Georgia children and their families are set to benefit from a boost in funding for daycare centers and scholarships for struggling parents to cover child-care costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than $92 million to help offset attendance losses has been sent to thousands of daycare centers by the Georgia Department of Child Care and Learning (DECAL), the agency announced this month.
Those funds came from $144 million DECAL received from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The first funding round went to 3,789 licensed daycares followed by a second round to 3,677 daycares in December.
Officials noted daycares are experiencing financial strain as attendance is still way down due to many schools continuing to require students to take virtual classes more than nine months out from the pandemic’s onset.
“We know that family child-care learning homes and child-care learning centers in Georgia are struggling as a result of COVID-19,” DECAL Commissioner Amy Jacobs said earlier this month.
Additionally, a scholarship program helping low-income parents pay for child-care services if their children’s schools still only offer online classes was expanded to cover children and young adults with disabilities from ages 5 to 22, officials announced. The program initially only covered ages 5 to 12.
More than 4,000 daycare scholarships have been given out so far from the $17 million in federal aid for eligible families whose incomes do not exceed 85% of the state median annual income – roughly $44,000 for a single parent with one child or just under $65,000 for a family of four.
Gov. Brian Kemp allowed daycares and preschools to reopen in mid-May after lifting a monthlong shelter-in-place order for Georgians and as he began to ease restrictions on businesses.
“Throughout the pandemic, we have remained laser-focused on ensuring that parents can return to work safely with the knowledge that their children are well taken care of,” Kemp said in a statement. “This expansion of the [scholarships] to cover children and young adults with disabilities enables us to expand that opportunity to more families in our state.”
Clockwise: Jon Ossoff, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, Rev. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler are competing for Georgia’s two Senate seats in the runoff elections on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
A defining moment in American history. The most important election of a lifetime. A must-win.
These are some of the ways next month’s U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia have been described on the campaign trail by competitors from both political parties over the past nearly seven weeks.
This time, the stump-speech slogans are not hyperbole.
On Jan. 5, 2021, incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler will face Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in contests to decide control of America’s federal government, following President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the Nov. 3 general election.
Victories by both Ossoff and Warnock would hand Democrats control of both chambers in Congress and the White House for at least the next two years, a scenario that has flooded Georgia with ad dollars and famous figures as Democrats push to seize power and Republicans look to stop them.
More than 1 million Georgians have already cast ballots in the early-voting period that started Dec. 14, nearing similar numbers seen in the general election’s record-breaking turnout. And the tight races’ fates may hinge on the tens of thousands of new voters who have registered in Georgia since Nov. 3.
The dueling campaigns have been high-octane and fierce, as the Republican incumbents paint their opponents as radical extremists bent on socialist policies, and the Democratic challengers accuse the wealthy senators of caring more for their pocketbooks than the American public’s welfare.
Ossoff, who owns an investigative journalism company, and Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, have lobbed constant attacks at the Republican senators over stock swaps they made early this year that seemed geared to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic, sparking allegations of insider trading.
Democratic leaders have also hammered Perdue and Loeffler over news reports highlighting close ties with companies they regulate as members of several finance-focused Senate committees, most recently by lodging an ethics complaint over trades made by Loeffler’s husband, Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher.
“[We’re] running against the Bonnie and Clyde of politics,” Ossoff said at a recent rally in Atlanta. “We have two United States senators more concerned with using their offices to enrich themselves than taking care of ‘we the people’ who pay their salaries.”
Perdue, a former corporate executive from Sea Island, and Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman before being appointed to the Senate late last year, have called the attacks on their records “lies” and say federal investigators have cleared them of any wrongdoing.
To punch back, Perdue and Loeffler have accused their opponents of being friendly with communist governments and wanting to strip funding from police agencies.
In particular, Loeffler has bashed Warnock for a past sermon in which he said bad-apple police officers have “a thug mentality,” seeking to link him with the “defund-the-police” movement. Perdue has sought to tie Ossoff to Chinese communists over a Hong Kong media company’s past purchase of two of his investigative documentaries.
“The moment of truth is right now,” Perdue said in Atlanta during a seven-city flyover tour. “We’re going to stand up to this onslaught that will perpetrate a socialist state here in Georgia.”
Ossoff and Warnock have rejected those criticisms as distractions, particularly the claim that they favor defunding police. Both have said they support law enforcement reforms like use-of-force restrictions but would not vote for reducing police funding if elected.
“We cannot allow anybody to divide us, to play the politics of distortion and distraction and division,” Warnock said after voting early in Atlanta. “Because one thing I’ve learned is people who have no vision, traffic in division.”
Pumping more emergency relief into businesses and households struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic has also played a central role in the Senate runoffs, as each side accuses the other’s party of blocking legislation in a divided Congress.
Focusing their campaigns on health-care issues, Ossoff and Warnock have taken up the unpassed relief package as a rallying cry for Democratic voters to give Georgia’s current senators the boot for backing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has led months of failed negotiations in the Republican-controlled Senate.
