Alabama top stories in brief

• Rep. Marilyn Lands, D-Huntsville, was fined $4,500 by the Alabama Ethics Commission after her campaign failed to file campaign finance reports during the last leg of her special election. According to the Fair Campaign Practices Act, campaigns must file a daily report when donations or expenditures exceed $5,000 within a 24 hour time frame. Lands’ campaign appealed the fine and although the required donations were reported on a weekly report, since there was no daily report filed, the commission did not grant the appeal. 

• Students at the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama in Huntsville will pay more for tuition this upcoming school year, after the Board of Trustees for the University of Alabama System voted on June 7 to raise tuition rates for both in-state and out-of-state students across the system. In-state tuition will increase by 2.5% for in-state students at each campus, while out-of-state tuition will increase by 3% at UA and UAB and 4% at UAH. This is the second time in seven years that tuition has increased for in-state students at UA and the third time that it has increased for students at UAB and UAH. 

• The Toyota engine plant in Huntsville will be expanding in the near future. Toyota announced on June 5 that its Huntsville engine plant will be expanding thanks to a $282 million investment from the company. The expansion is expected to create 350 new jobs at the plant. The Huntsville plant, Toyota Alabama, which opened in 2003, is the company’s largest engine producer in North America — more than 770,000 engines were assembled there in 2023. The factory currently employs 2,000 workers. 

• Alabama’s General Fund has seen a nearly 9% increase in revenue growth over the past fiscal year, but the state’s Education Trust Fund saw little growth in the same period, growing 0.2%. Growth in the General Fund is linked to high interest rates, but revenue for the ETF is derived primarily from income and sales tax. Two tax cuts approved by state lawmakers in 2023 slowed growth for the ETF, including reductions in grocery sales taxes and changes to income taxes on overtime pay for hourly workers. 

• The Alabama Supreme Court ruled against 44 United Methodist congregations from south Alabama and the Florida panhandle, saying the churches must handle disaffiliation from the denomination through the church’s internal legal system. The 44 churches aimed to sue the Alabama-West Florida of the United Methodist Church because they were not allowed to disaffiliate from the denomination. The suit was appealed to Alabama’s Supreme Court after it was dismissed by Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Brooke E. Reid in November, saying the issue was an internal church issue that the court did not have jurisdiction over. The congregations involved in this suit were attempting to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church over the congregations’ opposal to same-sex marriage and ordination of LGTBQ+ clergy.

• Joe Wheeler EMC, which provides electricity in Morgan and Lawrence Counties, increased its electric rate by 6.2% starting June 1. Joe Wheeler customers were only notified of the increase a week before the new rates took effect through an announcement in the company’s magazine. Additionally, this increase came less than a year after the provider’s previous rate increase — a 4.3% increase that began in August. Joe Wheeler spokesperson Michael Cornelison attributed the rate increases to inflation, saying that the cost of materials has increased due to high inflation. 

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