A bill to potentially halve the state’s sales tax on groceries will be in committee for the first time on Wednesday.
The highly popular bill would eventually cut the tax on groceries to 2% and save Alabamians about $304 million a year — tax revenue that would otherwise support education in the state.
More than 20 other bills allowing tax cuts and incentives have gotten at least one vote in the Alabama Legislature, and several of them are now pending in the Senate education budget committee. Budget leaders have warned for months that prioritization of cuts is needed because despite record revenues in recent years, there is only so much they’re willing to cut from the Education Trust Fund.
Now, with seven legislative days remaining in the session, hard decisions about what cuts become law are about to be made.
“The grocery tax is going to push a lot of these other bills to never be considered,” Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, told Alabama Daily News on Monday. He’s the Senate education budget chair and has been gathering the various cut proposals.
“Additional or new tax credit and tax exemption type legislation — the door is closing fast if the grocery tax is going to be what passes,” said Orr, who, along with every other Senate member, co-sponsored the Senate version of the grocery bill.
Alabama is one of only a handful of states that tax groceries and proponents of the bill say the tax is regressive, hurting the low-income the most.
Amy Marlowe, executive director of the Alabama Education Association, told Alabama Daily News a “truly unprecedented” number of tax credit bills have been filed this session, a potential “fountain flowing out of the ETF.”
The Alabama Education Association opposes the grocery bill and will speak against it Wednesday during a public hearing. Marlowe said she was optimistic in January when lawmakers were talking about being cautious with the record revenue. She wonders what happened.
“Everyone needs to calm down and realize this money is not going to last forever,” Marlowe said.
And if budget cuts are needed in the future, Marlowe said it will be the important initiatives leaders have developed in recent years, like the Literacy Act and Numeracy Act, that will go away so the state can focus on funding its minimum requirements.
Other big decisions are on the agenda for the House education budget committee Wednesday as it considers the proposed $8.8 billion 2024 education budget and $2.8 billion supplemental spending bill, the grocery tax bill and others.
“We’re still working, but we’ll get there,” Chairman Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, said Monday when asked about potential changes to the bills.
Also on the House committee’s agenda are two bills related to proposed taxpayer rebates — the Senate-passed proposal to give $105 or $210 to income taxpayers filing separately or jointly, and Garrett’s version of the proposal filed in March after Gov. Kay Ivey announced $400 and $800 rebates at her State of the State Address. The latter would eat up about $1 billion from that supplemental bill, creating a domino effect of changes in what the Senate has already approved.
Separately, but not without potential changes, the Senate General Fund budget committee has the next vote on the House-approved $3 billion 2024 General Fund.
Asked Monday if it’d get a vote on Wednesday, committee chairman Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, said “we hope so.”
“We’re still having discussions and we’re still trying to find a path and a consensus but right now I’m not sure we’re there,” Albritton told Alabama Daily News on Monday.
Albritton and other lawmakers from south Alabama still want to find funding for projects in Mobile County that were cut from the supplemental proposal in the Senate.
Albritton is one of the most financially cautious members of the Legislature and for more than a year has been warning colleagues they need to plan for an economic downturn.
The state has seen record tax revenues and growth in its budgets, but those are beginning to level out.
David Bronner, the Retirement Systems of Alabama’s leader for 50 years, warned lawmakers in the May “Advisor” about “killing the future with tax cuts.”
“The 2023 Legislature has introduced more than 20 additional tax cuts, none of which have revenue to replace the tax cuts,” Bronner wrote. “Having the second lowest taxes, $50 more per capita than Tennessee to be exact (but they have a lottery), makes for a financial disaster in a matter of years.”
Cutting the grocery tax by $304 million would mean a loss of about 3.4% to the current education budget. That, along with some already approved economic development incentive increases worth about $150 million, appear to be the ceiling on cuts this year.
“A 3 to 4% hit is significant, particularly when so much in the education budget is labor costs (and) it’s people, it’s all those school teachers and professors and support staff and custodians,” Orr said.
His committee is not meeting this week as decisions are made in the House.
Several of the tax and incentive bills pending in Orr’s Senate committee are significant and well-supported, including Rep. Anthony Daniels’, D-Huntsville, proposal to untax overtime pay for hourly workers. A fiscal note on it has it would cost about $44.3 million per year. There’s also Rep. Jamie Kiel’s bill to give up to $10 million per year in income tax credits to those who make contributions to pregnancy centers. Both those bills have passed the House.
There are also three tax bills by Orr pending. His proposals, of which House versions have already passed, would: increase the income tax exemption for taxable retirement income from $6,000 to $10,000; eliminate the 2% income tax rate on the first $500 of taxable income; and reduce the 5% income tax rate gradually each year until it’s 4.95% in 2027.