The U.S. Senate this week approved a continuing resolution that extended Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) benefits through September 2021. The resolution was enacted Thursday. Alabama Arise policy analyst Carol Gundlach issued the following statement Friday in response:
“The extension of Pandemic EBT through September 2021 is welcome news for families struggling to make ends meet. P-EBT has been a powerful, flexible tool to fight child hunger during an era of remote learning. The program has helped feed more than 400,000 Alabama children while school buildings are fully or partially closed. Its renewal will help tens of millions of American families keep food on the table.
“P-EBT’s renewal was an important step to help struggling parents afford food during a deep recession and high unemployment. But families still need and deserve a comprehensive relief bill that truly meets the size and scope of suffering that the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted across Alabama and across our country.
“An adequate relief package would provide enough federal relief to help states avoid cuts to vital services like education and Medicaid. It would renew the $600 weekly federal increase to unemployment insurance benefits. And it would boost nutrition and housing assistance to help millions who are at risk of hunger and homelessness. The House passed legislation that would do those things months ago, and the Senate should do the same.
“The pandemic won’t go away anytime soon. Struggling families need a relief bill that takes meaningful, long-term action to address this health crisis and ease financial suffering. Senators should pass such a bill quickly, and their constituents should accept nothing less.”
Listening is often an underdeveloped skill, yet it is critical for mutual understanding and working together for meaningful change. That’s why Arise is committed to listening to our members, to our allies and most importantly, to those directly affected by the work we do together. We depend on what we hear from you to guide our issue work and our strategies.
This year’s COVID-19 pandemic challenged us to be creative in finding ways to listen. Instead of our usual face-to-face meetings around the state, we hosted a series of six statewide online Town Hall Tuesdays. We held events every two weeks, starting in June and ending Sept. 1. We averaged 65 attendees at each session. Here’s some of what we heard from members and supporters:
Affirmation for Medicaid expansion, untaxing groceries and other current Arise issues as important for achieving shared prosperity.
Empathy for those who were already living in vulnerable circumstances further strained by the pandemic.
Concern about ongoing, intentional barriers to voting, especially during the pandemic.
Desire to see more resources to meet the needs of our immigrant neighbors.
Alarm about payday and title lending and its impact on people’s lives and our communities.
Passion and concern about many other issues, including housing; living wages and pay equity; prison and sentencing reform; gun safety; juvenile justice reform; defunding the police; the Census; environmental justice; quality and funding of public education; and food insecurity and nutrition.
Willingness to take informed actions to make a difference in the policies that impact people’s lives.
Hope that Alabama can be a better place for all our neighbors to live despite systemic issues and ongoing challenges.
Notes from each town hall
Overviews of the town halls are below. Click the title for a PDF of the notes from the breakout sessions at each town hall.
June 23 – Money talks
We examined how to strengthen education, health care, child care and other services that help Alabamians make ends meet. And we explored ways to fund those services more equitably.
July 7 – Justice for all
We discussed Alabama’s unjust criminal justice system and how to fix it.
July 21 – Getting civic
Discussion focused on protecting voting rights and boosting Census responses during a pandemic.
Aug. 4 – Shared prosperity
We looked at policy solutions to boost opportunity and protect families from economic exploitation.
Sept. 1 – Closing the coverage gap
Discussion focused on how everyone can help expand Medicaid to ensure coverage for hundreds of thousands of struggling Alabamians. We also heard about the expansion campaign strategies of the Cover Alabama Coalition, headed by Arise campaign director Jane Adams.
Get in touch and stay in touch with Arise
Remember, we didn’t stop listening because the town halls ended. We want to hear from you, and we encourage you to contact the Arise organizer in your area:
Presdelane Harris (pres@alarise.org): Southwest Alabama and Mobile.
Stan Johnson (stan@alarise.org): Northwest Alabama, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa.
Mike Nicholson (mike@alarise.org): Southeast Alabama, Auburn and the Wiregrass.
Six months ago, COVID-19 forced school officials to reinvent public education on the fly. For more than 400,000 Alabama students, the stakes were more than academic. School closures also threatened their daily nutrition.
Schools’ responses were encouraging and fast. Last spring, Alabama quickly adopted federal options to serve multiple meals at once and offer them outside of the usual group settings. Child nutrition professionals hustled to provide school meals at local “grab-and-go” sites or by home delivery. Community eligibility, which lets schools with high poverty rates opt to provide no-cost meals for everyone, eased distribution by removing cumbersome eligibility verification.
