Georgia may need to dip deep in its reserve fund to balance the budget during the remaining month and a half in the state’s fiscal year amid huge revenue shortfalls prompted by coronavirus, the state’s chief economist said Wednesday.
Between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in reserves may be needed to plug the gap in the fiscal 2020 budget, close to half of the $2.7 billion total in Georgia’s “rainy-day” reserve fund, said State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman.
Speaking with state lawmakers Wednesday, Dorfman cautioned that it’s still early in the ballgame to say precisely how much emergency reserve spending may be necessary. The state last month saw a drop in revenue of nearly $1 billion compared to April 2019, and that shortfall is expected to plunge further in the coming months.
“We expect that we’re sort of near the bottom now,” Dorfman said. “But it will take a little while for us to get back to normal.”
With many businesses now reopening, Dorfman said sales tax collections should rebound back close to normal by later this fall. But the first three months of the 2021 fiscal year, starting July 1, could see a brutal 10% drop in revenues, he added.
Dorfman also said the state is likely short about $1.35 billion in income tax receipts delayed until July 15 due to coronavirus. Those revenues should be recouped once collections roll in after the delayed filing deadline, he said.
Members of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees met jointly Wednesday in their second online meeting since the 2020 legislative session was suspended in mid-March as concerns mounted over coronavirus.
Their top priority upon resuming the session in about a month is to pass a dramatically reshaped budget for the 2021 fiscal year, before the June 30 deadline to do so.
Already, top budget-writing lawmakers have asked state agencies to start preparing for 14% cuts across the board in next year’s budget, with revenue forecasters expecting a decline of between $3 billion and $4 billion in tax collections in the coming months. Those cuts will almost certainly lead to scaled-back services and furloughs for teachers, social workers and more.
On Wednesday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, said the agency cuts will be stiff but that Georgia will bounce back.
“It’s going be a little bit different and still be a little bit difficult for a little bit,” England said. “But we’re going to get through it.”
In-person legislative meetings are scheduled to resume next month ahead of an expected mid-June resumption of the 2020 session. Leaders in the state House and Senate still need to agree on whether they will reconvene on June 11 or June 15.
Georgia’s newest drivers will still need to pass the road test to receive their licenses later this year after state officials suspended the test in recent weeks due to concerns over coronavirus.
Gov. Brian Kemp clarified the need to take and pass the test at a news conference Tuesday, despite previous guidance from the state that had suspended testing requirements for drivers including teenagers who already received learners permits.
“They’re still going to have to come back and take the driver’s test,” Kemp said.
“That was always the case,” he added. “We just wanted to clarify that.”
An executive order Kemp issued Tuesday makes clear the road test “was only temporarily suspended” and that drivers still need to complete it. Anyone who received a driver’s license without doing so in recent weeks must take the test by Sept. 30 in order to keep their license.
According to the order, examiners with the state Department of Driver Services (DDS) must administer the test while riding in the vehicle with a testing driver or “by remote means.” Drivers also need to schedule an appointment online with the agency before showing up to a DDS office to take the road test.
It remains to be seen what exactly “remote” road testing entails. DDS spokeswoman Susan Sports said in an email Wednesday that the agency “is developing a way to comply with the new executive order but [does] not have any details at this time.”
Nearly 20,000 teens in Georgia had received provisional licenses without having to take the test as of May 5, the most recent day that data is available, Sports said. Those teens all had their learners permits for more than a year and meet mandatory training and educational requirements, she added.
The governor’s previous executive order issued April 23 stated drivers would “not be required to complete a comprehensive on-the-road driving test,” clearly signifying the testing requirement would be suspended for as long as that executive order was in place.
That order also stated drivers with learners permits (Class CP) would not need to wait the usual 12 months before being eligible to take the test for their provisional license (Class C). As of Wednesday, the DDS website noted that waiver is still in effect.
The updated requirements for driver road tests come as Kemp continues winding down some social-distancing requirements for businesses like restaurants, gyms and other close-contact establishments.
However, bars, nightclubs and live-performance venues will remain closed through at least the end of May.
This story has been updated to include comment from DDS on what “remote” road testing entails.
ATLANTA – MARTA and 14 other public transit agencies are asking Congress for an additional $33 billion to help offset losses suffered because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act Congress passed in late March included $25 billion for the nation’s transit systems. Georgia’s share of those funds came to $522 million, and MARTA got most of that.
But a fuller picture of transit agency losses due to COVID-19 has emerged since then, making more federal aid necessary in order to maintain the current level of service and ensure safety, said Jeff Parker, MARTA’s general manager and CEO.
“We must replenish our lost revenue while continuing to invest in expansion programs that will stimulate the economy and sustain jobs in a period of record high unemployment,” Parker said.
