March is Women’s History Month, so I wanted to give a shoutout to one of my favorite women in history. Lorraine Hansberry lived a short, but vibrant life. She is best known for her play “A Raisin in the Sun,” which was the first play written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. She later became involved with the civil rights movement and joined many others in fighting for equal rights. To this day, “A Raisin in the Sun” is a seminal work still studied by students across America.
Alabama top stories in brief
- A new school of healthcare sciences was announced during Gov. Kay Ivey’s State of the State address. The Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences will be a residential school open for Alabama students to start attending in the 9th or 10th grade. The purpose of the school is to prepare students for healthcare jobs upon graduation, and give them an advantage to those pursuing degrees after high school. The school is set to be established in Demopolis.
- Children in Alabama that receive free or reduced lunch will be receiving assistance through the Summer Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program. Those eligible will receive $120 for each participating student and will be able to use it to buy food at stores that accept EBT cards. Alabama is one of 12 states and territories that have been approved for these summer benefits.
- The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority voted last week to raise the amount the state can spend for the new prison in Elmore County. The authorized spending for the project was raised from around $623 million to $975 million. Currently, the total cost of the project is unknown, but officials said that they should know by the summer.
- Advocates rallied outside of the Alabama State House last week in support of increases for funding and legislation to support those with disabilities. The two bills those in attendance were supporting are Exton’s Law and The Colby Act. Exton’s Law would prohibit discrimination in organ transplants for people with disabilities. The Colby Act would give greater independence to those with disabilities, allowing them to enter into a decision-making agreement with advisors.
The Alabama Legislature ends special session
The special session called by Gov. Kay Ivey at the start of the legislative session came to an end last Thursday with the passing of HB1, which allocated $1 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds to support broadband internet access, health care and water and sewer projects in the state.
“I commend the Alabama Legislature for, once again, answering the call to invest these one-time funds wisely to make improvements in Alabamians’ quality of life, including water, sewer and broadband expansion projects, as well as health care,” said Ivey in a press release. “Alabama can now look to a future of greater promise thanks to the steps we have taken this week to invest these funds wisely.”
Amendments made by a senate committee to the allotment of funds for water and sewer drew criticism from many Democratic senators. Originally, the bill allotted $400 million to water and sewer, but an amendment added stormwater projects to the infrastructure funded by the bill. This meant that $200 million of the funds directed to water and sewer could be used for stormwater projects, and out of that, $100 million will be required to go to projects where a local government can match 35% of the cost.
The funds will be managed by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
Legislators critical of the change voiced concerns that it would exclude communities with fewer resources who were unable to provide the 35% match.
Other criticisms raised were about areas some representatives felt were neglected.
Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the chair of the Senate Finance and Taxation Education committee, said he could not support the bill because he felt more funds should have been provided to the Public Education Employees’ Health Insurance Board. A total of $40 million was allocated to PEEHIP.
Rural health care was also a topic of concern among legislators, and something that many legislatures want to focus attention on during the upcoming session.
During the special session, the legislature also approved a bill to spend $60 million to pay off money borrowed from the Alabama Trust fund in 2012 due to a shortfall that year.
The regular session will resume on March 21.
Important updates
- We’re launching a new column starting at the beginning of April. The Alabama Ramble is a column published every two months from our Alabama travel columnist, Wesley Miller, where he travels the state to visit sites both famous and obscure, meet with locals and revel in the many adventures to be had here in Alabama.
- We’re looking into creating some merchandise for The Sunrise News, and wanted to collect feedback from you. If you haven’t already, take a little time and complete this survey to help us better understand you and your interests.
- We’ve decided to push back the deadline on setting up the paywall for our site. All content will now continue to remain free until July 31. Those who have already contributed to our Ko-Fi will still receive a full year of The Sunrise News paid subscription starting after we create the paywall. The paywall will not stop readers from viewing our content, but some content will be available only to paying subscribers.
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