In April, Alabama was one of the first states to adopt a new USDA plan called Pandemic EBT. P-EBT sends the value of school breakfasts and lunches ($5.70 per day) directly to eligible families on an EBT card. Payments were retroactive for March and April and continued through May 29. Families still can spend P-EBT credits through Dec. 31.
This summer, schools provided ongoing nutrition support through the regular Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option. The USDA has allowed both programs to continue through Dec. 31. But the best solution would be for Congress to extend P-EBT through the 2020-21 academic year. It’s less complicated and more effective than forcing schools to figure out how to get meals to children learning remotely. The House voted Tuesday to renew P-EBT for a full year, and the Senate should quickly do the same.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to advance an inadequate COVID-19 relief plan. Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden issued the following statement Thursday in response:
“The bill that failed in the Senate this week was wholly inadequate to meet the size and scope of suffering that the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted across Alabama and across our country. Lawmakers shouldn’t leave Washington without approving an adequate, long-term deal to help struggling Americans make ends meet.
“This plan offered nowhere near enough federal relief to help states avoid cuts to vital services like education and Medicaid. It would have cut the previous $600 weekly federal increase to unemployment insurance benefits in half, even though jobs remain hard to find. And it included no nutrition or housing assistance to help millions who are at risk of hunger and homelessness.
“Congress needs to step up and do its job by protecting people from harm. Last month’s executive actions were nothing more than a Band-Aid over a gaping economic wound. And any so-called relief bill that doesn’t help people keep food on the table and a roof over their heads is no relief bill at all.
“The pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon. Struggling families need a relief bill that takes meaningful, long-term action to address this health crisis and ease financial suffering. Senators should pass such a bill quickly, and their constituents should accept nothing less.”
“These executive actions put a Band-Aid over a gaping economic wound. They don’t stem the tide of evictions or extend rental or mortgage assistance to help people stay in their homes. They don’t increase SNAP assistance to help millions of struggling families keep food on the table. And they don’t provide federal relief to help states avoid layoffs and cuts to education, Medicaid and other vital services.
“These actions don’t offer sufficient relief for millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic. The weekly federal increase to unemployment insurance benefits would drop from $600 to $300, with Alabama and other cash-strapped states expected to contribute another $100 despite slumping tax revenues. And without new legislation, the federal money would only last for a few weeks. Congress can eliminate this uncertainty by extending federal funding for the $600 weekly UI benefit increase into next year.
“It’s unclear if some of the executive actions would survive a legal challenge. Even if they would, they’re inadequate to address the size and scope of suffering across Alabama and across our country. There’s simply no replacement for a bipartisan relief package. Congress must step up quickly to ease the suffering and help struggling families make ends meet.”
The following is a joint statement from Alabama Arise, the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and Greater Birmingham Ministries:
Our elected officials and appointed leaders should respect the full dignity, worth and humanity of all people they represent. We urge all political parties and public officials to acknowledge the harm that white supremacy continues to inflict upon Alabama. And we call upon them to dismantle white supremacist structures through intentional policy changes.
The cause of white supremacy permeates our state’s fundamental governing document. When the president of the 1901 constitutional convention, John Knox, was asked why Alabama needed a new constitution, his answer was clear: “to establish white supremacy in this state.”
Any celebration of Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Ku Klux Klan – a white supremacist terrorist organization – is contrary to the values that Alabamians expect from our leaders, elected officials and neighbors. In celebrating Forrest, Rep. Will Dismukes revealed he is unable or unwilling to represent the best interests of his constituents and his state. We condemn his actions in the strongest possible terms. We also understand this is not the first time Dismukes has celebrated the Confederacy or Forrest in such a manner. Therefore, we join with many other individuals and organizations across Alabama in calling for Dismukes to resign immediately.
Racial equity requires action, not just words
Alabama’s need for racial justice and healing reaches far beyond any one individual. All elected officials must take a hard look at both their actions and the impacts of their policy decisions. Most lawmakers claim to support racial equality, but the results of their policy choices often do not match this claim.
Examples of this mismatch are unfortunately common in our state. The 2017 Memorial Preservation Act prevents localities from removing statues that “honor” the Confederacy without paying a steep fine or getting approval from a panel of legislators that to our knowledge has not approved a removal since the law was enacted. Lawmakers’ failure to expand Medicaid leaves a disproportionate share of African Americans without health insurance during a pandemic. And the absence of racial impact data prevents communities and legislators from evaluating the full effects of state policy choices.
