Updated on 12/03/24 to provide new information after hearing held on 12/02/24.

Lipscomb, a small town on the outskirts of Bessemer, recently had all of its city accounts frozen by court order due to a local gambling hall that provided the majority of the city’s revenue. The state has released enough of those funds to allow Lipscomb to meet payroll for its employees. The business in question, Jay’s Charity Bingo, was raided by state agents on Nov. 21, which marked the second time this year that state agents have taken action against Jay’s. 

In August, machines that were considered evidence from a bingo hall in Selma were found at Jay’s after they were reported stolen from Charity Bingo in Selma. They were identified as the same machines, since many of them still had the evidence stickers on the back from when the Selma hall was placed under a restraining order. 

Five men living in the Bessemer area were charged with third-degree burglary for the theft.

Jay’s reopened in October, and remained open until the recent raid. Now, the Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has named the city of Lipscomb as a defendant in addition to Jay’s, which led to the freezing of all city accounts until a hearing on Dec. 2.

In the aftermath of city accounts being frozen, all city services were initially declared shutdown. Later, it was declared that all services have remained operational and the city pushed back payday for city employees from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3.

Many of the funds frozen were released back to Lipscomb by the state, however some accounts will remain frozen until Dec. 9, including the city’s operational fund. The reason for this extension is that funds gained from Jay’s were transferred into Lipscomb’s operational fund. This money is being called criminally derived by the state, who say the city should be unable to keep it. There was at least $200,000 in funds connected to Jay’s that were transferred to the operational budget, though the account now reportedly has around $17,000.

The city council and Mayor Tonja Baldwin have both blamed each other for the issue. The city had previously approved an ordinance in 2012 to allow electronic bingo, which has been amended numerous times since. The council says that the mayor failed to come to them when approving new businesses for licensing, while Baldwin blames the council for not passing an amendment which would have changed the city’s ordinance to specifically only allow for paper bingo. 

On Dec. 2, prior to the hearing, the Lipscomb City Council repealed the bingo ordinance.

In the past, there was some debate over the legality of electronic bingo in Alabama, some of which featured debates upon the definition of bingo, but a pair of Alabama Supreme Court decisions in 2016 decisively ruled that electronic bingo violates Alabama’s laws against gambling. 

Alabama top stories in brief

New bill could make election day a state holiday

• HB64, which was sponsored by Rep. Ontario Tillman, D-Bessemer, would specifically apply to gubernatorial and presidential election contests, creating a new holiday that would occur every two years. 
• Tillman told the Alabama Reflector that the goal would be to make it easier for voters to come out and vote in upcoming elections. 

Election in Alabama saw the lowest turnout since 1988

• On Nov. 26, the Alabama Canvassing Board, consisting of Gov. Kay Ivey, Secretary of State Wes Allen and Attorney General Steve Marshall, certified the results of the 2024 General Election. 
• Turnout among voters for the election was around 58.57% of registered voters in Alabama, which, by percentage, is the lowest turnout for a presidential election since 1988. 

Alabama promotes campaign to combat high maternal mortality rate

• The Hear Her Campaign is a product of the CDC, which the Alabama Department of Public Health will be working to disseminate through social media.
• The campaign directs Alabamians to symptoms that women might experience before or after pregnancy that could require immediate medical attention. 

• Alabama has a maternal mortality rate of 29.9 per 100,000 births, far higher than the national average of 18.2, and data from the ADPH states that the majority of deaths in the state are preventable. 

A majority of schools improved their report cards this year 

• A total of 802 schools raised their overall score compared to last year’s report card, and only 378 dropped lower than their previous score. 

• Of Alabama’s 151 school districts, 11 earned an A for every school in their district.

• Students with disabilities and students with limited language proficiency remain the student groups with the lowest scores, but both still rose from the previous year. 

• The number of schools that earned D’s or F’s — which are considered priority schools, and give students a tax credit to switch schools — are down to 156 from 209 last year. 

Alabama Medicaid seeks budget increase

• Alabama Medicaid is seeking a large increase in state funding for the 2026 fiscal year, and has already submitted the request to the Executive Budget Office.

• “It’s not an Alabama problem. It’s a national issue that has to be dealt with,” said Alabama Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar, who cited inflation as one of the issues leading to the increased request. 

• Currently, the federal government provides about 73 cents of every dollar spent on Medicaid by Alabama.

Purchase agreement between Birmingham Southern and Miles College expires

• The trustees of Birmingham Southern College said that the purchase agreement between Miles and BSC expired on Nov. 25.

• Miles first entered into the purchase agreement with BSC on Sept. 25.

• Miles did request that the agreement be extended, but the request was not granted by BSC’s trustees.

• A statement from BSC said that “to meet its commitments to lenders and other creditors, the BSC Board of Trustees is obligated to sell the 192-acre campus property as quickly as possible.”

• Despite the end of the purchase agreement, Miles says that it intends to continue to pursue purchasing the property. 

Announcements:

• Due to the holidays, both The Breathing Room and The Longleaf Hiker will have slightly different schedules this month. The Breathing Room will come out on Dec. 18 and The Longleaf Hiker will be published on Dec. 20. 

This week’s Roundup changes

Since early this month, we have been testing changes to the Roundup and gathering feedback from you, our readers.

This week, we returned to a format we tested a few weeks ago: a focus story accompanied by bullet-pointed stories in brief. With these changes, we hope to strike a balance between drawing attention to a larger news story in the state, while also providing a broader overview of Alabama’s top stories of the week.

Let us know what you thought about these changes by responding to this short survey here. Survey participants will be entered in the chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card in mid-December, just in time for last minute Christmas shopping! You must provide your email address in order to be a part of the raffle for the gift card. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and will inform how the Alabama Roundup will look in the future! 

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