“We can’t afford paralysis in the midst of a crisis like this,” Ossoff said at a recent rally in Atlanta. “We can’t leave the future of our country in the hands of Mitch McConnell.”
Republican leaders have blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for holding up the relief deal after lawmakers passed a $2.2 trillion emergency package in late March. McConnell has pushed in recent weeks to bridge the gap with Pelosi and pass a nearly $1 trillion relief deal that would leave Georgia’s Republican senators less exposed to attacks for the runoffs, according to news reports.
Shortly after voting early in Atlanta, Loeffler said lawmakers were “at the doorstep of the deal” and she was prepared to fly up to Washington to vote on a bill.
“Georgians are counting on us to deliver relief and we’re going to make sure we get that done,” Loeffler said. “What’s at stake here is serving Georgians and making sure they have what they need and stop playing politics.”
With battle lines firmly drawn in the race, the fallout from President Donald Trump’s loss in the Nov. 3 election has thrown a wrench into Republicans’ strategies for energizing enough voters to outmatch last month’s huge Democratic turnout that handed Biden a win in Georgia by 11,779 votes.
While Republican leaders including McConnell have acknowledged Biden’s victory, Perdue and Loeffler still have refused to admit Trump lost as the president continues lobbing fraud claims that state election officials have disputed and courts have shot down.
“There’ll be a time for that if that becomes true,” Loeffler said when asked if Biden won. “But the president has a right to every legal recourse and we’re letting that play out right now.”
Perdue’s and Loeffler’s refusal to acknowledge Biden’s win comes as the president has driven a wedge into Georgia Republicans by attacking many of the state’s top party leaders including Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
The assault on Georgia’s elections has raised fears among Republican leaders that many voters loyal to Trump may skip the runoffs out of disillusionment in the state’s election system and scuttle the party’s chances to keep grip on the Senate.
“I cannot think of a single scenario where continuing to fan the flames of disinformation around election fraud helps us on our January 5th runoff,” Duncan, who was among the first GOP leaders in Georgia to call the election for Biden, said recently on CNN.
Democrats have seized on the rift as fuel to keep scorching Perdue and Loeffler as out of touch with average Georgians, particularly after the Republican senators backed a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn Georgia’s election results that the U.S. Supreme Court tossed Dec. 11.
Biden, who recently visited Atlanta to rally for Ossoff and Warnock, likened the move to a betrayal of Georgians and urged his supporters to replace the incumbent senators with two newcomers who would back his administration’s agenda.
“I think Georgia’s going to shock the nation with the number of people who vote on January 5th,” Biden said. “Am I right, Georgia? Am I right?”
Gov. Brian Kemp at a recent jobs announcement (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – A leading producer of electrostatic spray technology based on research conducted at the University of Georgia will expand its Georgia manufacturing operations, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday.
Sunrise, Fla.-based ByoPlanet International will create 250 jobs in Athens with a $7 million investment.
“It’s a pleasure to see ByoPlanet International continue to grow their footprint in Athens,” Kemp said. “ByoPlanet International is continuing to play a critical role in keeping schools, airlines, hospitals, and many other indoor spaces safe and sanitized so we can keep our economy open and protect lives and livelihoods as we fight COVID-19.”
Last spring, as Georgia and the rest of the nation began to feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, demand for ByoPlanet International’s disinfectant products grew sharply.
As a result, ByoPlanet contracted with The Classic Center in Athens to use additional space on a temporary basis while the facility was nearly vacant due to virus-related closures. The company also hired about 30 Classic Center employees who would have been furloughed otherwise due to the lack of arts and entertainment events at the venue.
“With all of the changes that have happened in the world since the onset of COVID-19, ByoPlanet has experienced unprecedented growth in our revenue, number of employees, and facility size and capacity,” said Peter Johansson, the company’s president and chief operating officer. “ByoPlanet has been present in Athens since 2010, and we see the area as the ideal location for our continued growth and development.”
In addition to maintaining their existing 5,500-square-foot facility near Athens-Ben Epps Airport, a new 40,800-square-foot building is expected to open by the end of this year.
As part of the expansion, ByoPlanet is planning to bring more than 200 advanced manufacturing, engineering, management, and office staff positions to the Athens area. The company has added more than 100 new positions since March.
“It has been wonderful to have ByoPlanet in Athens as their work has expanded, and we could not be happier to see them establish a permanent footprint in Athens,” Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz said.“It is exciting to see them utilize cutting-edge technology that creates healthy spaces as they create high-wage jobs at this critical time.”
For information on career opportunities with ByoPlanet International, go to https://byoplanet.com/.
