ATLANTA – A third round of rural housing grants will invest more than $6.3 million in infrastructure improvements that will support more than 123 housing units in three Georgia communities.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced the state’s Rural Workforce Housing Initiative last year during his annual State of the State address. Since then, the General Assembly has allocated more than $85 million to the OneGeorgia Authority to support the program.
“We have already seen a great response to the Rural Workforce Housing program,” Kemp said Wednesday. “This latest round of grants will further strengthen communities experiencing incredible economic growth.”
The third round of grants includes $2.5 million to the city of Savannah for sewer system improvements needed to complete a 66-acre development that will provide 30 new single-family homes and 20 townhouses.
The city of Louisville will get $2.2 million for infrastructure projects necessary for a planned 18-acre subdivision consisting of 46 new homes and townhouses in two phases.
The city of Lyons was awarded a grant of more than $1.6 million for infrastructure improvements needed to complete a subdivision of 27 single-family homes on 14.5 acres.
Two previous rounds of rural housing grants awarded in January and last September provided more than $17 million to nine local government applicants across Georgia.
“With economic growth occurring in every part of the state, demand for workforce housing continues to grow,” said Christopher Nunn, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. “The OneGeorgia Authority is pleased to support these local communities that are pursuing deliberate workforce housing strategies.”
ATLANTA – Three Georgia district attorneys have filed a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of legislation creating an oversight board with the power to discipline and potentially remove prosecutors.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a bill last year creating the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PAQC) to handle complaints against local prosecutors. The panel can remove district attorneys it deems guilty of a variety of offenses including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct or failure to perform the duties of the office, conviction of a crime of moral turpitude, or conduct that brings the office into disrepute.
The commission has been stalled since the state Supreme Court ruled last November that it does not have the authority to review the rules the commission adopts, as the 2023 bill had provided. GOP lawmakers responded during the recently concluded legislative session by passing a follow-up bill giving that authority to the commission itself, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed last month.
The suit alleges the legislation violates the constitutional separation of powers by giving the General Assembly authority over duly elected prosecutors and violates district attorneys’ free speech rights.
“Governor Kemp and the state lawmakers who supported this measure willfully ignored the concerns raised by the Georgia Supreme Court and did the absolute minimum to force the PAQC into existence,” said DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston, a Democrat and one of the prosecutors who filed the suit.
“We will continue to push back against this shameless attempt by state Republicans to control how local communities address their public safety needs and work to restore that power to Georgia voters.”
Besides Boston, the other district attorneys filing suit are Democrat Jared Williams of Augusta and Republican Jonathan Adams of the Towaliga Judicial Circuit in Butts, Lamar, and Monroe counties.
“The lawsuit marks a crucial step in fighting back against a growing national trend of states threatening the independence of local DAs,” said Josh Rosenthal, legal director of the Public Rights Project, a nonprofit representing the prosecutors in the suit. “Georgia communities elect DAs to pursue the solutions that will keep them safe and promote justice, and this new commission aims to take that power away.”
During the legislative debate over this year’s bill, Republican lawmakers argued a commission is needed to act as a check on what they called “rogue” DAs who refuse to prosecute certain cases.
ATLANTA – The Port of Brunswick enjoyed its busiest month ever in March, the Georgia Ports Authority reported Wednesday.
The Colonel’s Island Terminal at Brunswick handled 77,236 units of Roll-on/Roll-off cargo last month, including autos and heavy machinery, an increase of 21% over March of last year and a new record.
The port moved 628,937 units of Ro/Ro cargo during the first nine months of fiscal 2024, up 16% over the first three quarters of the last fiscal year. With a monthly average of 69,882 units, Georgia ports likely are headed for an all-time record by the end of the current fiscal year June 30.
“Import and export trade has increased as automakers expanded production,” said Griff Lynch, the ports authority’s executive director. “Colonel’s Island processors have captured additional market share in the South Atlantic region.”
Another factor just starting to show up in increased traffic at the Port of Brunswick is the impact of a container ship knocking down the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore late last month. Baltimore is the nation’s leading port for importing autos.
