University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia (USG) has launched an effort to determine whether any buildings or colleges on the system’s 26 campuses should be renamed to send a more inclusive message to students, faculties and host communities.
Sachin Shailendra, chairman of the university system’s Board of Regents, and system Chancellor Steve Wrigley have named a five-member advisory group to review those names and recommend any changes.
“USG’s mission is knowledge, and this action today is a step toward addressing how communities understand the history and context involving our campuses,” Wrigley said. “While the review may be one part of a much broader discussion, I believe it is essential to advance how we serve students and all Georgians.”
Street protests across the nation that erupted following the death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer and the fatal shooting of another black man, Ahmaud Arbery, by a white man near Brunswick have been accompanied by a push to remove statues and rename buildings and streets honoring Confederate political and military leaders.
In some cases, demonstrators have pulled down statues or defaced them with graffiti.
The USG advisory group will be chaired by Marion Fedrick, president of Albany State University. Other members will include:
Michael Patrick, marketing and strategic growth at Chick-fil-A.
Herbert Phipps, a retired former Georgia Court of Appeals judge.
Neal J. Quirk, a lawyer and executive vice chairman of the University of Georgia Foundation.
Sally Wallace, dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
The group’s recommendations will be announced when it finishes its work.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power Co. is offering customers behind on their electric bills because of the coronavirus pandemic a chance to pay them back over time.
Customers who enroll in the Atlanta-based utility’s special payment plan will be able to pay past-due balances over six months from October through next March with no late fees.
In mid-March, as Georgia businesses began laying off or furloughing workers to discourage the spread of COVID-19, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) instructed Georgia Power as well as the state’s gas utilities not to cut off services to customers for non-payment.
Earlier this month, commissioners voted to lift that moratorium effective July 1 for gas service and July 15 for Georgia Power.
“We recognize that our customers across the state have endured an extraordinary burden due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Kevin Kastner, Georgia Power’s vice president of customer service. “We appreciate the support of the Georgia Public Service Commission as we work to help our customers navigate through these unprecedented times.”
Georgia Power customers can sign up for the company’s special payment plan by calling Georgia Power at 888-660-5890 or by logging on to www.georgiapower.com/paymentplan.
Meanwhile, the PSC has ordered the natural gas marketers to develop repayment plans for their customers who are behind on their bills.
A measure to keep certain unemployment benefits that were expanded in Georgia during the coronavirus pandemic cleared a key state House committee Wednesday.
The move comes as Georgia continues grappling with the economic fallout from coronavirus, which prompted roughly 2 million people to file unemployment claims and shot the state’s jobless rate up to nearly 12% in April.
Amid the pandemic, those who qualified for unemployment benefits were granted leeway to collect payments for up to 26 weeks instead of the usual 14 weeks, and enjoyed a boost in the allowance rate that let them keep up to $300 per week in wages earned – instead of the usual $50 – on top of their benefits.
Those expanded benefits are set to expire once Gov. Brian Kemp ends the state’s public health emergency, which currently runs through June.
But language added this week to a bill originally dealing with paid sick leave proposes to let the state labor commissioner keep those expanded benefits largely in place, depending on the state’s jobless rate.
The number of weeks would increase incrementally from 14 weeks when the state’s jobless rate is 4.5% up to 26 weeks when the jobless rate is 10% or higher.
The labor commissioner would also have authority to set the weekly deductible threshold at between $50 and $300, according to the revised bill.
Senate Bill 408, as revised, would also grant the labor commissioner powers during a statewide governor-declared emergency to modify the maximum benefit amount and relax rules on claims processing, unemployment insurance tax filing deadlines and work-search reporting.
It would also allow the labor commissioner to establish a work-sharing program that lets employers avoid layoffs by reducing their employees’ work hours but giving them prorated unemployment benefits.
