Lawmakers seek funds to balance education budget

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Lawmakers seek funds to balance education budget - WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & Sports

Legislators seeking funds to balance the state education budget have run into spirited but silent opposition.

The House Ways and Means-Education Committee voted Thursday for a bill that would transfer $30 million from a fund that provides telephone service for the deaf to the education budget. Several dozen deaf Alabama residents crowded into a legislative committee meeting and watched as interpreters used sign language to translate details of the debate.

The committee approved the bill in a divided voice vote. It now goes to the full House.

Committee chairman Jay Love said the transfer would be for one time only and would not prevent the Dual Party Relay Fund from paying for anyone's phone service.

The bill is opposed by the three members of the Alabama Public Service Commission.

 

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House approves bill to move money from deaf services fund to education fund

House approves bill to move money from deaf services fund to education fund | al.com

The Alabama House of Representatives tonight voted 61-34 for a bill to take $30 million from a fund created to pay for telephone services for the deaf and put the money in the state Education Trust Fund.

The telephone services fund finances a ''dual party relay system'' that lets deaf or hearing-impaired people use phones to communicate with others, and pays for related programs.

The fund is financed by a 15-cents per month surcharge imposed on land-based phone lines by the state Public Service Commission. The surcharge raises more than $3 million a year. Spending on the dual party relay system and related programs totals about $2 million a year. A surplus of just more than $30 million has built up over two decades.

House Bill 432 by Rep. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, would take almost all the surplus by transferring $30 million to the Education Trust Fund in the 2012 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. The bill now goes to the Senate for debate.