Gov. Brian Kemp addresses a news conference in January. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp asked the General Assembly Wednesday to add $100 million to this year’s state budget to deal with the impacts of coronavirus in Georgia.
“The spread
of coronavirus represents a significant threat to our state’s health network,
financial well-being and, most importantly, the health and safety of our
citizenry,” Kemp wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the state House and
Senate Appropriations committees. “Therefore, we must be ready to respond
quickly and thoroughly to any outbreak of disease within our state.”
The governor sent a separate letter to House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, the state Senate’s presiding officer, requesting the funds.
The money will come from the state’s budget reserves, which have been growing larger year by year since the fund was nearly depleted during the Great Recession. The fund now stands at a healthy $2.8 billion.
A spokesman for Ralston released a statement Wednesday supporting the governor’s plan.
“Speaker
Ralston is committed to ensuring adequate resources are available, and he is
confident in the federal, state and local personnel who are working tirelessly
to manage this situation,” Kaleb McMichen said.
Georgia’s
bill for coping with coronavirus is mounting day by day as the number of
confirmed cases of the virus continues to rise.
As of
Tuesday night, according to the latest update from the governor’s office, the
state Department of Public Health was awaiting testing confirmation from the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on five additional presumptive positive
cases of COVID-19. Three are in Cobb County, one in Fulton County and one in
Charlton County.
That brought
the total number of presumptive positive cases in Georgia to 16. Six cases have
been confirmed, including three in Fulton County and one each in Cobb, Floyd
and Polk counties.
Meanwhile,
the state has opened seven emergency mobile units at Hard Labor Creek Park in Morgan
County to isolate COVID-19 patients.
Evergreen Conference Center and Resort at Stone Mountain
ATLANTA – Georgia
lawmakers don’t have as much money at their disposal as usual in a tight budget
year to load up Gov. Brian Kemp’s bond package with tens of millions of dollars
in additional construction projects.
But the state
House of Representatives still found room in the $28.1 billion fiscal 2021 budget
the chamber adopted Tuesday for a menu of projects around the state the
governor didn’t request.
The list of
House adds is highlighted by $10.2 million in bonds to finance a second phase
of improvements to Stone Mountain’s Evergreen Conference Center and Resort. The
General Assembly put up $12.5 million two years ago for renovations at both the
conference center and the Stone Mountain Inn.
Another $3.5
million in the new budget would go toward renovating the campground at Stone
Mountain Park.
As usual,
the largest number of projects the House added to the budget would be built on
Georgia’s public college and university campuses.
The
University System of Georgia’s capital budget would be increased by $4.8
million in bonds for a dental hygiene teaching lab on Georgia State
University’s Dunwoody campus, $2.5 million for the third phase of renovations
to the University of Georgia’s Driftmier
Engineering Center, $2.45 million to continue a multi-year renovation project
at Augusta University’s Robert B. Greenblatt Library, and $2.4 million for
renovations at the Dublin Center Library Building on the Middle Georgia State University
campus in Dublin.
The House also added $3 million in bonds to pay for a Georgia College and Career Academies building to serve Appling, Bacon, Jeff Davis and Pierce counties and $2.95 million to finance a campground expansion on Jekyll Island.
To help pay for the projects House budget writers added, lawmakers also zeroed out $54.5 million in bond funding to replace the Georgia Department of Public Safety’s headquarters building in Atlanta. The House opted to delay the work until fiscal 2022.
The budget now moves to the Senate, which likely will add projects of its own to Kemp’s bond package.
ATLANTA – Second-chance legislation allowing Georgians to clear minor offenses off their criminal records in the interest of helping them secure jobs and housing is set for a vote in the Georgia Senate Thursday.
Senate Bill 288 would give people with first-time misdemeanor and non-violent felony convictions in Georgia the ability to petition superior courts to have those records shielded from public view. They would have to wait until four years after completing their sentences before filing a petition and would have to keep a clean record during that time.
More than 4.4 million people have a
criminal record of at least an arrest in Georgia, totaling nearly half the
state’s population, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Allowing
many of them to block prospective employees or landlords from seeing minor
crimes for which they have completed sentences should improve the state’s
economic and social environment, according to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Tonya
Anderson.
“There are millions of Georgians that
cannot get a job or housing and employment,” said Anderson, D-Lithonia.
Anderson’s bill is one of several before the General Assembly that would let more people shield their criminal records than Georgia law currently permits. Law enforcement agencies would still have access to the records.
Her bill would not apply to people with
convictions for certain domestic and nuisance charges like family violence and
stalkers, plus other major offenses like sex crimes, drunk driving and child
molestation.
