ATLANTA – The suspension of jury trials in Georgia during the coronavirus pandemic has created a substantial backlog across the court system, Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton told state lawmakers Wednesday.
Melton ordered jury trials suspended last March as the virus broke out across the Peach State, the first in a series of judicial emergency orders he has issued every month since.
The backlog of cases that has piled up won’t go away, even when all Georgians who want COVID-19 vaccinations have received them and the pandemic eases, Melton told members of the state House and Senate Appropriations committees during the second day of budget hearings.
“It can easily take a year to two years to dig out of a jury trial backlog,” he said.
Superior Court Judge Wade Padgett of Augusta said it might even take as long as three years to get rid of the backlog, even though courts resumed jury trials for six to eight weeks last year at a time COVID-19 cases were on the decline.
“Whenever they’re allowed to resume, we’re going to be busier than ever,” Padgett said.
A silver lining in the suspension of jury trials is that the delays helped the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) clear nearly half of the roughly 46,000 cases backlogged in the agency’s crime lab, GBI Director Vic Reynolds told lawmakers. The backlog now stands at about 24,000 cases.
Reynolds said the GBI benefitted from outsourcing drug identification and DNA tests to private labs and shelved old cases on advice from local police agencies. GBI scientists also had more time to finish lab tests with jury trials suspended.
“That’s still too high,” Reynolds said of the remaining case backlog. “But I’m very proud of the fact that we cut those numbers down some 20,000 over the course of 2020.”
GBI’s crime lab looks to be spared any cuts to its $41.7 million budget request, while officials have asked state lawmakers for about $4 million to replace several dozen vehicles and around $500,000 to boost the agency’s gang-fighting staff and tracking database.
Reynolds also detailed how low salaries for GBI medical examiners compared to other states and even counties like Cobb and Fulton have led to turnover that has driven up autopsy caseloads for local doctors far above national averages. Officials still have not replaced Macon’s retired medical examiner, whose departure in October forced the office to close.
“We need some help,” Reynolds said of the low salaries.
Like the GBI, the state Department of Public Safety (DPS), which runs the Georgia State Patrol, had a busy 2020 with officers tapped for guard duty at protests over racial injustice during the summer and over election results in recent weeks.
With around 1,000 sworn troopers on patrol statewide, DPS Commissioner Chris Wright said his office is working on incentive plans to pay for college degrees and offer communications training to retain more mid-career staff who have left for local police agencies.
Wright took charge last October after a cheating scandal among trooper trainees ousted former DPS Commissioner Mark McDonough. The agency is asking lawmakers to support nearly $3.2 million for a new 75-person trooper school and $56 million in bond funds to replace its Atlanta headquarters.
“Our agency has proudly served and protected during the most difficult time in modern history,” Wright said Wednesday.
With tight budgets this fiscal year and next, Georgia’s prison and juvenile detention systems are asking lawmakers to approve 10% pay raises for staff. State Corrections and Juvenile Justice department chiefs outlined plans to use existing funds and freeze vacant positions to pay for the salary hike.
“These are living wages that people can come to work and earn a decent living right now,” said Georgia Corrections Commissioner Timothy Ward.
COVID-19 has hit both agencies hard since March. Juvenile detention centers saw 413 staff members and 121 youth offenders test positive for the virus. State prisons reported 1,444 staff and 2,956 inmates tested positive, including 89 deaths.
The pandemic prompted prison officials to release thousands of low-level offenders last year, reducing the state’s roughly 55,000-inmate count in January 2020 to about 8,500 as of this month, Ward said. He expects the prison population to climb back to previous levels once the pandemic eases.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods talks to reporters at a news conference last year. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Full funding of student enrollment growth after a year of budget cuts would come as a great relief to Georgia’s public schools, the state’s top K-12 education official said Tuesday.
Many schools are still holding classes online to discourage the spread of COVID-19, a challenge for teachers pushing to keep students from falling behind on their coursework, State School Superintendent Richard Woods told Georgia lawmakers during a hearing on Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget recommendation for the state Department of Education.
“The learning loss continues to be something that we’re going to look at,” Woods said. “We’re committed to make sure that no child falls behind in our state.”
The governor is calling on the General Assembly to restore about 60% of $950 million cut from this year’s K-12 education budget due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Enrollment is down by about 36,000 students in schools across the state, though Woods said officials are still trying to determine those numbers. He said younger pupils likely account for most of the enrollment drop.
The pandemic showed an estimated 80,000 households statewide with children in schools lack reliable internet access, Woods said. State officials have tapped federal coronavirus relief funds to install WiFi signal extenders on local school buildings and around 3,000 school buses in a bid to close the internet gap, he said.
