New $3.4 billion Alabama budget increases spending on prisons, Medicaid, mental health

By Mike Cason | mcason@al.com

The Alabama House of Representatives passed the state General Fund budget Thursday, a plan that would spend $3.4 billion on non-education government services next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

The budget calls for spending about $360 million more than the current fiscal year. The House passed it by a vote of 103-0.

The bill, SB67 by Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, returns to the Senate, which passed it earlier. The Senate could agree to the changes or send the bill to a conference committee.

Lawmakers return Tuesday and have three days left in the session.

Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, chairman of the House Ways and Means General Fund committee, said revenues that support the General Fund increased by 16% in fiscal year 2023 over the previous year. Strong areas of growth included the Simplified Sellers Use Tax, which is the state sales tax on online sales, ad valorem taxes, and interest on state accounts, Reynolds said.

The largest line item in the budget, the Alabama Medicaid Agency, would receive $955 million from the General Fund next year, a $92 million increase over this year. Reynolds said a main factor is a reduction in federal dollars for Medicaid because a period of enhanced federal matching funds during the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. Reynolds noted that 52% of Medicaid beneficiaries in Alabama are children.

The budget allocates $736 million to the Alabama Department of Corrections, a $75 million increase over this year.

The budget increases funding to the Department of Mental Health by $23 million, to a total of $235 million. Reynolds said the bulk of the increase is to support Alabama’s new crisis system of care. The state has opened crisis care centers in Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa and a sixth in Dothan will open soon. Reynolds said the annual operating cost for each center will be about $7 million.

Besides the General Fund budget for next year, the House approved a supplemental bill that allocates $254 million from the General Fund for this fiscal year. The biggest item is a $150 million appropriation for prison construction. Lawmakers are allocating funds to build a 4,000-bed men’s prison in Escambia County.

That prison will follow a 4,000-bed prison now under construction in Elmore County at a cost of about $1.1 billion. Funding is already allocated for the Elmore County prison, which includes special facilities for medical and mental health care.

The supplemental spending bill, SB66, also passed by a vote of 103-0 and returns to the Senate.

Read the rest of the story here: New $3.4 billion Alabama budget increases spending on prisons, Medicaid, mental health - al.com

US Accuses Russia of Chemical Weapons Use in Ukraine

The United States on Wednesday accused Russia of violating the international chemical weapons ban by deploying the choking agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops and using riot control agents "as a method of warfare" in Ukraine.

"The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces' desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield," the State Department said in a statement.

Russia on Thursday denied a U.S. accusation, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters Moscow remained bound by its obligations under the treaty that bans chemical weapons.

"As always, such announcements are absolutely unfounded and are not supported by anything. Russia has been and remains committed to its obligations under international law in this area," Peskov said.

Chloropicrin is listed as a banned choking agent by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was created to implement and monitor compliance with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

German forces fired the gas against Allied troops during World War I in one of the first uses of a chemical weapon.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported the Ukrainian military as saying Russia has stepped up its illegal of use riot control agents as it presses its biggest advances in eastern Ukraine in more than two years.

In addition to chloropicrin, Russian forces have used grenades loaded with CS and CN gases, the Ukrainian military says. It says at least 500 Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for exposure to toxic substances and one was killed by suffocating on tear gas.

While civilians usually can escape riot control gases during protests, soldiers stuck in trenches without gas masks must either flee under enemy fire or risk suffocating.

The State Department said it was delivering to Congress its determination that Russia's use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops violated the CWC.

READ MORE: US Accuses Russia of Chemical Weapons Use in Ukraine | Newsmax.com