State law currently requires people with
certain downgraded charges, vacated convictions and cases that have languished
for years to petition a court to restrict access to their records. But only
certain misdemeanor convictions can be shielded such as for alcohol-related
charges, first-time drug possession and crimes committed before age 21.
Originally, Anderson’s bill proposed to
automatically restrict public access to most kinds of criminal convictions and
arrest histories. It would have allowed records of felony charges to be
shielded if 10 years have passed since the sentence was completed, as well as
for overturned convictions and any charges that never led to a conviction.
But Anderson’s bill was swapped out last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee for a measure filed in the Georgia House by Rep. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton. Several criminal justice groups like the nonprofit Georgia Justice Project and the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers backed the changes even though they did not go as far as Anderson’s original bill.
Brenda Smeeton, the Georgia Justice
Project’s legal director, said at a committee hearing last week the revised
bill mimics the more gradual approach other states have taken in recent years
to enact second-chance laws.
“We think this would be a huge step,”
Smeeton said.
Anderson’s revised bill is scheduled for
a vote on the Senate floor Thursday, the last day for bills in General Assembly
to move out of one chamber in time to be considered in the other during this
year’s legislative session.
ATLANTA – If
short-term indications are to be taken seriously, Republican leaders in the
Georgia House of Representatives have some new ammunition in their fight for another
state income tax cut.
State tax
collections rose 4.2% last month compared to February of last year, Gov. Brian
Kemp’s office announced Wednesday. February marked the second consecutive month
tax revenues have gone up in Georgia, following January’s 4.5% increase.
Georgia Rep.
Brett Harrell, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, cited a positive
trend in state revenues when he argued on the House floor Tuesday in support of
his bill that would reduce the state income tax rate from 5.75% to 5.375%,
effective Jan. 1. The House passed the measure virtually along party lines.
Harrell,
R-Snellville, said Georgia income tax revenues for the first seven months of
the current fiscal year were up over the same seven months in fiscal 2019.
However, tax
collections overall were flat or declining for much of calendar 2019, a trend
that has prompted Kemp and some Senate Republican leaders to express
reservations about reducing taxes beyond the income tax cut lawmakers enacted
two years ago, which sent the income tax rate from 6% to 5.75%.
Lawmakers
advocating a cautious approach to further tax relief also argue the state can’t
afford it at the same time the General Assembly is being asked to approve deep
spending cuts in the budget.
The revenue
report released Wednesday showed income tax collections in Georgia rose 15.4%
last month, driven by a slight decrease in refunds issued and a larger hike in
payments to the state Department of Revenue.
On the other
hand, net sales taxes were down 1.8% in February compared to the same month a
year ago.
Corporate
income tax revenues rose 44.1% last month. As with income taxes, refunds were
down slightly while tax payments showed a large jump.
ATLANTA – The
Georgia House of Representatives is taking note of coronavirus.
House
Speaker David Ralston announced Tuesday that the chamber will limit who can be
on the House floor starting Thursday, the next day the General Assembly is in
session.
Until
further notice, there will be no House pages, the school-age young people who carry
messages back and forth to lawmakers. Also, the House will not bring guests to
the floor for “invite resolutions,” which honor Georgians from around the state
for accomplishments from high school sports champions to beauty pageant
winners.
“Out of an
abundance of caution … the floor of the House will be limited to members,
authorized staff and the media subject to the House rules,” said Ralston,
R-Blue Ridge.
The speaker
said the visitors gallery above the House floor will remain open to the public.
But he urged those who want to follow the progress of the House to do so online.
“We’re not
trying to be alarmist,” Ralston said. “We’re trying to be cautious and protect
the people who need to be here so we can continue our work.”
The Georgia
Senate is taking a different approach. Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over
the upper legislative chamber, announced Tuesday the Senate will remain open
for public access while monitoring the situation.
“We are in
Phase 1 of this virus,” Duncan wrote in a letter to the senators and their
staffs. “At this stage, we should be using good common sense to protect
ourselves, the staff and visitors to the Capitol.”
Duncan
reiterated the precautions against coronavirus that are being echoed around the
world, including frequent handwashing, staying home when sick and avoiding
handshakes.
“This is an
evolving situation, and the [Georgia Department of Public Health] and the
governor’s task force [on COVID-19] are working hard to stay ahead of it,”
Duncan wrote.
The General
Assembly will be back under the Gold Dome on Thursday for the typically lengthy
annual Crossover Day, the deadline for bills to make it through at least one
legislative chamber in order to remain alive for the current session.
