Legislators Say PACT Should Have Been in Special Session

State Rep. Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, said Gov. Bob Riley "needs to quit sitting in the dugout, pick up a bat," and get in the game to fix the state's prepaid affordable college tuition plan.

Ford wanted Riley to delay the special session so that a report on PACT from the Retirement Systems of Alabama could be released next week. Riley has said he would call a special session to deal with PACT, but wanted a separate session to deal with Jefferson County's financial woes.

"Here it is we're going to spend two to three million dollars of taxpayers money on a special session," he said. "People outside Jefferson County don't know what's going on with Jefferson County other than people are losing jobs."

Ford said a better use of the money would have been to take up solutions that would address the 49,000 outstanding PACT contracts.

State Rep. Pat Moore, R-Pleasant Grove, said she also would have preferred to be in special session to deal with PACT rather than comming to pass a new occupational tax for Jefferson County. Moore is a member of the Jefferson County delegation.

"I do not support the Jefferson County occupational tax; it's not the bill I want," she said. "We could have waited until the Supreme Court ruled."

-- posted by Markeshia Ricks