Author: Mary Sell (Mary Sell)

The Alabama State Board of Education in 2021 required graduating high school students to complete the FAFSA. At the time, policymakers said Alabama students were leaving more than $60 million per year in free aid on the table.

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News In 2018, 3,291 first-time teachers entered Alabama’s public K-12 classrooms. By the end of 2020, 1,721 of them had left those schools. More than 50% of new educators leave their first classrooms within three years, according to a new interim report on teacher retention by the Alabama Commission on...

The latest report from the Alabama Department of Public Health shows that maternal deaths increased from 36 in 2016 to 44 in 2017. Alabamians ranked “poor pregnancy outcomes” as their third greatest concern in the latest Community Health Assessment.

Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell said the ongoing creation of six mental health crisis centers around the state, where people can be stabilized and possibly referred for outpatient treatment, may reduce the need for civil commitments and the need for inpatient care.

One of the mental health funding increases this fiscal year is $200,000 for a pilot program offering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment to veterans. In the most recent legislative session, lawmakers expanded the treatment to include a nerve block injection to first responders around the state.

The unemployment rate measures the number of Alabamians who are actively seeking work. March’s rate represents 65,485 unemployed persons, the lowest ever on record, compared to 68,663 in February and 82,443 in March 2021.

By MADDISON BOOTH, Alabama Daily News The Alabama Department of Human Resources will use $17.8 million from the 2023 education budget to incentivize licensed day cares in the state. The department will award the funds based on its five-star quality rating system and hopes the money will help more families across the state have access...

The new system, which ALEA and Gov. Kay Ivey announced in February, will replace the one that the state has used for almost 20 years and take advantage of new technology. According to ALEA, some of the data that needs to be transferred to the new system dates back to the 1970s.

Bolstered by record state revenues in both the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and General Fund, the Legislature passed select tax cuts that officials say total about $160 million and increased funding for education. There were pay raises for teachers and state employees and one-time bonuses for retirees, too.

This was Sen. Del Marsh’s last session, and the long-time GOP Senate leader pushed bills to allow state funding to follow students to private schools and home schools and to increase public funding of charter schools.

House Bill 143, the Sgt. Nick Risner Act, received final passage in the Senate and House while the family of the Sheffield officer killed in the line of duty looked on. Earlier in the day, Risner was honored with the state’s highest law enforcement award on the House floor.

House Bill 163 increases the optional standard deduction by $1,000 for couples married filing jointly and $500 for those single, married filing separately and head of household. It also increases the adjusted gross income range allowable for the maximum optional standard deduction to $35,000, up from $33,000, and the adjusted gross income range allowable for dependent exemption to $50,000, up from $20,000, to increase the threshold at which the state imposes individual income taxes.

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama House on Thursday approved a bill giving the state department of health more authority in enforcing lead paint clean-up laws. The state already has a process contractors are to use when renovating homes with lead-based paint, State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said it’s...

State law already requires people on unemployment to make an effort to secure work. The legislation would specify that the person must contact three potential employers about finding a job. The contacts could be made in person or by telephone or email.