ByoPlant is planning to introduce two new product lines next year.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce division partnered on the project in partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government Economic Development Department and Georgia Power.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey (right) receives the COVID-19 vaccine as Gov. Brian Kemp (left) watches on Dec. 17, 2020. (Kemp Twitter photo)
Georgia’s top health official was among the first in the state to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as initial doses rolled out in Atlanta and Savannah this week.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, was inoculated during a news conference Thursday with Gov. Brian Kemp to bolster confidence in the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
“This vaccine is safe, it’s effective, and it will be the tool to have so we can finally move back to what we think of as our Georgia lifestyle,” Toomey said. “But we need everyone’s help.”
Kemp said he’ll also get the vaccine after it has been administered to workers in hospitals and health departments, who are the first category of people to be inoculated as they continue battling a grueling spike in COVID-19 outbreaks this winter.
Officials like Kemp and Toomey are pushing to dispel doubts of whether the vaccine is safe following a speedy development timeline that has worried some portions of the population. Kemp said the vaccine is critical to ending the pandemic’s now nine-month reign in Georgia.
“The work done to develop the vaccine has been nothing short of a medical miracle,” he said. “This vaccine is safe, it is effective and it is now on the way to the people of this great state.”
The first COVID-19 vaccines now rolling out were developed with new technology that mimics the virus’ DNA to create immunity, not by injecting small amounts of virus as has traditionally been done with vaccines. That method helped developers produce the vaccine within months instead of years.
Recent test trials for the vaccines have shown they’re extremely effective in preventing sickness from the virus and only tend to cause headaches, arm pain around the injection and mild, temporary under-the-weather feelings as adverse reactions.
Georgia is slated to receive about 85,000 doses of the first vaccine by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer that was approved for emergency use last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Another vaccine by pharmaceutical company Moderna is poised for emergency-use approval this week. Georgia officials expect to receive around 174,000 doses.
Those early shipments won’t be nearly enough for the millions of Georgians who each need to receive two doses spaced weeks apart. Public-health experts have estimated as much as 70% of the U.S. population needs to be inoculated to halt COVID-19’s spread.
Kemp urged Georgians to have patience with state officials tasked to distribute the vaccine in the coming months, first to health-care care workers and nursing homes where the virus has taken its deadliest toll, then to the general public by the summer of 2021.
“This is going to be a heavy logistical lift for the state,” Kemp said. “We have never undergone such a large vaccination campaign in our history.”
The governor also urged Georgians to keep wearing masks, social distancing and washing their hands this holiday season before the vaccine is more widely available, as positive cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 near peak levels seen in July.
For now, Kemp added he does not plan another statewide shelter-in-place order or other strict distancing measures seen in the pandemic’s early days.
“We’ve done this before,” he said. “Our guidance has hardly changed in a very long time.”
Around 500,000 people in Georgia have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic this year. As of Thursday, the virus had killed 9,358 Georgians.
ATLANTA – Atlanta-based The Home Depot Inc. has agreed to pay a $20.75 million fine for violating federal environmental rules for conducting home renovations involving lead paint.
A consent decree filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia requires the giant hardware retailer to implement a corporate-wide program to ensure that the contractors it hires are certified and trained to avoid spreading lead dust and paint chips during home renovation projects.
The fine is the highest civil penalty ever obtained for a settlement under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act.
“Today’s settlement will significantly reduce children’s exposure to lead paint hazards,”said Susan Bodine, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Environmental Compliance.
“Home Depot will implement system-wide changes to ensure that contractors who perform work in homes constructed before 1978 are EPA-certified and follow lead-safe practices. EPA expects all renovation companies to ensure their contractors follow these critical laws that protect public health.”
“These were serious violations,” added Jonathan D. Brightbill, principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division. “The stiff penalty Home Depot will pay reflects the importance of using certified firms and contractors in older home renovations.”
EPA discovered the alleged violations while investigating customer complaints about Home Depot renovations in five states that showed Home Depot subcontracted work to firms that in some cases did not use lead-safe work practices.
The agency then conducted a comprehensive review of Home Depot’s records of renovations performed throughout the country and found hundreds of instances in which the company sent uncertified firms to perform renovations that required certified and trained firms.
EPA also discovered cases where Home Depot failed to provide compliance documentation showing that specific contractors had been certified by EPA, were properly trained, and had used lead-safe work practices in home projects.
In the proposed consent decree, Home Depot also agreed to provide information about following lead-safe work practices to its professional and do-it-yourself customers in its stores, on its website, on YouTube, and in workshops.
“The Home Depot is committed to lead safety and safe work practices for our associates, partners and customers,” according to a statement Home Depot released Thursday. “That’s why the company expects all installers to not only do a great job, but also safely complete their work while following the required protocols and legal requirements including lead safety.”
Use of residential lead-based paint was banned in 1978 but still remains in many older homes and apartments across the country. Lead-dust hazards can occur when lead paint deteriorates or is disrupted during home renovation and remodeling activities.
Exposure to lead-based paint can cause a variety of health problems, from behavioral disorders and learning disabilities to seizures and death, putting young children at the greatest risk because their nervous systems are still developing.
The states of Utah, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island joined the federal government in the consent decree, which is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.
