MONTGOMERY — The Alabama Senate passed a series of bills on Wednesday allocating $3.72 billion in fiscal year 2027 from the State’s General Fund for executive, judicial and legislative expenditures.
The budget includes a 2% pay raise for State employees.
A supplemental bill for the 2026 fiscal year also included a $59,808,596 increase for debt servicing of transportation projects. State Sens. Lance Bell (R-Pell City), Chris Elliott (R-Josephine) and Sam Givhan (R-Huntsville) voted against the supplemental bill.
Elliott said he expected the increase was for the West Alabama Corridor project
The West Alabama Highway project creates a four-lane Highway 43 from Mobile to Tuscaloosa. The project is supported by Gov. Kay Ivey but has been criticized by multiple state lawmakers for its cost and for being only funded with state dollars.
The state recently sold $730 million in bonds to fund 80 miles of the project.
“It adds essentially additional ability to use that funding for debt service for the Alabama Highway Authority, essentially, and that’s for bond issuances the state has made and so forth,” Elliott said. “It’s for additional debt service that the state has taken. It doesn’t name a specific project necessarily that this additional $59 million in debt service is needed for. I think, and I’m not certain, but I think that this additional $59 million for debt service only is for a project in West Alabama. I just wanted to point that out.”
Elliott said on Wednesday after the Senate adjourned, “It’s a lot of money. It’s going to really hinder our ability to do projects around the state over the next several decades.”
Albritton defended the expenditure.
“That’s not saying that 65 and there are not other needs, but what Alabama needs are more roads, not just larger ones,” Albritton told reporters. “We need to get the (Highway) 43 completed, and we also need to look to the East, better roadways up there, and not just going North and South. We’ve got to get East and West, too. We’ve got a long ways to go. I think we’re working on problems as much as we can.”
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