The harsh reality of racial disparities in Alabama
While Dismukes dismisses the need for racial reconciliation in today’s society, we cannot remain ignorant of the truth. We all must reckon with these disparities created and maintained by structural policy barriers:
Black children are nearly three times as likely as white children in Alabama to grow up in poverty. That is true even though the labor force participation rate among Black workers is equal to that among white workers. This disparity is the result not of individual failures but of systemic and structural failures.
Historically inequitable tax structures privilege large landholders and prevent schools serving Black students in rural Alabama from raising adequate revenues. These tax structures created a pattern of “unequal and inadequate public school funding,” according to a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling in Lynch v. Alabama.
Black people are twice as likely as white people to be locked up in Alabama jails. And they are nearly three times as likely to end up in Alabama prisons. Abundant research shows discriminatory policing and sentencing, criminalization of poverty and unequal access to counsel are key drivers of these incarceration disparities.
It’s time for more than talk. Denouncing and rejecting white supremacy is only the beginning. Lawmakers also must enact meaningful policy changes to break down institutional barriers to opportunity and justice for all Alabamians.
U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday unveiled a new proposed COVID-19 relief plan. Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden issued the following statement Tuesday in response:
“Millions of Alabamians are being pushed to the brink during the COVID-19 crisis. They’re struggling with difficult tradeoffs between protecting their own health, paying for basic necessities and caring for children and seniors. Nearly one in four renters in Alabama are behind on rent. And one in five adults with children in our state say their kids sometimes don’t have enough to eat because the household just can’t afford enough food.
“As families face these health and economic shocks, the Senate relief proposal fails to meet the demands of the moment. This plan would slash supplemental unemployment insurance benefits amid the highest unemployment since the Great Depression. It wouldn’t increase housing assistance to prevent families from being evicted and becoming homeless. It wouldn’t increase SNAP benefits to address the critical hunger concerns facing families of schoolchildren. And it wouldn’t provide Alabama and other states with the money needed to invest in child care, avoid teacher layoffs and prevent cuts to Medicaid and other vital services as budget shortfalls grow.
“This plan is inadequate by any measure. We urge our senators to reject it and look instead toward the approach taken in the House-passed HEROES Act. The House plan would boost Medicaid funding and offer more support for essential workers and people who lost their jobs. And it would provide federal assistance so states can avoid devastating service cuts that would hurt tens of millions of people.”
What a meaningful COVID-19 relief plan should look like
Alabama Arise urges Congress to negotiate a COVID-19 relief package that does the following:
Boosts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits so struggling families can keep food on the table.
Increases housing assistance to help people pay their rent and mortgages and to avert a surge in homelessness.
Preserves the weekly $600 federal increase to unemployment insurance benefits.
Provides additional federal funding for states to avert harmful layoffs and invest in vital services like Medicaid and child care.
Removes administrative barriers to alternative school meal distribution procedures for districts that are holding classes online.
Allocates federal funding to help election officials process more absentee ballots and maintain proper social distancing at polling places.
Makes the Child Tax Credit temporarily available to children in families with the lowest incomes and expands the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-paid workers who are not raising children in their homes.
It’s a truism often heard during budget hearings at the Alabama State House: “All the growth taxes go to education.” Legislators commonly say this to bemoan relatively flat revenue for the General Fund (GF), even when the economy is booming. Meanwhile, the Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget grows by comparative leaps and bounds.
There is a downside, however, to how quickly the ETF responds to economic conditions. Education revenue can decline quickly and sharply during hard economic times. And that’s the situation we’re in now, thanks to the COVID-19 recession.
The ETF gets nearly all its money from two major sources. One is income taxes, which are constitutionally earmarked for teacher salaries. The other is sales and use taxes. (Use taxes apply to online and mail-order purchases.) Income taxes account for 63% of state money going to Alabama schools, and sales and use taxes contribute another 30%.
Source: Alabama Legislative Services Agency
During a strong economy, this is a very good thing for education. Income taxes can grow quickly when more people are working, and sales taxes grow quickly when they spend those earnings. During bad economic times and high unemployment, however, both income and sales taxes suffer. And right now the economic times are some of the worst that Alabamians have ever seen.
ETF revenues plummet as the pandemic hits Alabama
Because of the pandemic and the recession that resulted, Alabama’s unemployment rate shot up from a near-record low of 3% in March to a near-record high of 12.9% in April. Income taxes responded in kind, dropping more than 50% between March and April 2020. May and June’s revenues recovered somewhat but were still more than 12% lower than income tax revenues for the same period in 2019. Altogether, income tax collections from March through June were down more than 20% compared to 2019.