Without the bill’s passage, the expanded unemployment benefits would return to normal levels once the governor ends the statewide public health emergency, said Jeffrey Babcock, the labor department’s legal services manager.
“Those provisions are temporary and they will end,” Babcock said. “The purpose of this bill is to get some more permanence to that.”
Sponsored by Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, the bill cleared the House Industry and Labor Committee on Wednesday and heads to the full House for a vote.
Originally, Strickland’s bill only proposed to allow employees to continue using earned sick leave for family care beyond July 1, when that provision in state law is set to expire.
The measure drew praise from Alex Camardelle, a senior policy analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, who touted the extended benefits provisions as well as the bill’s original purpose related to sick leave.
“All good things!” Camardelle wrote on Twitter.
But some lawmakers on the committee wondered if the $300-per-week threshold might still be too low for workers struggling through the pandemic to stay financially afloat. Concerns were also expressed over handing the labor commissioner more powers that otherwise would need to originate from the governor.
“I don’t know that we should enact such a broad scope of changes to grant these authorities to the department simply because we don’t think we could operate otherwise,” said Rep. Josh Bonner, R-Fayetteville.
Legislation that would give state spending on freight rail a permanent spot in Georgia’s annual budgets gained final passage in the General Assembly Wednesday.
The state Senate passed the bill unanimously without making any changes to the version of the measure that cleared the Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly in February.
Guaranteeing freight rail investment a line item in the state budget was among the recommendations of the Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission, a task force of legislators, business leaders and logistics industry executives formed last year to look for ways to move freight more efficiently through the state.
The bill, which was introduced by House Transportation Committee Chairman Kevin Tanner, R-Dawsonville, does not commit the Georgia Department of Transportation to actually spend money on freight rail every year, Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch said on the Senate floor Wednesday. But it does ensure that will be a spot in the budget for freight rail investment when funding is available, said Gooch, R-Dahlonega.
In researching the issue, the Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission found that only 27% of cargo moving through Georgia each year is on rail. State transportation policy makers are determined to increase the role freight rail plays in Georgia to take pressure off the state’s highway network.
House Bill 820 now moves to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Legislation to curb the practice of handing patients unexpectedly high medical bills that can add up to thousands of dollars and bankrupt families in Georgia passed out of the General Assembly Wednesday.
The measure, House Bill 888, which the Georgia House of Representatives passed overwhelmingly in March, would require insurers to cover emergency services a patient receives whether or not the provider is a participant in the patient’s insurance coverage network.
That arrangement removes Georgia hospital patients from the billing equation, leaving it to medical providers and insurance companies to settle their differences in a “baseball-style” arbitration process, said Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, who sponsored an identical measure in the Senate.
“This will let the health care providers and insurers take the patient out of the middle and take care of them,” said Hufstetler, R-Rome.
The House bill, brought by Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, passed unanimously out of the Senate Wednesday. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Dubbed “surprise” or “balance” billing, the extra hospital charges result from specialty procedures like anesthesiology or emergency-room surgery completed by out-of-network specialists. They can add hundreds or thousands of dollars to a patient’s final bill without their knowing in advance.
State lawmakers had tried for the past five years to tamp down surprise billing before Wednesday’s passage. Lawmakers involved in negotiations traced prior hold-ups to disagreements over how insurers and medical specialists should settle out-of-network costs, particularly if disputes arise that need formal arbitration.
Representatives of the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Medical Association of Georgia (MAG) testified Sunday during a committee hearing in support of the legislation as a good compromise.
Several lawmakers praised the bill Wednesday from the Senate floor, noting its protection provisions were a long time in coming as Georgians continued straining under big surprise hospital charges.
“This is the one piece of the health-care issue that must be dealt with,” said Sen. Zahra Karinshak, D-Duluth.
Sen. Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, said she had received surprise bills for medical procedures in the past and was pleased to see the practice get an overhaul.
“No one wants to get a surprise bill,” Butler said. “You want to know what you owe.”
