On Tuesday, the Alabama House of Representatives passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) appropriations legislation – House Bill 1.
The legislation, House Bill 1, is sponsored by State Rep. Rex Reynolds, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means General Fund Committee.
Reynolds explained that the state had received approximately $2.1 billion in ARPA funding from the federal government. Half of that money has already been appropriated by the Legislative and is in the process of being allocated by the executive branch to projects across Alabama. This tranche of ARPA money is about $1,060,000.
$339,175,000 will go for healthcare needs, including $25 million for Mental health and $9 million for the expansion of telemedicine. $260 million will be used for broadband, including a cybersecurity component. $395 million will go to water and sewer projects. $55 million will be used to compensate state agencies for the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Alabama Department of Labor will get $5 million to recover some of their costs for dealing with the surge in unemployment applications and other costs. $1,179,000 will go for administrative costs of overseeing and allocating the money.
Rep. Mary Moore asked if there was sufficient legislative oversight in place.
Reynolds said, “The Legislative Oversight Committee gives this body oversight in case they may need to reallocate those funds when the Legislature is not in session.”
“There might be a project in my district that is not reallocated,” Moore said.
House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels said to Reynolds, “I just came down to give you a compliment, and I appreciate all the hard work you have done in this bill. This has been a great process, and everybody has had an opportunity to be involved in this process.”
State Rep. John Rogers expressed concern that a project in his district might be reallocated when he is unavailable.
“I may be in Alaska – I may be in Florida laying on a beach drinking a martini,” Rogers said.
Reynolds replied, “As part of the ARPA funds when the ARPA funds were allocated, that legislation created that Oversight Committee for the ARPA funds. I think you can feel comfortable in the authority given to that committee.”
Reynolds explained, “Executive Budget Office would have to come back in and exercise the executive authority they have under that bill,” if insufficient funds are allocated to a project. “You can go to their website and see the progress of individual projects.”
“Huntsville is like Birmingham – they got money coming in that we don’t know about,” Rogers said. “What I want to know is how much they really got that didn’t come through us?”
Reynolds said the Oversight Committee “is a 14-member body including budget chairs. It is spelled out in the 2022 legislation that we passed last year.”
State Rep. Juandalynn Givan asked, “Could you give me a breakdown of how much is coming to Jefferson County?”
“No, I do not have access to that,” Reynolds said. “This legislation we are asking you to pass does not break that down by county.”
63 of the 67 counties have received money already, but four have not.
“We have language in this bill that says that those applications should have priority,” Reynolds said. “We would not want to preset that based on county, because you want to prioritize that by need, and one county would not have the same need as another need.”
Givan replied, “My folks don’t really care how much went to this or that county. What they want to know is how much of the bacon is coming back to the district. We need to be able to report that back to our people.”
Reynolds replied, “The money will not be allocated until after we pass this bill.”
Givan said, “I was here in another session, and we appropriated over a billion dollars, including ARPA dollars, for prisons that still are not built yet.”
Givan was angry that no ARPA money was appropriated to bail out Birmingham Southern College – a private college in financial distress.
“We can’t figure out how to find $37 million for ARPA money for an educational institution, but we could find money to build prisons. Lord knows we don’t need to lose another educational institution in the state of Alabama,” Givan said.
Givan complained that public housing communities in Alabama, even in urban areas, still do not have broadband.
HB1 passed the House 102 to 3. 71 members cosponsored the resolution.
Reynolds was also the sponsor of House Bill 2. This bill appropriates money from supplemental 2022 funds to spend $59,997,772 to pay off the remaining debt owed to the Alabama Trust Fund during the previous decade.
“This is a good bill. This body knew that this was the time to pay those bills,” Reynolds said.
The House passed HB2 104 to 0. 94 members cosponsored HB2.
Both bills now go to the Alabama Senate for their consideration.
Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter told the members before the House adjourned, “Good work today, a great investment in our state. Congratulations.”
The Legislature is currently in a special session called by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey last week to address the issue of the ARPA funds.
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