"We have in the Legislature a pro private-sector oriented Legislature that (knows) we have to maintain a pro-business climate and we're going to continue that," Hubbard said. "I believe Alabama taxpayers deserve to have the strongest economy possible."

Hubbard said the first bill that will be pushed is a measure by Rep. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, requiring repayment of $437 million that voters in 2012 approved taking from the Alabama Trust Fund to prop up the ailing General Fund.

The BCA supports HB 94, the trust fund repayment bill, by Rep. Love

Hubbard said the agenda includes the 21st Workforce Act that will strengthen career-technical education to help prepare future employees for non-college careers.

Also on the House agenda is the Local Control School Flexibility Act of 2013 that would allow public schools to seek waivers from certain state regulations in order to improve student learning.

SB 54 sponsored by Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, and HB 84 sponsored by Rep. Chad Fincher, R-Semmes, are the Local Control School Flexibility measures. The BCA supports these bills.

The Red Tape Reduction Act would require review of any proposed new regulation that could stifle job creation. "We're going to try to give you some relief with the Red Tape Reduction Act," Hubbard said.

Hubbard said the House and Senate are intent on reducing spending partly by consolidating many of the 22 separate public safety and state police functions.

Watch highlights from Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard speaking to the Business Council of Alabama on the first day of the 2013 legislative session. This is the first in a series of Tuesday Morning Legislative Leadership Committee Meetings.

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The Senate Education Committee and House Education Policy Committee on Wednesday took up The Local Control School Flexibility Act, starting off the 2013 session with a strong commitment to education reform. The legislation provides more flexibility for local school systems by allowing them to request waivers from certain state statutes, policies and regulations in exchange for permission to implement innovative ideas that are expected to yield measurable academic improvements within their districts.

The Senate committee held a public hearing Wednesday morning to learn more about SB 54, sponsored by Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison. "Every community knows what is best for their students and the flexibility provided by this legislation encourages innovation, tailored to the uniqueness of each community, and will improve academic outcomes and maximize use of available resources in each system," Holtzclaw said in a release.

Supporters and opponents of the legislation took turns expressing their viewpoints for more than an hour. While the supporters consisted of State Superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice, local school board members, superintendents and retired teachers from around the state, the opponents consisted of the state's education unions.

"The best innovation occurs at the local level," Dr. Bice said. "This bill is a vote of confidence for local school officials."

Speaking against the legislation, the executive secretary of the state's largest union, Dr. Henry Mabry, told the committee they could not support the bill because it would dismantle the Alabama code as it relates to education and would also gut Alabama's tenure law. Dr. Bice disagreed that earned tenure would be waived from any teacher.

The Senate committee took no action following the public hearing, but is expected to vote on the measure at its meeting next week.

Many of the bills merits and opponents'concerns about the bill were repeated at the afternoon hearing held by the House Education Policy Committee, where the companion bill, HB 84 is being sponsored in the House by Rep. Chad Fincher, R-Semmes.

Fincher, a passionate advocate for education reform in Alabama, explained to committee members that the legislation would allow local school boards, superintendents, teachers and parents to make choices that help their students because they know what works best in their districts, not bureaucrats in Montgomery. "The one size fits all mentality does not work," Fincher said. "This does not require a single school system to participate. It is optional."

"This law will not get rid of tenure," Fincher told the committee. "Two years ago when I sponsored the Students First act, AEA said it would be the end of education. They were wrong about that, and they are wrong about this as well."

Katy Smith Campbell, a member of the Macon County School Board, an attorney and retired scientist, told committee members that school flexibility would have a tremendous impact on a poor, rural county such as Macon. "School flexibility would allow our students to partner with business and industry, especially with the Halla [Climate Systems] plant in Shorter to learn hands-on. Right now we are prohibited from doing that by state laws and regulations."

Following the public hearing, amendments were added that would protect the tenure law, state salary schedules, and prevent local school systems from opting out of any state ethics laws. The committee gave the bill a favorable report on a voice vote, and the bill now moves to the full House for consideration.

The support for this legislation is another example of an expanded business/education alliance. The BCA has joined with the Alabama Association of School Boards, the School Superintendents of Alabama, Alabama Association of School Business Officials, A+ Education Partnership, Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools, and the State Department of Education in supporting the Local Control School Flexibility Act.

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On a vote of 80-19, the first bill to pass the Alabama House was the People's Trust Act, HB 94, by Rep. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, which establishes an installment payment schedule of escalating payments to repay the Alabama Trust Fund the total of $437 million that Alabama voters authorized be transferred over a three-year period to shore-up the State General Fund. Upon enactment, the repayment schedule would become a statutory commitment on future Alabama legislatures to fully repay the sum, unless the law is repealed. Questions and concerns that were raised on the House floor took on a partisan tone as some members suggested that the total should be repaid in a shorter time and be repaid with interest. Despite those criticisms, attempts to amend the bill were defeated, and now the bill moves on to the Senate.

On Wednesday morning, the Senate Finance & Taxation--General Fund Committee gave a favorable report to SB 13, by Sen. Bryan Taylor, R-Prattville, on a vote of 10-2. This bill is similar to HB 94, but it provides for a repayment schedule of equal annual payments that would fully repay the $437 million total by the end of fiscal year 2025. Last August, the BCA Board of Directors adopted a resolution in support of the September 18, 2012 Referendum with the condition that the funds would be repaid. 

