Gov. Brian Kemp gives an update on coronavirus in Georgia on March 9, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – The state of Georgia’s credit rating is holding strong despite the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the state’s finances.
Georgia again has secured a AAA rating from each of the three main credit rating agencies, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday. Only nine of the states that issue general obligation bonds currently meet this high standard.
Georgia’s AAA ratings from FitchRatings, Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings will enable the state to sell its bonds at the lowest possible interest costs when it takes bids for its new issue of general obligation bonds next week.
“This announcement is great news for Georgia, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to fiscal balance and ensuring we can meet our present and future obligations, even as we combat the COVID-19 pandemic’s significant effects on the health of Georgians and the state’s economy,” Kemp said. “This recognition is why the state’s bonds are highly attractive to investors, and as a result, enables the state to save taxpayers millions of dollars each year with low interest rates for borrowing.”
Georgia’s upcoming general obligation bond sale will fund more than $1.1 billion in capital projects approved by the General Assembly in June.
The three ratings agencies credited Kemp and his Republican predecessors in Georgia for conservative fiscal management practices during good and bad economic times and for using a healthy balance of spending cuts and reserves to help offset economic slowdowns that dampen state tax collections.
Thousands gathered outside the State Capitol to protest police brutality and racial injustice as lawmakers met for the 2020 legislative session on June 19, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Police training and tactics like chokeholds, no-knock warrants and rubber bullets for crowd control in Georgia will face scrutiny from a group of state lawmakers tasked with making reform recommendations for law enforcement agencies before year’s end.
The Georgia Senate study committee looking at policing techniques and oversight comes after the General Assembly passed legislation outlawing hate crimes following testy debate in the 2020 legislative session between Republican and Democratic state senators.
The study committee will assess the use of lethal force, training procedures, de-escalation techniques and “practices which may need to be prohibited or more strictly regulated” such as chokeholds, no-knock warrants, tear gas and rubber bullets, according to legislation creating the committee.
“Law enforcement officers across our state put their lives on the line for us every day, and are generally underpaid and oftentimes not provided with tools for success,” said Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan.
“This committee will engage in a comprehensive study of our law enforcement practices in order to examine whether we are adequately equipping officers with the necessary training to protect our communities.”
The study committee has to draft recommendations by Dec. 15.
Several of the same senators who butted heads during negotiations over last-minute changes to the hate-crimes bill have been tapped as members of the study committee, who were announced by Duncan’s office on Thursday.
Included among them are Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, who led Republican efforts in the Senate to add police officers and other first responders as protected classes under the hate-crimes bill.
That move sparked stiff opposition from Democratic senators including Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, who led negotiations on the Democratic side. He is also a member of the study committee.
Adding police to the hate-crimes protections threatened to scuttle support for the bill in June after state lawmakers from both parties backed the measure amid protests in Atlanta and nationwide against police brutality and racial injustice.
The police protections were ultimately pulled from the hate-crimes bill and included in separate legislation. Both measures passed the General Assembly and were signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
The hate-crimes bill gained momentum after the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man killed in a pursuit by two white men while jogging near Brunswick in February. The two men claimed they were making a citizen’s arrest after spotting Arbery at a construction site alleged to have been burglarized.
Several Democratic lawmakers brought bills in June that took aim at repealing the state’s citizen’s arrest and stand-your-ground laws, as well as creating “anti-choke hold” rules, a ban on no-knock search warrants and new oversight for district attorneys. None advanced in the legislature.
Also named to the study committee were Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jesse Stone, R-Waynesboro; Senate Public Safety Committee Chairman John Albers, R-Roswell; Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, a retired major with the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office; and Sen. Gail Davenport, D-Jonesboro, a real estate professional and civil rights advocate.
ATLANTA – Initial unemployment claims in Georgia fell last week to a level not seen in the 21 weeks since the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Unemployed Georgians filed 62,335 first-time claims last week, down 11,598 from the week before and less than 50% of the numbers the agency was seeing a month ago.
Georgia’s numbers reflected a nationwide drop in initial unemployment claims to 963,000, the first time that number was below 1 million since mid-March and a decrease of 228,000 from the previous week.
The labor department issued $309 million in regular unemployment benefits and federal funds last week, significantly less than the state had been paying out because the program supporting the $600 weekly federal checks the agency had been distributing expired at the end of July.
