Senate Minority Leader Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, and House Minority Leader Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, have a proposal they say will make good on the state's commitment to Alabamians enrolled in the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition program.

"There are more than 40,000 families that are depending on this money," Bedford said in a statement. "We made a promise to those families, and where I come from, you keep your promises."

The proposal, introduced Tuesday, would fund PACT at current tuition rates by altering the Rolling Reserve Act passed in 2011.

The Rolling Reserve requires that any revenue collected that exceeds the appropriation cap for the preceding year be used to repay the state education fund's rainy day account. The rainy day fund will be paid off in three years, Ford said.

After 2016, any excess revenue is to be deposited into a new account called the Education Trust Fund Budget Stabilization Account.

Ford and Bedford want a portion of that money to pay for any PACT shortfalls.
"We don't need two savings accounts," Ford said.

Ford said Tuesday the proposal has some support from House Majority Leader Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn. Hubbard's spokesman, Todd Stacy, said Hubbard and Ford talk regularly, but that Hubbard had made no commitment to the bill.

The PACT program has been in existence for more than 20 years, but it ran into financial problems in 2008 because tuition rose faster than expected and investments lost money. Some parents sued the board that oversees PACT. A settlement approved in Montgomery Circuit Court called for the program to keep paying tuition for the more than 30,000 participants, but it would be at the fall 2010 tuition rates rather than current rates. Parents would have to make up the difference. The payments for the fall semester 2011 were the first at the reduced rate.

Ford said he and Bedford, who both serve on the PACT board, weren't happy with keeping funding at 2010 levels.

"I want us to do what we said we would do," Ford said about paying tuition in full.

Bedford did not attend a press conference on the issue Tuesday because of a death in his family.

Mary Sell is the Montgomery bureau chief for the TimesDaily. She can be reached at mary.sell@TimesDaily.com.