BCA-SUPPORTED DUAL-ENROLLMENT BILL PASSES HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THURSDAY

 

The House Ways and Means Education Committee on a voice vote Thursday favorably reported HB384, the high school and two-year college career-technical dual enrollment bill sponsored by Rep. Mac Buttram, R-Cullman. The Business Council of Alabama supports the bill known as The Alabama Future Workforce Initiative. It's a way to help young men and women prepare for well-paying jobs after high school or as a way to further their postsecondary educations.

BCA President and CEO William J. Canary extolled the benefits of the bill during Wednesday's House committee public hearing on HB384. "Creating a scholarship program to increase the number of Alabama students who can participate in dual-enrollment is a no-brainer," Canary said.

The legislation that now goes to the full House for consideration would authorize limited tax credits for personal or corporate donations to a dual-enrollment scholarship program for high school students who take skill training or academic courses at two-year schools. The legislation would cap the scholarship fund at $10 million, an amount that would allow 9,542 new students to participate in Alabama's dual-enrollment program. In 2013, only 2,100 students, 6.7 percent of the eligible 31,500 students, could participate.

The BCA supports the Alabama Future Workforce Initiative legislation because it will help students gain the skills and education that employers need. "The business community in Alabama is, by far, the largest consumer of the product created by our state's school systems, so it is imperative that graduates possess the skills and education that the 21st century workplace demands," Canary said.

Former state school Superintendent Joe Morton, president of the Business and Education Alliance of Alabama, said the greatest obstacle to dual-enrollment is adequate funding. Morton said post-secondary alternatives to college will retain some students who otherwise might drop out in school due to the attraction of skilled trade or technical training. Morton said better-paying jobs will enhance the Education Trust Fund that supports public education.

The House Commerce and Small Business Committee on Wednesday favorably reported companion Alabama Workforce Council bills by Sen. Paul Bussman, R-Cullman, SB217, and Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, HB345. Both bills are in position to pass the House, but SB217 likely will be the bill that advances as it is the closer of the two to being enacted.

Both bills provide for the creation of a 16-member Alabama Workforce Council to be comprised of senior officers from business and industry. The Council concept is a recommendation made by the governor's College and Career Ready Task Force.

Council members will advise the State Superintendent of Education, the Chancellor of the Department of Postsecondary Education, and state officials on ways to better streamline and align the workforce preparedness activities of the state, strategies to market and promote awareness of career opportunities available in various industry sectors and to replicate best practices, especially those public-private partnerships that have proven to be successful in developing pipelines of qualified trainees and retrained workers for available jobs.

The House Technology and Research Committee on Wednesday favorably reported SB121 sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, advancing the bill to the House calendar for consideration. The bill would curb the practice of "patent trolling," prohibit a person or company from asserting a claim of patent infringement in bad faith, and authorize the attorney general to investigate and prosecute enforcement action. Orr said the bill if it becomes law would not hinder lawsuits over legitimate patent infringement.

The bill passed the Senate 20-1. The House committee adopted a substitute, which clarifies and strengthens the role of the attorney general in investigating and prosecuting suspected cases of patent trolling and to provide that it is a Class A misdemeanor to continually and willfully engage in the activity.

Patent litigation, or patent-trolling, costs businesses billions of dollars that otherwise could be used to grow business and create jobs. The patent-trolling industry buys up or acquires broad patents not to use the technology but to extract licensing fees from companies that might accidentally infringe on the patent.  

Patent litigation has become a significant issue not only to the Business Council of Alabama but also the Alabama Bankers Association and the Alabama Grocers Association.

Similar anti-patent trolling efforts are under way in the U.S. Congress that is reacting partly to a Boston University study showing that the direct cost of the patent abuse system in 2011 was $29 billion. The U.S. House voting 321-95 in December approved federal anti-patent-trolling legislation, the Innovation Act, H.R. 3309.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SAYS SHE'LL SUPPORT TBOR II

The Alabama Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, said she will support the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights II bill that has passed the House and is in position to be considered by the Senate next week.

Figures, speaking Tuesday to the Business Council of Alabama's Governmental Affairs Committee, said that as a business person she is familiar with the TBOR legislation and likes what she has read about it. "I intend to support it," Figures said.

She said a concern she has is the same as with any bill that would create a committee or commission - representative membership based on race and gender. "That will be my first concern that minorities and women will be added," she said.

TBOR II, as HB105 is called, would update the original Taxpayers' Bill of Rights passed in 1992. The House approved TBOR II 97-2 on Jan. 16 and the Senate Fiscal Responsibility and Accountability Committee approved the bill on a 5-2 vote on Jan. 22. Rep. Paul DeMarco, R-Homewood, is the bill's sponsor.

DeMarco's bill would create an independent Alabama Tax Appeals Commission within the executive branch and abolish the Administrative Law Division within the Department of Revenue. The Tax Appeals Commission would consist of between one and three tax judges who would have to be attorneys experienced in state and local tax law. The current Administrative Law Judge within the Department of Revenue shall serve as the initial judge and the governor will appoint judges based on recommendations of a nominating committee.

