the governor’s office, and what that software did was go through and eliminate all one-time appropriations,” Reynolds explained. “When those were eliminated, as we work the budget, when members came to me and asked me to reinsert those, we often did.”
Reynolds went on to say that House members had not approached him as the budget chair to have those cuts reinstated, but after having met with Sens. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, and Greg Albritton, R-Range, gave his commitment that the cuts would be reinstated in the Senate. Were the Senate to not reinstate the cuts, Reynolds told ADN later that they would be restored in the House when the budget makes its way back to the lower chamber.
The bill ultimately passed out of the House with a vote of 95-3, with Reps. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, Kelvin Datcher, D-Birmingham, and A.J. McCampell, D-Demopolis, voting against.
McCampbell later told to ADN that his vote against the bill was not in opposition to the budget itself, but rather, to being left out of its development.
“If we had had the transparent process, then we would have been able to address that ahead of time,” he said. “Why didn’t we have this budget to look at over the weekend, over the holidays? My vote was a vote that established my opposition to what was actually done, not my opposition to the budget.”
The bill now moves to the Senate.