Alabama education department outlines FY25 budget request with large increases for literacy, numeracy and school safety

The Alabama State Department of Education presented its FY25 budget request at a state board work session, asking the board to adopt a package that includes increases for literacy coaching, a numeracy expansion, school safety and mental-health supports ahead of the November submission deadline.

Department staff said the request keeps the department's total near $717 million for departmental programs and asks that lawmakers raise the foundation program. "This is for the FY25 budget request that the state board will then adopt next month at your meeting," said Doctor Payne, a department staff member presenting the proposal. Payne told the board the department must send a final request to the governor's office before Nov. 1.

The packet the department circulated to the board outlines a number of line-item increases and repackagings. Highlights presented by staff include: - Advanced Placement and digital supports: $13.5 million request (about $2 million increase). - AmSTI (Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative): $1 million increase. - Numeracy Act allocation: an increase of about $23,820,000, for a proposed total appropriation of roughly $63,820,764; the department said that would fund 205 additional building-based math coaches and 33 regional math specialists to coordinate training across regions. - Reading initiative: staff proposed moving an early childhood classroom assessment into the reading initiative and asked for larger support for K-3 reading coaches (previous carve-outs moved to a per-school allocation of $80,000), plus a $36 million overall increase to continue literacy programs and summer reading camps that have been sustained with one-time funds. - School safety and climate: staff recommended adding $20 million to the foundation program to convert a one-time supplemental $40 million school-safety allocation into ongoing funding, plus $200,000 to restore regional safety training specialists. - Mental-health service coordination: the request would raise per-district allocations from $40,000 to $50,000 and add funding to create eight regional administrators to coordinate local mental-health coordinators, producing a roughly $4.5 million increase in that area.

Other change items in the request included shifts of line items into new centers (for example, specialized treatment centers funding moved from the foundation formula into a separate line item, with the department asking for about $26 million to stabilize that funding stream) and multiple smaller increases for career-tech expansion, intervention programs and educator mentoring. Payne repeatedly emphasized that some amounts in the packet reflect previous supplemental or federal funds that are expiring and that the department is seeking recurring state dollars to sustain programs.

Board members asked for clarifications on several points during the review: how numeracy funds would be deployed across districts, the scope of regional supports, and whether some items represent new money or internal reallocations. Doctor Reynolds and several board members pressed staff to provide breakdowns that would let the board judge tradeoffs among divisors, raises and programmatic increases.

The department said staff will take board feedback, finalize the request and return a final draft for adoption at next month's meeting; the finalized request will be transmitted to the governor's office before the department's Nov. 1 deadline.