Sales taxes went down, too, though not as dramatically as income taxes. Sales tax collections from March through June were down slightly more than 7% compared to 2019. Overall, income and sales tax revenues during those months were down 16.3% compared to the same period last year.
Alabama’s income tax revenues between March and June 2020 were $400 million lower than during the same period in 2019. Sales tax collections were down by more than $60 million.
Despite those declines, the Alabama Legislature passed a 2021 education budget that is larger than this year’s. Both legislators and the governor have expressed confidence that reserve and Rainy Day accounts will be enough to avoid automatic spending cuts known as proration this year and next, even if the economy is slow to recover.
Warning signs on the horizon for the ETF
But ETF revenue trends in recent months have been troubling. Education revenue increased by 8% between October and February, according to a budget presentation that Kirk Fulford, deputy director of the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) Fiscal Division, gave before a Senate budget committee on July 9. When the recession hit between March and June, however, revenues fell 17% compared to the same period in 2019. That reduced total ETF revenue growth fiscal year (FY) 2020 to barely 1%. (Alabama’s fiscal years run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.)
By contrast, the news was better for the GF, which funds Medicaid, corrections and other non-education services. Revenue growth remained at a relatively healthy 7% compared to last year. The GF benefited in large part from an earmarked internet sales tax (called the “simplified sellers use tax”) that increased by $16 million from March to June. That growth came on top of a $34 million increase earlier in the fiscal year.
Fulford remained optimistic that neither budget would face proration in 2020, despite worrisome ETF revenue projections. He reassured legislators that healthy beginning balances, debt reduction and savings accounts created under the Rolling Reserve Act would protect the ETF at least through FY 2020.
Alabama Arise trusts the LSA’s expertise but remains concerned, especially about 2021. Our state’s tax system simply may not bring in enough money to fund our schools if the pandemic recession is long or deeper than anticipated.
Better tax policies for a brighter future
Alabama’s experience during the Great Recession a decade ago proves the need for caution. More than a dozen years later, Alabama’s education funding still hasn’t returned to its pre-recession level. And if revenues decline at the same rate as in 2009, the ETF could lose $841 million in state money next year. That would be the equivalent of one-fifth of all state K-12 funding.
It’s not enough to cross our fingers and just hope the economy and revenues recover quickly. Arise encourages state lawmakers to modernize and strengthen Alabama’s tax system to ensure it is both fair and adequate. One good step would be to eliminate the state deduction for federal income tax payments. Another would be to impose a temporary income surtax on millionaires.
These changes and others would generate the revenue needed to help struggling families and protect our schools during tough times. And they would be a needed investment in a brighter, more inclusive future for Alabama. Read our full list of recommendations here.
Funding for education, health care and other vital services is deeply uncertain as Alabama’s revenues plummet during the COVID-19 recession. In May, lawmakers enacted 2021 Education Trust Fund (ETF) and General Fund (GF) budgets that are larger than this year’s. But as consumer spending falls and massive unemployment persists, the Legislature will reevaluate those plans at hearings in early July.
Alabama’s bleak financial picture likely will force lawmakers to return for a special session later this summer or fall. And that’s far from the only subject they should address.
COVID-19 tore out the heart of the regular session, forcing lawmakers to stop meeting for more than a month. When they returned, they had just two weeks to finalize ETF and GF budgets. With most House Democrats staying home due to coronavirus concerns, legislative leaders limited the agenda to budgets and local bills.
Alabama Arise legislative affairs coordinator David Stout talks to a small group of Legislative Day attendees Feb. 25, 2020, during one of the day’s informal breakout sessions.
That decision temporarily slowed momentum for Arise’s push to untax groceries. Before the session paused, about 200 people came to Montgomery for Arise Legislative Day on Feb. 25. Our members urged legislators to end the state sales tax on groceries while protecting education funding. The proposal would replace grocery tax revenue by limiting Alabama’s income tax deduction for federal income tax payments. Our supporters also advocated for Medicaid expansion and public transportation funding.
Whenever the Legislature returns, Arise will be there promoting policies to make life better for struggling Alabamians. Check our website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates.
Arise’s statewide online summer listening sessions are a chance to hear what’s happening on key state policy issues and share your vision for our 2021 policy agenda. Register now to help identify emerging issues and inform our work to build a better Alabama.
We’d love to see you at any or all of these sessions! Registration is required, so please register at the link under each description.
June 23rd, 6 p.m. –Money talks
How can we strengthen education, health care, child care and other services that help Alabamians make ends meet? And how can we fund those services more equitably? Click here to register for this session.
