On Thursday, the Alabama Senate voted to pass House Bill 1 (HB1), which appropriates $1,060,000,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for water projects, broadband, healthcare, and other projects. Following Senate passage, the Alabama House of Representatives voted to concur with the changes made by the Senate, and the bill has been sent to the governor.
HB1 was sponsored by State Representative Rex Reynolds and was carried by Sen. Greg Albritton.
The state has received approximately $2.1 billion in ARPA funding from the federal government. Half of that money has already been appropriated by the Legislative and is in the process of being allocated by the executive branch to projects across Alabama. This second tranche of ARPA money includes about $339,175,000 that will go for healthcare needs, including $25 million for Mental health and $9 million for the expansion of telemedicine. $260 million will be used for broadband, including a cybersecurity component. $395 million will go to water and sewer projects. $55 million will be used to compensate state agencies for the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. $1,179,000 will go for administrative costs of overseeing and allocating the money.
State Sen. Arthur Orr said, “I don’t see what a lot of this has to do with COVID, but I can also see when a train is coming.
“We have also got $55 million that can be for food assistance for food banks and nutritional programs,” Orr said.
“I appreciate all your hard work on both of these ARPA bills,” Orr said to Albritton. “I think if we never have another ARPA, you would be happy with that.”
“It does not fully fund the PEEHIP assistance, which is why the fed passed the original assistance bill,” Orr said.
The full Senate voted to adopt the committee amendment introduced Wednesday for Sen. Chris Elliott.
Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison offered a floor amendment to the bill.
Coleman Madison said, “I would like to know why in-kind contributions was left out. It saves money from contracting out. It saves time. It helps the money go further.”
“All of these moneys are under very strict guidelines by the federal Treasury Department,” Albritton said. “If we allow an in-kind contribution that opens up a means of reporting that may become problematic,”
Albritton said, “We are talking about the $395 million for water and sewer projects. That is less than 40% of the total ARPA money.”
“I ask that you withdraw the amendment,” Albritton said.
Coleman Madison said, “I do not want to do anything where the federal government will come back and require a clawback. They want money and not any kind of service. I would like to withdraw my amendment.”
Albritton provided a breakdown of the water and sewer dollars in the bill as amended by Elliott’s committee amendment.
· $195 million is for water and sewer.
· 100 million is water, sewer, and stormwater and may have, but does not require a match.
· $100 million in water, sewer, and stormwater and does require a match
“Every county in the state will have an opportunity to apply and will actually get funding for a project in their county,” Albritton told the members.
“Counties across this state got $495 million directly to counties, and some of them chose to do nothing about stormwater with it,” Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said. “Now they come to us and want us to fix it for them.”
State Sen. Rodger Smitherman proposed an amendment to require ADEM to work with a town or county whose application was denied due to an error on the application.
“This is simply to help our small towns,” Smitherman said. “If you are in a metropolitan area, you probably have someone who can do this, but our small towns cannot afford that.”
“It has already been done,” Albritton objected. “That was in ARPA one. I hesitate to put that language which is already occurring in statute. I am going to vote no on this. We have already added one amendment. I don’t want another amendment one. It raises the possibility of nonconcurrence.”
Smitherman’s amendment passed over Albritton’s objection 29 to 1.
State Sen. Will Barfoot applauded the members for providing funding for healthcare but urged the members to do more for rural healthcare in the regular session.
“I am challenging each of you here to start looking at bills to address healthcare in our rural communities,” Barfoot said.
Senate Pro Tem Greg Reed said, “We have to stay focused on rural healthcare.”
“We are going to have several pieces of legislation addressing nursing,” Reed said. “A lot of areas in my district, we would not have healthcare if we did not have nurse practitioners.”
Reed said that broadband expansion is part of healthcare because of telemedicine.
“The technology is advancing tremendously,” Reed said. “That is one way that local hospitals will be able to stay in business. We need to find ways to increase healthcare benefits, particularly in rural places like in my district.”
State Sen. Vivian Figures said to Albritton, “Thank you for making sure that the cities and counties that can’t afford to put up a 35% match will be able to do these projects as well.”
“I want to thank you for all the work that you have done,” Singleton said to Albritton. “It is a lot of money to spend. We have a lot of needs, but we are beginning to see a difference in the state. We are not going to be able to get it all, but we are knocking a dent in it.”
“I wish you could have set aside more of the money for rural hospitals like we did in the first round,” Singleton said. “When that $40 million was cut out for them in the last round, they were ecstatic.”
Reynolds asked that the House concur with the Senate changes to HB1.
“The second amendment requires that ADEM has to work with a system if an application is denied because of an error,” Reynolds explained. “That system has to have an opportunity to correct that error, and if that application is denied, it has to be done in writing.”
Rep. Reynolds said on the House floor, “ADEM may have a clean water project that grades out better than a project with the match.”
“What it does is make a lot of communities can’t do a project if they have to provide 35%,” said State Rep. A.J. McCampbell. “What my concern is that the 35% limits a number of communities from being able to participate.”
Reynolds explained that ADEM grades the projects it awards on a points basis.
“That takes care of your larger growing areas,” Reynolds said. “ADEM will continue to do its grading process.”
“We are not requiring a 35% match,” Reynolds said. “The first $195 million requires no match, and it is an option on the next $100 million.”
“This is an area that we may have to back and look at in the Oversight Committee,” Reynolds said.
“A lot of that language is already in there,” Reynolds said of the Smitherman floor amendment. “I know that process is already in play.”
The House voted to concur with the Senate 96 to 0. Five members abstained. State Rep. Arnold Mooney told Alabama Today that he and Rep. Ben Harrison meant to vote No, but thought that they were voting to concur with the Senate amendment and not the whole bill.
Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter told reporters that he was pleased with the work that the Legislature did during the special session.
“I find it a little amazing that people get all that upset about free money from the federal government,” Ledbetter said of some debates.
Ledbetter agreed with Reed that the Legislature will look at healthcare in the upcoming regular session.
“We need an Alabama solution to an Alabama problem,” said Ledbetter. “There will be several bills introduced addressing healthcare.”
The House also voted to pass Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Albritton, that used surplus money from the 2022 Fiscal year to pay off a nearly $60 million debt that the state general fund (SGF) owes to the Alabama Trust Fund for a post-recession bailout eight years ago.
SB2 passed 103 to 0.
Both bills were sent to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey for her consideration. She is expected to sign both.
The First 2023 special session has ended. The legislature will return for Legislative Day 2 of the 2023 Alabama Regular Legislative Session on Tuesday. One hundred seventy-four bills have already been pre-filed for the regular session.
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