Or should I say “an odious budget?”

The Alabama legislature has passed the state’s education and general fund budgets.  The education budget passed by the senate is a staggering $6.7 billion.  It included double digit percentage increases in the budgets for K-12 and universities.  It’s worth noting that the legislature also gave the government school teachers a 7% raise.  Paul Hubbert must be smiling.

Here are my thoughts/observations after taking a quick peek under the hood of the general fund budget, which came in at $1.8 billion.

Did you know that we spend…

  • $74 million ($0 GF) on the Alcohol Beverage Control Board
  • $417 million ($343 million GF) on our Department of Corrections plus another $8.5 million out of the General Fund to feed prisoners
  • $2.5 million ($0 GF) regulating the cosmetology industry (we spend less regulating credit unions and the professional engineers that design and build our bridges)
  • $83 million ($0 GF) on debt service
  • $133 million ($2.5 million GF) on the Emergency Management Agency
  • $3 million ($92k GF) on “faith based and community initiatives”
  • $4.3 billion ($470 million GF) on Medicaid
  • $754 million ($143 million GF) on the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation
  • $15 million ($13 million GF) on the Bureau of Tourism and Travel
  • $1.4 billion ($300k GF) on the Department of Transportation

Note: in the preceding list the total appropriation is listed first with the General Fund amount in parentheses.

Shameless pork:

  • $30k for the Butler County Farm Day
  • $200k for “fire ant eradication/research” at Auburn
  • $1 million to the “Tuscaloosa County Commission for road construction, expansion, and upgrades.”  This was the only such expenditure tucked into the budget for the Department of Economic and Community Affairs.
  • $45k for a new farmers market building in Jefferson County
  • $300k for the Jefferson County Farmers Market
  • $150k for Constitution Village in Huntsville
  • $100k for the Buckmaster’s Expo
  • $10k for Ft. Payne Boom Days
  • $15k for “UFO days” (You can’t make this stuff up)
  • $10k for a Rhododendron Festival
  • $15k for a Potato Festival
  • $10k for the Ider “mule day”
  • $20k for Riverfest in Gadsden
  • $5k for a Chocolate Festival
  • $35k for various festivals in Glencoe, Cherokee County, Cedar Bluff, Leesburg, and Centre

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This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 5:21 am and is filed under Alabama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.