Georgia school districts have also served more than 111 million meals to students with help from food banks since March, making local schools “probably the largest food-delivery service in the state,” Woods said.
On top of restoring the cuts, Woods has asked lawmakers for more money to pay school counselors.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clearer than ever that addressing students’ mental and physical health and wellbeing is an urgent need,” he said.
Woods also requested $5 million to cover costs for schools to administer year-end tests after federal officials denied Georgia’s request to skip the tests this year because of the disruption caused by the pandemic.
With state tax revenues coming in stronger than expected during the current pandemic-driven recession, Kemp also is recommending full funding for enrollment growth at Georgia’s public colleges and universities.
The governor’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 budget proposal includes a net increase of $131.4 million in the University System of Georgia’s operating budget. The system’s capital budget earmarks $104.2 million in bond funding for seven major building projects on campuses across the state.
Legislative budget writers also heard Tuesday from Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black, who asked for $780,000 to increase starting salaries for middle managers and rank-and-file employees in his agency.
“These heroes put on masks and went to work every day,” he said. “They didn’t stop.”
Black also requested $453,000 for Georgia’s hemp farming program. The General Assembly legalized the growing, processing and transport of hemp two years ago.
Black said the program has drawn a lot of interest from farmers but needs more funding to reach its potential.
“We’ve got to allocate the resources to make sure this program can grow,” he said.
Tuesday kicked off three days of hearings this week on Kemp’s budget recommendations. Members of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees will continue hearing from department heads on Wednesday and Thursday.
U.S. Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff (left) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (right) bump elbows while campaigning in Atlanta during their runoff races on Dec. 14, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
U.S. Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia are set to take office after results of their Jan. 5 runoff wins were certified on Tuesday.
The Democratic soon-to-be senators will give Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and ease the way for President-elect Joe Biden to push his incoming administration’s legislative priorities for at least the next two years.
Ossoff and Warnock unseated Georgia’s incumbent Republican senators earlier this month, marking the first time since 2002 that Democrats will occupy the state’s two Senate seats.
They could take office as soon as Wednesday, the same day as Biden’s inauguration. Gov. Brian Kemp first needs to approve the election results Georgia Secretary of State Brad certified on Tuesday.
Ossoff, an Atlanta native who runs an investigative journalism company, defeated former U.S. Sen. David Perdue by 54,944 votes in the Jan. 5 runoffs, limiting him to a single term.
Warnock, a Savannah native and senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, ousted U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler by 93,272 votes, ending her tenure barely a year after she was appointed to fill retired U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat.
The Democrats’ wins came after Biden beat President Donald Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes in the Nov. 3 general election, becoming the first Democratic candidate to carry the Peach State since 1992.
The runoff outcomes were historic beyond party lines. Warnock is poised to become Georgia’s first Black senator and Ossoff will become the state’s first Jewish representative in the Senate.
With voter turnout at nearly 4.5 million, the runoffs solidified Georgia’s position as a battleground state with closely fought elections for at least the next decade and particularly in 2022, when Kemp will likely face Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of the heated and close 2018 gubernatorial election.
The two Senate races drew the eyes of America and the world to Georgia over the two months after Warnock and Ossoff forced runoffs against their opponents, summoning nearly $1 billion in campaign and outreach spending along with visits from dozens of celebrities and national politicians.
Both Democrats overcame attempts by Perdue and Loeffler to paint them as socialists too extreme for conservative Georgians through fierce attack ads that sought to tie Ossoff to communist China and portray Warnock as anti-police.
That campaign strategy failed, according to several local analysts who credited the two Democrats for focusing on more hopeful messages that elevated key issues like health care, criminal justice, workers’ rights and the ongoing COVID-19 response.
Perdue, a former corporate executive, and Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, were also hamstrung by their loyalty to Trump as the outgoing president trashed Georgia’s election system following his election loss. Both Republicans conceded defeat earlier this month.
With Congress poised for Democratic majorities in both chambers, the Biden administration now faces an easier road to appointing Cabinet members and passing legislation until at least the 2022 mid-term elections. Biden has nonetheless pledged to take a moderate approach and work with leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey (right) has led the state’s COVID-19 response with Gov. Brian Kemp (left) since the pandemic’s outbreak in March 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia officials battling the COVID-19 pandemic are hoping for a shot in the arm to the state’s vaccine rollout when President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Wednesday.
COVID-19 vaccine shipments to Georgia are currently hovering around 80,000 per week, far short of the millions of doses needed for the state to achieve herd immunity, said Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey.