BCA's 2013 Legislative Agenda states that the BCA will support efforts to enact legislation to fully repay the Alabama Trust Fund; provided, that 1) the leaders of each branch of government continue to eliminate waste and duplication of services and that 2) no individual segment of the Alabama economy bear a disproportionate share of the financial burden.

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Alabama businesses are one step closer to seeing regulatory relief from state government thanks to the Red Tape Reduction Act, or HB 101, sponsored by Rep. April Weaver, R-Brierfield, which passed out of the House State Government Committee on Wednesday. If passed, this bill would be a huge victory for small businesses that spend countless hours complying with an onslaught of state and federal regulations.

As a long-time champion of regulatory reform, the BCA couldn't agree more with Rep. Weaver when she said, "Several business owners in my district have complained that satisfying bureaucratic red tape requirements eats up man hours, produces numerous compliance costs and takes their attention away from their main objective - keeping the doors open and providing jobs. State government should concentrate on giving business owners the tools they need to remain successful instead of finding ways to suffocate them under the weight of needless government oversight and mounds of paperwork."

If passed into law, HB 101 would:  

• Require any agency, other than those strictly involved in licensing, to file a Business Economic Impact Statement with the Joint Committee on Administrative Regulation Review prior to its adoption, if the agency receives a complaint that the regulation might negatively impact a business.
   
• Require all existing rules and regulations to be reviewed every five years in order to determine whether they should be amended, rescinded or remain unchanged.
   
• Require that information related to proposed and existing regulation reviews also be placed on agency websites in order to allow for public access.

As stated in BCA's 2013 Legislative Agenda, the BCA will actively work to enact legislation that requires a small business regulatory flexibility analysis and a small business economic impact statement when a state agency proposes a new rule or rule change.

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• HB 203 by Rep. Richard Lindsey, D-Centre, Unitary Combined Reporting,  $30 million annually
   
• HB 206 by Rep. Barbara Boyd, D-Anniston, Limit oil/gas depletion allowance
   
• HB 207 by Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, limit production activities deduction, $20 million annually
   
• HB 224 by Rep. Darrio Melton, D-Selma, limit bonus depreciation to 50%,  $13 million annually

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The House Ways & Means-Education committee favorably reported HB 102, by Rep. Mac Buttram, R-Cullman, entitled, the Twenty-First Century Workforce Act, which authorizes the State to issue up to $50 million in bonds for career and technical education (CTE) equipment for the local boards of education.  

The equipment will be utilized to upgrade local career and technical education programs in order to meet industry standards. The proceeds from the bonds will be distributed: 1) $10 million allocated pro rata on the basis of the number of CTE teacher units earned in the current school year; 2) $20 million allocated pro rata on the basis of the number of students in CTE programs in the current school year; and 3) $20 million provided to a five-member grant committee to be awarded to reimburse CTE programs for equipment purchases necessary to meet industry standards, as determined by needs assessments.

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This week the Business Council of Alabama launched our new blog just in time for the start of the 2013 legislative session.  When the House and Senate are convened in Montgomery, this will be a good source for detailed information on legislation affecting business as it makes its way through committees and onto the floor of each chamber.  While we won't have a daily blog post on every piece of legislation we are monitoring, we will highlight the important issues of the day.  On Fridays, you will continue to receive your BCA Capital Briefing with a full account of the week's legislative activity, and you can always get real-time updates on bills on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

This week on the blog, we posted an op-ed on why the BCA places education at the top of our agenda as well as a brief video recap of Speaker Mike Hubbard at our Tuesday morning legislative leadership committee meeting. You will also find committee coverage of the Local Control School Flexibility Act and the Red Tape Reduction Act.

You can find our blog on the homepage of our website at www.bcatoday.org or by clicking here which will take you directly to the blog.  Once there, you have the option of subscribing to RSS feeds if you wish to receive updates as they are posted.  The ultimate goal of the blog is to keep you updated throughout the week on issues that may be of importance to you.

Tuesday Morning Legislative Leadership Committee Meetings   

The BCA Governmental Affairs Committee will meet Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 8:30 a.m. in the first floor auditorium of the Business Center of Alabama, 2 N. Jackson St., Montgomery. Guest speaker will be Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh.

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March 12, 2013

Anita Archie,
Senior Vice President
and Legal Advisor,

Intergovernmental Affairs,
and Advocacy 

anitaa@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8775

William J. Canary,
President and CEO

billyc@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8714

Mark Colson,
Chief of Staff and

Executive Director, ProgressPAC

mcolson@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8724

Nancy Wall Hewston,
Vice President for 

Communications, Strategic Information and
Federal Affairs 

nancyh@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8725

Nathan Lindsay,
Director of 

Political Affairs and
Regional Operations

nathanl@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8766

Victor Vernon,
Vice President for
Public Policy  

victorv@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8722

Joshua Vaughn,
Manager of Visual Communications and
Strategic Information

joshv@bcatody.org 

334-240-8740

Pam Ware,
Manager of 

Intergovernmental Affairs,
and Advocacy

pamw@bcatoday.org 

334-240-8719