The ports authority is building additional infrastructure at Brunswick to accommodate the growth in autos and heavy machinery. A $262 million expansion due to be completed by late this summer will add 122 acres of Ro/Ro storage and 640,000 square feet of new processing space.
Also, a fourth Ro/Ro berth is being added to more efficiently handle vessels capable of carrying more than 7,000 vehicles.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue
ATLANTA – In-state undergraduates at Georgia’s public colleges and universities will be paying 2.5% more for tuition during the coming school year.
After keeping tuition flat at all but one of the University System of Georgia’s 26 institutions for six of the past eight years, the system’s Board of Trustees approved the tuition hike Tuesday. Out-of-state students will see a 5% increase, and a new third level of tuition for out-of-country students will be set at 2% above the out-of-state rate.
System Chancellor Sonny Perdue attributed the increase to inflation.
“Our institutions face increasing costs to operate, and we must sustain their momentum as some of the best in the nation at helping students succeed on campus and in the workforce,” he said.
Even with the tuition hike, Georgia offers the third-lowest average tuition and required fees among the 16 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, according to national data.
Middle Georgia State University, the only institution to raise tuition during the last academic year, will be finishing the last year in a three-year plan to align its undergraduate tuition with other system universities in the same academic sector.
The regents also adopted a new mandatory fee structure for the growing number of students taking classes fully online. Those students at 20 of the 26 institutions will be charged an online learning fee equivalent to their institution’s technology fee, as well as 50% of their institution’s mandatory fees.
In other business Tuesday, the board voted to extend the system’s temporary waiver of test score requirements. With state colleges already test optional, no test scores will be required for admission to 23 of the 26 institutions during the 2025-26 academic year.
The temporary waiver does not apply to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University.
Test scores will continue to be required to apply for Zell Miller scholarships, which go to students who earned at least a 3.7 grade-point average in high school.
The university system began waiving the test requirements in 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The waiver has been in effect for all but 10 months since then.
ATLANTA – The state Public Service Commission (PSC) approved a request by Georgia Power Tuesday for a huge increase in electrical generating capacity power utility executives said is needed to meet the growing demands of large industrial customers.
The additional capacity will come from a variety of sources, including battery storage and other forms of renewable energy but also from boosting Georgia Power’s investment in fossil fuels.
During several rounds of hearings on the request, the company pledged the plan will save the average residential customer $2.89 a month from 2026 through 2028. But an agreement Georgia Power reached with the commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff last month contains no guarantee the company won’t seek to raise rates when it submits its 2025 rate case.
“The stipulated agreement benefits all customers,” said Aaron Abramovitz, Georgia Power’s chief financial officer. “Approval of this agreement will preserve and protect the reliability and quality of electric service our customers expect and supports the continued economic development of our state – all while placing downward pressure on rates for all customers.”
Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups signed off on the agreement. But others pushed back against Georgia Power’s plan to supply some of the additional generating capacity by building three gas and oil-fired turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan and entering power purchasing agreements for oil and gas from Mississippi Power – a sister company of Georgia Power – and Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC.
“Georgia Power is … not concerned about moving Georgia to a clean-energy economy, let alone protecting the health of Georgians who live in and around these fossil fuel power plants and the billions who will suffer the dangerous impacts of higher temperature that are already costing Americans some $150 billion in damages annually,” said Kim Scott, executive director of Georgia WAND.
Opponents and some commissioners also cited a series of rate increases the PSC has approved for Georgia Power since the beginning of last year that have driven up monthly bills by more than 50%.
“Our ratepayers cannot continue to see rate hikes,” said Commissioner Fitz Johnson. “The ratepayers are weary. This commissioner is very concerned about the rate hikes.”
Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald made a motion Tuesday to delay the certification of the Plant Yates gas project until no earlier than mid-November. By then, the presidential election would have come and gone, and the future of national energy policy would have become clearer. However, none of the other four commissioners supported the motion.
Georgia Power’s plan then passed 4-1, with McDonald voting “present.”
