We all want to live in a healthy, secure and prosperous state. Alabama is taking important steps toward that goal now, but deep General Fund budget cuts could undo that progress.

Medicaid’s new regional care organizations will keep patients healthier while cutting costs. Prison system improvements will protect Alabamians while lowering costs and helping former inmates transition back into their communities. Investing in these changes now will save money later.

We’re at a crossroads in Alabama. Cutting vital services is the wrong path.

The devastating cuts in the no-new-revenue General Fund budget proposal would force us to abandon our Medicaid and corrections improvements. And without new revenue, Alabama faces deep service cuts that could make the state a worse place to live for years to come.

Cuts to Medicaid, which covers one in five Alabamians, would top $300 million. That would force the program to end coverage of vital services like adult eyeglasses, prosthetics, hospice care and outpatient dialysis. It also likely would lead to even fewer doctors serving Medicaid patients, most of whom are children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

The costs for Alabama’s children would be real. Cuts to the Department of Human Resources (DHR) would make Alabama the first state to end its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. That would eliminate cash assistance for more than 30,000 children living in deep poverty, as well as uniforms, car repairs and other job readiness assistance for their parents.

DHR cuts also would end child care benefits for 15,000 children. That could hurt our state’s economy by forcing thousands of working parents to quit their jobs. More than $340 million in child support payments would be risk if DHR ends collection services, and hundreds of seniors would lose adult day care services that allow them to live independently.

Mental health funding cuts would harm more than 25,000 Alabamians by reducing or eliminating community-based mental illness and intellectual disability services. That would reduce independence for thousands of Alabamians. The cuts also could cost hundreds of people their jobs by forcing them to stay home to care for family members who lose crucial support services. In addition, severe mental health cuts could land Alabama back in federal court.

Deep General Fund cuts would have serious public safety implications as well. Nearly a fourth of Alabama’s state troopers would be laid off. The prison system, which already operates at nearly twice its designed capacity, would close two facilities. That would mean even more overcrowding and an even greater chance of a federal takeover of the state’s prison system.

More than 1,100 state workers would lose their jobs, including more than 600 court employees. That likely would force courts to close at least two days a week, meaning longer wait times for criminal trials or restitution cases.

This is no way to invest in our state’s future. Alabama needs new revenue to end the chronic budget shortfalls that are holding us back. The General Fund needs a sustainable revenue stream to support Medicaid, corrections, mental health care and other vital services. Raising the cigarette tax and raising the state sales tax on automobiles to 4 percent – the same as we pay on groceries – would be two good places to start.

If we want a better Alabama tomorrow, we need to start building it today.

By Kimble Forrister, executive director. Posted April 23, 2015.