Following two special elections for the Alabama House of Representatives held last Tuesday, BCA-supported candidates Rep. Mike Holmes, R-Wetumpka, and Rep. Margie Wilcox, R-Mobile, were sworn in by House Speaker Mike Hubbard on Thursday, February 6.
 
With 57 percent of the vote, Holmes was elected to represent House District 31 which includes portions of Coosa and Elmore counties. He will fill the unexpired term of former Rep. Barry Mask who accepted the position of president and CEO with the Alabama Association of Realtors.  Holmes has more than 30 years of experience in business management in the Alabama timber industry.   For more information on Mike Holmes, visit www.holmes4house.com
 
Wilcox, who received 90.5 percent of the vote, was elected to represent House District 104 in Mobile county to fill the unexpired term of former Rep. Jim Barton.  She is the owner of Mobile Bay Transportation, Pensacola Bay Transportation and Yellow Cab, and she has been a long-time member of the Business Council of Alabama board of directors.  Barton vacated the seat to become a lobbyist with a Montgomery-based governmental affairs firm.  For more information on Margie Wilcox, visit www.margiewilcox.com
 
Both Holmes and Wilcox must run again in the June 3 primary election and the November 4 general election to represent their respective districts for the 2015-2018 legislative term of office.

HB108 sponsored by Rep. Greg Wren, R-Montgomery, is on the Senate calendar in place for consideration.

The Senate Job Creation and Economic Development Committee favorably reported Wren's Business Personal Property Streamlining Act on Wednesday. The bill instructs the Department of Revenue to create an online electronic filing system that will allow businesses to electronically file annual business personal property tax returns at no charge to the taxpayer or to the taxing jurisdiction. The new online filing system will help simplify the filing process for businesses by providing a single location to file business personal property taxes, with an operational target date of Sept. 30, 2016.

HB108 also would establish a 10-member, state-local advisory committee including local tax officials and representatives from the business community, and an appointee from the BCA. This committee will be appointed to review the design and operation of the new online filing system.

The bill further will allow small business taxpayers to file a non-itemized short form if 1) the taxpayer has previously filed an itemized business personal property return showing the cost of the personal property assets totaling less than or equal to $10,000, and 2) the total cost of any personal property assets acquired during the current year results in the total amount of the entity's personal property assets being less than or equal to $10,000. If both conditions are met, then the taxpayer must agree to a business personal property tax liability that is based on total personal property assets being equal to $10,000. "This is a great bill for taxpayers," said Sen. Paul Sanford, R-Huntsville, chairman of the Job Creation and Economic Development Committee. "It basically helps remove some red tape for small business owners."

The BCA supports HB 108

Sen. Shadrack McGill, R-Scottsboro, presented a related bill on Wednesday to the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund committee, SB262, which will exempt all individual tangible taxable assets, excluding real property, with an original acquisition cost of $250 or less from ad valorem taxation. Several committee members questioned how much tax revenue would be lost by the exemption, but although the amount could not be estimated, it is expected to be significant. 

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday favorably reported HB370, the counterfeit airbag bill sponsored by Rep. Randy Wood, R-Anniston. The Senate version, a substituted SB163 by Sen. Jerry Fielding, R-Sylacauga, is on the Senate calendar.

The House bill was placed on the House calendar Thursday for possible consideration when the House reconvenes on Tuesday. The bill would make airbag fraud a crime if an unauthorized, inadequate, or used airbag is installed in a vehicle after the original airbag has deployed, and the seller doesn't disclose the nature of the airbag to the buyer.

According to the bill, the offense of "airbag fraud" would make it a crime to sell, install, or reinstall an airbag in a vehicle that causes the diagnostic system to inaccurately recognize a functional airbag, or selling a counterfeit airbag, or no airbag at all with the intent to deceive. The bill, if it becomes law, also would provide enhanced criminal penalties if the fraud causes a serious physical injury to a vehicle's occupant.

The bill says it would be a Class A misdemeanor to install a counterfeit or unworkable airbag punishable by up to 1 year in jail and a fine of no more than $6,000. The bill would make it a Class C felony if a counterfeit airbag caused a serious injury. The minimum penalty is between 366 days and up to 10 years in jail and a fine of not more than $15,000.

Following a public hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee voting 6-3 tabled SB99 by Sen. Paul Bussman, R-Cullman, to send a strong message that the bill will fail, as have related bills in the previous two legislative sessions. Those earlier bills would have allowed licensing to certified professional midwives. SB99 sought to decriminalize midwives who attended a home birth.

The House Education Policy Committee gave a favorable report to SB7 by Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road. It's a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds legislative vote before an unfunded mandate or expenditure of local funds could be imposed on a local school board. The bill passed the Senate in 2013 but wasn't considered by the full House. SB7 now is in position to be voted on by the full House and, if it passes, would be voted on statewide in the 2014 general election. The companion bill, HB26 by Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, R-Indian Springs, is awaiting consideration by the Senate Constitution, Ethics, and Elections committee.

The BCA supports this legislation.