The last two Aprils have not been good to Alabama. On April 20, 2010, the infamous BP Deepwater oil spill disaster occurred. We are still trying to calculate the damage.

On April 27, Alabama was struck by the worst natural disaster in our history. Over 30 tornados swept through the state, destroying entire neighborhoods and towns, taking the lives of more than 250 Alabamians. It will be years before the recovery is complete.

Almost prophetically, the Legislature was preparing to recess in order to put the final stamp to the budgets and gather public input on congressional redistricting. The law requires congressional lines to be redrawn after each 10-year census to ensure equal representation based on population. Most states require an entire Special Session. However, our new Republican House and Senate have chosen to save time and money by sandwiching the reapportionment issue within the Regular Session. They have used the two-week recess to hold public hearings and assess citizen input from around the state and then act on a plan. Therefore, both the budgets and congressional redistricting will be put to bed at the close of the Regular Session, June 9.

Crafting the budgets has been difficult to say the least. Although the Education and General Fund budgets have been passed by both houses, there are slight differences between the Senate and House versions. Therefore, conference committees have been appointed to iron out the details.

The Education Budget will cut the average teacher’s take-home pay by close to $1,000 per year and increase class sizes by cutting over 1,000 teaching positions statewide.

The General Fund is even more austere. If the economy were not devastating enough, the tornado tragedy has created havoc with the budget. The governor recommended and the Legislature agreed to cut all extra agencies and all historic allocations from the budget. The sacred cows were Medicaid and prisons. All other state agencies were slashed by at least 20 percent. Many are taking a 30 percent reduction or more.

One of the few organizations to survive was the revered Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). This group also survived a 1980s barebones budget crunch during the last Wallace administration. Legislators who really know their districts realize the magnitude of popularity RSVP enjoys throughout the state. Each week 12,000 retired senior citizen volunteers go to work for state and local agencies, departments and educational venues. Last year more than 5,000 volunteers worked nearly 2 million hours at state agencies. The cost to the state for these volunteer workers was 20 cents per hour.

This new group of GOP legislators has been focused. It is the most disciplined partisan body in memory. They have been like a well-organized army, especially the Senate, which has voted lockstep with party orders. They very rarely get out of line. In one rare instance Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, offered an amendment to the Education Budget that was extemporaneous. Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh publicly chastised Orr by going to the microphone and angrily saying Orr must not have been listening in the caucus meeting.

Steve Flowers’ political column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. He may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.