House Majority Leader Ken Guin (D-Carbon Hill) expects smooth sailing for the Special Education Trust Fund.

Debate begins on the House floor today. The nearly $5.5 billion dollar budget, buoyed by extra millions from a lawsuit and a bond, should cover all teacher slots the state provides. Earlier this session that was not expected to be the case.

Rep. Guin tells FOX6 News Good Day Alabama “local entities, depending on their own situation, may have to look at that differently” in continuing teacher slots funded locally.

The spending plan does come with one key cost to educators wallets.

“It’s a first time we have level funded PEEHIP… I think there will be some rate increase for people in the PEEHIP system,” Guin says about the Public Education Employees Health Insurance Plan.

Committee work picks up tomorrow on the General Fund budget. Guin says he wants to have the general fund up for a vote next Tuesday.

Guin, who is up for re-election with the rest of the legislature this year, calls a Republican effort to “prohibit” the federal mandate for health insurance a “campaign issue.”

Sen. Scott Beason (R-Gardendale) will join the Eagle Forum in calling for a vote on a bill that calls for the prohibition during a news conference on the Statehouse steps today. The chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus has called a 12:30pm news conference to decry the bill.

Rep. John Rogers (D-Birmingham) tells me the caucus will “push back on this state’s rights argument.”

Using a favorite term, Rep. Rogers vows “a holy war” if Beason’s bill or similar legislation by Rep. Robert Bentley (R-Tuscaloosa) or Rep. Mac Gipson (R-Prattville) makes it to the house or senate floor.

The majority leader says it is unlikely to move that far.

“I look them (bill sponsors) square in the eye and ask have you read this 2,000-plus page (health care overhaul) bill. None of them have. I think it is too early for us to know what it does. To put out a constitutional amendment on something we haven’t had an opportunity to analyze… I don’t think it would be a prudent thing.”

Read more of Rick Journey’s blogs here.

Filed under: Legislature