Rep. Marcus Paramore spoke to the Troy Rotary Club on Tuesday about what he considered some of the most important legislation passed in the 2025 session.

Paramore said the state passed record budgets this year for both the General Fund and Education Trust Fund (ETF). He said the General Fund budget was $3.8 billion and the ETF Budget topped out at $9.9 billion. Paramore said the budgets passed at the end of the session because lawmakers, as usual, were trying to gain enough political clout to get more funding for specific agencies or projects.

“We always wait to the end, and most of y’all know that’s for leverage to get other things done and try to fight for more money and do those types of things, but we finally did get them passed,” Paramore said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of kicking and screaming and fighting this year on the budgets. It’s odd. After lobbying for 20 years for Troy University, when there’s plenty of money on the table, nobody fights, because everybody knows they’re going to get some. It’s when there’s no money on the table that it really gets nasty and people go after each other. But this year, we’re fortunate enough that there was a flush amount of revenue for the budgets.”

Paramore said the legislature voted to shave another penny off the state’s grocery tax. He said the tax is now down to 2 percent on groceries from the original 4 percent.  He said the legislature also rewrote state law to allow municipalities to reduce grocery taxes as well.

Paramore said the legislature also passed two bills that would help protect the state’s rural pharmacies and hospitals.

The first bill, the Community Pharmacy Relief Act, ties reimbursement to independent pharmacies to the state’s Medicaid reimbursement program. The bill also prohibits spread pricing, and puts restrictions on patient steering as well as addresses the role of pharmacy benefit managers and third parties.

The Rural Hospital Investment Act would allow individuals and businesses to make a tax deductible donation to rural hospitals. The act also creates an oversight committee that would oversee the distribution of the donated money to rural hospitals. The first year, donations would be capped at $20 million.

Paramore said at least 50 rural pharmacies had closed in the last three years in Alabama and about 20 rural hospitals were at risk of closing.

Paramore said the legislature also addressed health insurance for Alabama’s farmers. “We had realized that you had young farmers, people who wanted to be on the farm, that were young, married couples, were paying as much as $2,500 a month for health insurance,” Paramore said. “That’s astronomical. You gotta make a choice then, do you want to farm or do you want to do something else that covers your insurance?”

Paramore said the legislature passed a bill that would allow Alfa to provide insurance to its members. He said 14 other states had similar laws and Alfa would be underwritten by Tennessee Farm Bureau, who has been insuring farmers since 1947. Paramore said the bill could save farmers as much as 60 percent on insurance.

Paramore also said the legislature passed a bill banning cellphone use by students at public schools. He said there were provisions in the bill that provided medical exemptions, use during emergencies and allowed the students to use phones with supervision in certain situations.

Paramore said the legislature also addressed consumable nicotine and THC products in a bill as well. He said the law basically requires anyone who sells or distributes those products in Alabama to follow federal guidelines.