Legislation pending in the Alabama House will create for Alabama’s K-12 teachers and other personnel a wage replacement program for those injured on the job.
“It is so shocking to many legislators to find out that our educators don’t have workers’ compensation,” Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, said recently about Senate Bill 278.
Givhan’s proposal would give a permanently disabled education staffer two-thirds pay for life. Those who would be covered in the program include teachers, janitorial and cafeteria staff and bus drivers, Givhan said.
“Some of them can be hurt badly and for us not to have any coverage, it’s just not a good way to run government,” Givhan told Alabama Daily News.
State employees already have workers’ compensation.
A fiscal note on the legislation says it will cost the state about $14.9 million per year. While there are more teachers to cover than state employees, educators’ risk is less, Givhan said.
“You don’t expect a teacher to get hurt on the same level as someone working for the department of transportation,” he said.
The bill creates the five-member Public Education Employee Injury Compensation Board to administer the program and oversee the benefits paid to injured employees.
The cost of the program has been factored into the 2025 education budget. Senate budget committee chairman Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, was one of several co-sponsors on the bill.
“Our current system is not much of a system and the Alabama Board of Adjustment is not really geared to deal with workplace injuries,” Orr told ADN. “And those injuries do occur. They occur to cafeteria workers, bus drivers. We needed to get on the education side a more workers’ comp-type system.”
The Alabama Board of Adjustment reviews claims for damages from those hurt within a state agency or property. It has previously been sued over the handling of teachers’ claims.
A legislative committee was told of a special education aide for Tuscaloosa City Schools who was injured while chasing and trying to prevent a student from hurting himself. She ran into a metal pole and suffered a traumatic brain injury. She’s disabled but hadn’t worked enough years to qualify for disability retirement benefits. Her claims were rejected by the Board of Adjustments, lawmakers were told, and she lost her income, insurance and medical coverage.
“We need to take care of our people,” Givhan said.
Some changes were made to the bill last week and a substitute was approved in the House Ways and Means Education Committee. It has three days to get a vote in the House and then agreement in the Senate, where a previous version already passed.
The bill is supported by several education groups.
“School boards want to — and should— take care of employees injured on the job,” Sally Smith, executive director of the Alabama Association of School Boards, told ADN. “There clearly are gaps and kinks in the current system, so improvements are needed. The substitute bill is a cost-effective and efficient plan to address these issues.”
Allison King, government relations manager for the Alabama Education Association, said that unlike most industries and public entities, education employees currently have no workers’ compensation coverage at all.
“If they are injured on the job they must come out of pocket for any expenses they incur and then seek for a reimbursement that may or may not be paid to them,” King said. “This program will be a wonderful step forward in providing a much-needed on-the-job injury program for education employees that serve on the front lines each and every day.”