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said there’s no need for recipients to call the agency to ask about the federal program because not enough information is available.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order last weekend to partially extend the benefits at the level of $400 per week, with the federal government to cover $300 and the states the other $100. But just how that money would be delivered remains uncertain.
“The president’s executive order gives states various options for implementing the White House plan,” Butler said. “The [labor department] is working with the governor’s office to provide financial resources to continue to bridge the gap for Georgia’s unemployed workforce. … [The agency] will deliver a system to process these weekly supplements as quickly as possible.”
Whether the money will come at all is in doubt. Officials in some states have complained they don’t have the money to provide the state match, while congressional Democrats have questioned whether Trump’s order is constitutional.
Since mid-March, the job sectors accounting for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia is accommodations and food services with 818,180 claims. The health care and social assistance sector is next with 407,516 claims, followed by retail trade with 373,200.
As of Tuesday, the state’s unemployment trust fund balance had plummeted 85% since mid-March, to $385.4 million. Earlier this week, the state applied for a $1.1 billion federal loan to help replenish the fund.
More than 125,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
Gov. Brian Kemp is dropping a lawsuit against Atlanta officials and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over the city’s mask mandate following weeks of negotiations toward a settlement amid the COVID-19 pandemic, his office announced Thursday.
But the governor signaled he plans to take new action on business and masking rules following months of loosening restrictions, claiming Atlanta’s mayor decided “she will not agree to a settlement that safeguards the rights of private property owners in Georgia.”
“Given this stalemate in negotiations, we will address this very issue in the next executive order,” Kemp said in a statement. “We will continue to protect the lives and livelihoods of all Georgians.”
State officials said negotiations with Bottoms stalled as the mayor pushed for enforcing the mask mandate on Atlanta businesses and other private property. Both sides had agreed to let the city keep its mask mandate so long as it was not enforced in residences and penalties were capped for non-compliance.
The current COVID-19 order, which expires Saturday, includes distancing and sanitizing requirements for social gathering spots like bars and restaurants as well as a prohibition on local governments from enforcing their own mask mandates.
Kemp has made clear he will not order any statewide masking requirements, opting instead to encourage voluntary widespread mask use. His office has called local mandates unenforceable.
The lawsuit, filed last month by Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, sought to have a Fulton County Superior Court judge declare unlawful a citywide masking requirement imposed by Bottoms earlier in July.
It marked an intense ratcheting up of the dispute between Kemp, who has insisted on keeping mask-wearing voluntary, and several Georgia mayors including Bottoms, who want local control over mandatory measures to help curb the virus’ spread.
The governor’s office was quick to point out the lawsuit mostly took aim at steps Bottoms took in July to resume limits on public gatherings to 10 persons in Atlanta and to reimpose a shelter-at-home order for city residents.
Bottoms stressed she intended for those resumed restrictions, which were in place during April under a statewide order by Kemp, to be voluntary for Atlanta.
Additionally, the lawsuit sought to bar Bottoms from “issuing press releases, or making statements to the press, that she has the authority to impose more or less restrictive measures than are ordered” by the governor.
Bottoms, who tested positive for COVID-19 in July, has cast the governor’s priorities as misplaced in light of the impacts of the virus, which has sickened hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia and killed thousands more.
ATLANTA – A dispute broke out Thursday between U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff over whether the incumbent supports requiring health insurance plans to cover pre-existing conditions.
Perdue launched a television ad highlighting his commitment to coverage for pre-existing conditions that features his younger sister, Debbie Perdue, a cancer survivor.
“I’ve lived this problem,” she says in the ad. “David’s making a difference for all of us, and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know my big brother’s heart.”
Perdue is a cosponsor of the Protect Act, Republican-backed legislation introduced last year by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., supporters say would guarantee health-care coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions.
But Ossoff’s campaign accused Perdue of siding with other Republicans in efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), legislation then-President Barack Obama steered through a Democratic Congress in 2010 that guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions.
“Senator Perdue voted at least three times to gut protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions, and last month he said he supports [President Donald] Trump’s Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn the ACA, which would completely destroy protections for pre-existing conditions,” said Jake Best, Ossoff’s press secretary.
PolitiFact, a nonprofit project operated by the Florida-based Poynter Institute, criticized the Protect Act for lacking provisions that would ensure health plans covering pre-existing conditions are affordable.
