ATLANTA – The Georgia House and Senate reached agreement Wednesday on a mid-year budget that provides pay raises and bonuses to state and University System of Georgia employees as well as school workers.
Budget negotiators added nearly $450 million to the spending plan at the 11th hour, bringing the mid-year budget to $30.3 billion, thanks to new projections that allowed Gov. Brian Kemp to increase his revenue estimate for the fiscal year ending June 30.
House lawmakers approved the mid-year budget 162-2 on Wednesday. The Senate is expected to follow suit on Friday.
Most state and university system employees would receive $5,000 raises, with an additional $2,000 going to correctional officers in the juvenile and adult prison system in an effort to reduce high turnover.
School employees, including cafeteria and custodial workers and school bus drivers, would receive $2,000 bonuses, up from $1,000 in Kemp’s original mid-year budget plan.
Georgia teachers are slated to get $2,000 raises in the fiscal 2023 budget the House Appropriations Committee is expected to approve on Thursday. The increase would combine with $3,000 raises teachers received in 2019 to fulfill the governor’s campaign pledge to increase teacher salaries by $5,000.
The mid-year budget also includes $950 million to fully fund the state’s K-12 student funding formula, which was cut amid the financial uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic’s early stages.
Lawmakers added spending in other areas of the mid-year budget, including $17.5 million in rural downtown development grants, $18.5 million in airport aid and $30 million in maintenance and upgrades to state parks, which saw increased use – and the resulting wear and tear – during the pandemic.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.