Ridership on MARTA buses and trains has fallen off dramatically since March, with so many riders who normally use the system out of work. The agency has responded by operating on a weekend schedule throughout the week.
The huge drop-off in ridership combined with $1.32 million in unanticipated costs for masks, gloves, cleaning supplies and emergency sick leave has opened up a huge budget gap for MARTA, which now faces a five-year deficit of $380 million.
Besides MARTA, transit systems asking for help include the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), New Jersey Transit, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), and San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).
“Public transit is a critical component to the economic vitality of the regions we serve,” Parker said. “More relief is needed to close the enormous budget gap created by unprecedented declines in ridership and revenue caused by this health crisis.”
A chunk of that federal funding will help spruce up sections of the Atlanta Beltline trail currently under construction near old railways to the south along the I-75/85 interstate corridor, Atlanta officials said in a news conference.
Another portion of the funding is earmarked for environmental clean-up work in downtown Albany at the new site of the Albany Museum of Art. Albany will also receive $800,000 for the city’s revolving loan fund for environmental projects.
The federal Brownfields Program gives funding for environmental remediation at sites across the U.S. that have been contaminated and may struggle to recover without a financial boost.
Four grants were awarded for the projects in Atlanta and Albany this year out of 15 grants that were sought by more than a dozen local government entities in Georgia.
Mary Walker, the Georgia-based EPA administrator, singled out the grant funding for Albany as a boost for the South Georgia city still struggling to recover from the recent coronavirus outbreak.
“We hope that these funds will play a timely role in the city’s broader recovery,” Walker said Tuesday.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also highlighted the city’s grants for the Beltline as a way to help spur more economic development around the trail.
“There really has been comprehensive leadership and thoughtfulness over how we can continue to move our cities forward,” Bottoms said.
Coronavirus has killed hundreds of people in Georgia and sickened thousands more. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday he plans to extend mandatory statewide closures for bars and nightclubs in Georgia amid ongoing concerns over coronavirus, which to date has killed nearly 1,500 people in the state and sickened thousands more.
But the governor will allow summer day camps to open and relax some restrictions on restaurants in the coming days, as state health officials continue seeing downward trends in hospital admissions, ventilator use and infection rates tied to COVID-19.
The update comes less than two weeks after Kemp decided to let Georgia’s shelter-in-place order expire for all residents in the state, except for persons who are age 65 and older, living in long-term elderly care facilities or with chronic health conditions. Those individuals are still under a shelter-in-place order set to last through June 12.
On Tuesday, the governor again urged everyone in Georgia to seek diagnostic testing for coronavirus to improve the state’s data collection, which has seen a big boost in recent weeks following an increase in testing. He noted the rate of positive COVID-19 test results compared to negative results is declining daily, marking a slowdown in the spread of the virus – but that Georgians should not get complacent.
“We’re in a good place,” Kemp said Tuesday. “We just want to keep these numbers moving in the right direction.”
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, more than 34,700 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 1,465 Georgians.
At a news conference late Tuesday, Kemp said he has issued a new executive order requiring bars, nightclubs and live-performance venues to remain closed through the end of May. He also said existing social-distancing and sanitizing requirements at many close-contact businesses will stay in place through the rest of this month.
Restaurants, however, will be allowed to serve a maximum of 10 patrons per table instead of six, as had been required over the past several weeks. They will also be able to serve 10 patrons per 300 square feet, Kemp said.
Also, summer day camps will be allowed to open starting Thursday if they can meet 32 different sanitizing and social distancing rules, Kemp said. Overnight camps will remain prohibited for the time being.
State government employees at some agencies will start reporting back for in-person work next week, Kemp said. The General Assembly is also set to resume the 2020 legislative session on June 11, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston confirmed in a memo Tuesday.
Testing is still key to quickly identifying local COVID-19 outbreaks as businesses reopen, along with the state’s new contact-tracing program tasked with identifying all persons who interact with an infected individual.
On Tuesday, Kemp said the state has hired almost 250 contact-tracing staff and has launched an online monitoring tool for persons who test positive for COVID-19, so that they can confidentially tell officials who else they came into contact with recently to assist contact-tracing efforts.
In a new development, the governor also announced federal officials have sent Georgia its first shipment of the treatment drug remdesivir, which has been authorized for emergency use to help infected patients recover from coronavirus.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the state’s public health commissioner, said officials are still discussing how to best distribute the drug but that priority will be given to hospitals in areas that have seen COVID-19 outbreaks or flare-ups.
Toomey added that despite the recent encouraging data trends, Georgians need to continue keeping their distance from each other and wearing masks in public to reduce the chances for future outbreaks.
“We can ensure that our state is safe as long as everyone continues to take responsibility for themselves, their families and their communities as we continue to move forward,” Toomey said.
