Alabama Governor Kay Ivey addressed guests of the Huntsville/Madison Chamber of Commerce by video on Thursday after problems with her state airplane rendered her unable to make her scheduled appearance for the 2023 Alabama Update.

Along with the short video provided by Ivey, State Finance Director Bill Poole addressed the sold-out crowd in the Governor’s absence.

In her video address, Ivey celebrated the fact that all 12 Alabama metro areas “ranked among the lowest metropolitan unemployment rates in the country” for the month of April.

She also made special mention of Huntsville, pointing out that the metro, along with Decatur, saw unemployment rates drop down to 1.4 percent, which ties for the fourth lowest metro rate nationally.

“Y’all, these are historical and we’re not slowing,” Ivey proclaimed.

Director Poole expanded on the state’s unemployment numbers which included the Birmingham – Hoover metro as lowest in the nation among metros with at least 1 million people for the second consecutive month at 1.6%.

Two other Alabama metros placed in the top ten for the lowest metropolitan unemployment rates: Auburn-Opelika and Daphne-Fairhope-Foley.

Poole also shared that Alabama’s current 2.2 percent unemployment puts it in the top five states with the lowest jobless rates.

“It wasn’t that long ago that our unemployment numbers were north of 10 percent,” Poole explained. “It’s creating new challenges in the workforce; we all know that, but it is great to have low unemployment.”

Governor Ivey, through Poole, again made her position clear regarding the ongoing U.S. Space Command saga.

“Alabama’s the only choice for the U.S. Space Command headquarters and she is committed to that,” exclaimed Poole. “The two year delay in the official announcement of a permanent home for Space Command, while its mission is becoming ever more critical, cannot be seen as anything other than political.”

“Governor Ivey is proud to add her voice to the strong force of bipartisan support for a thorough investigation of the Biden administration’s delay of announcing a permanent home for Space Command headquarters,” Poole added.

Other talking points during the luncheon focused on various aspects passed in Alabama’s 2023 legislative session that ended this week.

“(Ivey’s) proposed education budget for fiscal year 2024 was ambitious and she’s very pleased and appreciative, as am I, that the legislature approved funding for a variety of major education goals,” said Poole.

“In this session, thanks to legislative support, we are expanding our award-winning first class pre-K program into some of our highest poverty areas to help ensure that all of our children have access to pre-k. Full implementation of these acts include math and reading camps that should begin over the next few days.The bottom line is this, if a student in Alabama needs catching up or just needs help, they need to have every opportunity to get that help and achieve that success.”

It isn’t just the students who will benefit from the expanded education budget. Governor Ivey again called for public school teachers to receive a pay raise.

“This marks the sixth year in a row that the governor has proposed a pay raise for our teachers,” Poole stated. “Kudos again to the legislature for granting that. We have to have effective teachers. We have to recruit them, we have to retain them and our schools of higher education need to produce more of them.”

This will mark a total pay increase of 15 percent, around $6,000, in her tenure as governor.

Ivey, who is a former teacher, stated that her goal to have the starting salary of all Alabama teachers be the highest in the Southeast by the end of her term directly corresponds with her efforts in recruiting, retaining and preparing the teachers of tomorrow.