Toomey told state lawmakers at a budget hearing Tuesday the incoming Biden administration has made “a promise of additional vaccine” that could boost supplies, but those numbers will not be known until after Wednesday’s inauguration.
“We literally don’t know week-to-week what our allocation will be,” Toomey said. “There’s some disconnect between what we were told was coming and what actually is available.”
Biden has pledged to distribute 100 million vaccine doses by May. Health experts expect vaccines to be widely available to the public sometime over the summer. Georgia officials including Gov. Brian Kemp are aiming to vaccinate all nursing-home residents and staff by the end of this month.
Around 451,000 vaccines had been administered in Georgia to hospital workers, nursing home residents and staff and people ages 65 and older as of Monday morning, Toomey said. That marked less than half of doses local health providers and pharmacies had received so far from the federal government.
Toomey also noted just 30% of Georgia’s nursing home residents and staff have been vaccinated, leaving many thousands of the state’s most vulnerable people at risk of infection and death as the highly contagious virus continues spiking after winter holiday outbreaks.
Nearly 700,000 positive COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Georgia as of Sunday afternoon, with huge increases seen since November that culminated in a record-high 10,389 new cases reported on Jan. 8, according to state Department of Public Health data. The virus has killed more than 11,000 Georgians.
While state officials are now setting up mass vaccination sites and better systems for eligible Georgians to schedule appointments, Toomey said the only way to halt the virus’ spread will be for state to receive more vaccines.
“At the rate we’re going, it’s going to take many, many months,” Toomey said. “We really need to be able to do these big vaccination sites, and we hope that will happen soon with the availability of more vaccine.”
Toomey was the first agency head to kick off three days of General Assembly hearings aimed at finalizing the state’s budget through fiscal 2022, which starts July 1. Kemp’s budget proposals released last week avoid the deep spending cuts state agencies were forced to swallow last year amid the pandemic.
The state Department of Public Health has not asked state lawmakers to approve spending increases this year since the federal government pays for more than half of its roughly $690 million budget.
The agency has also been awarded more than $1 billion in COVID-19 relief as of mid-January to pay for testing and vaccines, though Toomey said the roughly $110 million in emergency aid meant specifically for vaccinating Georgians is not enough.
Toomey told lawmakers Tuesday the COVID-19 fight has taken a toll on her agency’s morale, particularly due to criticism public-health workers have faced on social media over the slow vaccine rollout and high infection rates.
“We so seldom get thanked for the work we’re doing 24-7,” Toomey said. “Money is important … but even more than money, a thank you for what they’ve been through.”
ATLANTA – The unusual nature of the current pandemic-driven recession has put Georgia in a stronger economic position than could have been expected otherwise, the state’s chief economist said Tuesday.
Georgians have received so much money from the coronavirus relief bills Congress has passed that personal income is actually higher than before the pandemic struck last March, Jeffrey Dorfman told state lawmakers at the start of three days of hearings on Gov. Brian Kemp’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 budget plan.
“People have more money than they had before,” Dorfman said. “People have the money to spend. They’re just waiting until it’s safe to do so.”
A large portion of the net job losses Georgia has suffered since the pandemic began – about 113,000 – were part-time jobs occupied mostly by high school and college students or parents with child-care responsibilities, Dorfman said.
“Our labor market is about as fully recovered as it can be until the pandemic is over,” he said.
Dorfman also credited Kemp’s decision to reopen Georgia’s economy ahead of many other states and the creativity of business owners who limited their losses by adapting to the pandemic.
“Business owners in Georgia have done a tremendous job finding ways to keep their businesses operating,” he said. “The ingenuity of Georgia citizens really helped.”
As a result, consumer spending has remained strong, which has kept state sales tax revenues higher than expected, Dorfman said.
Another mark of an unusual recession has been an increase in the savings rate among Georgians, higher credit scores and a decrease in credit card debt, Dorfman said. The stimulus checks Congress has handed out since last spring have gone to Georgians whether they have lost their jobs or not.
“Our citizens have been very financially responsible at saving a lot of the money the federal government gave them if they weren’t unemployed and needed the money,” he said.
However, Dorfman warned that a long-term trend could put a dent in an otherwise positive economic forecast.
He said population growth in Georgia, which soared during the 1980s and 1990s, has been coming down since the turn of the century. The resulting reduction in available workers could threaten Georgia’s status during most of the last decade as the No.-1 state in which to do business, he said.
“We can’t keep that up if there aren’t enough workers to take jobs,” Dorfman said. “We need to grow the labor force.”
