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Birmingham City Council approves a Healthy Food Incentive Program

by

Jesse Chambers

The Birmingham City Council voted unanimously at their regular meeting on Feb. 28 to establish a Healthy Food Incentive Program for the city in order to help poor people buy their groceries, an item proposed by Council President Johnathan Austin.

The ordinance is an attempt by the council to partially compensate for the burden created, especially for the disadvantaged, by the sales tax on groceries in Alabama – one of only four states to have such a tax.

“This is a great day in Birmingham,” Austin said at a press conference following the vote. “We have an opportunity to do something for the people who need it most, and that’s a great day for us historically.”

The program, set to begin Aug. 1 – the first day of the city’s 2018 fiscal year – will cost up to $2 million per year, including the costs of hiring an administrator, according to Austin.

People at or below the poverty line will be able to apply to receive a card with a certain amount of money loaded on it that they can then use to purchase healthy foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, at groceries that sign up to take part in the program.

The assistance would come in the form of stipends of up to $150 annually per family depending on need.

“People are having to make a choice right now between getting to work, buying prescription drugs or getting food,” Austin said. “If we can provide some kind of relief for them, that’s what we did.”

The timetable for the program is as follows, according to Austin, who held a press conference following the vote—

Using the existing point-of-purchase systems at participating groceries, card holders would only be able to buy the healthy foods allowed under the program, according to Austin.

However, he said that some of the program details, such as what the card will look like, are still “left to be finalized” after an administrator is hired.

The program did not come in the form of a rebate because the city, according to the law department, is not allowed to rebate taxes to individuals, according to Austin.

“This is a healthy food incentive, and there is language in the state code that allows us to establish programs for the poor and needy, and that is what we are doing,” Austin said.

Austin said that the city’s legal department had been “helpful” in making sure the new law would conform to Alabama state law.

This praise from Austin – he made a similar remark during the meeting – came in contrast to some harsh criticisms leveled at the city’s attorneys by council members Lashunda Scales and Steven Hoyt during the discussion of the ordinance.

Scales and Hoyt thought that assistant city attorney Tracy Roberts and others were being obstructionist by raising concerns about what the attorneys said were inconsistencies in the wording of the version of the ordinance voted on today.

Some of the dates in the program timeline has been changed from a previous version reviewed by the law department, while others were not, creating inconsistencies, according to Roberts.

The council then made corrections in the document prior to their vote.

Austin said that the city’s new ordinance might push the state legislature to act on the grocery-tax issue. “Maybe this will actually help them to have the incentive to do something positive for the citizens of Alabama,” he said.

Austin noted that Governor Bentley has announced an intention to look at the issue.

The city’s new incentive program could help somewhere in the range of 40,000-50,000 residents, according to Austin.

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