2012 Legislative Session Coming To A Close

The 2012 legislative session started in February and lawmakers were faced with several controversial bills including this year's general fund budget.

When the budget came through the House two weeks ago,  State Representative Dexter Grimsley, D- 85th District voted against the budget.

"I voted against the general fund budget clearly because it makes some drastic cuts mainly to the Medicaid budget. We cut Medicaid budget by $175 million. "

State Representative Paul Lee, R- 86th District supported the bill. He said every state agency faced cuts this year.

"We had to cut the budget approximately $400 million and any time you start cutting a budget that much everyone is affected in the long run," said Lee.

With 10 more legislative days left in this session lawmakers have a lot ahead of them.  One bill set to hit the House this week deals with charter schools in Alabama.

Lee is on the fence about charter schools, but Grimsley said he plans to vote against the bill when it comes through the House.

"I'm opposed of charter schools coming to the state of Alabama mainly because at this point we can't support the local funding that we have. We need to be very cognizant of when we try to pass bills that will affect our local school systems especially with the trouble they're already in," explained Grimsley.

Lawmakers will also have to address the state's education budget. Lee said laws were put in place last year to protect school systems from proration.

"The education budget should be a lot easier than the general budget because of the law we passed with the Rolling Budget last year. Our goal is to prevent any proration," said Lee.  

 The session ends in May.