Education, mental health take priority in Georgia House budget

ATLANTA – Georgia House budget writers approved a $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state budget Thursday that restores 10% across-the-board spending cuts the General Assembly imposed last year, with a special emphasis on education and mental health.

The House Appropriations Committee supported Gov. Brian Kemp’s recommendation to restore $567.5 million in “austerity” cuts to the state’s public schools. The fiscal 2021 mid-year budget Kemp signed last month already had put back a similar amount of more than $1 billion in reductions to K-12 schools lawmakers approved last June at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Among other education spending, the House added $5 million Thursday to the Department of Education’s school nutrition program, which has been forced to scramble to deliver meals to students stuck at home because of COVID-19.

The committee also added $36 million to the $22 million the governor requested for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, making a total of $58 million for the fiscal year starting July 1.

“We will make a significant statement as it relates to mental health this year,” said Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn.

The extra money includes $12.3 million to give providers of mental health services a 5% rate increase and almost $300,000 to help Georgia join a new national 988 suicide hotline and add a full-time epidemiologist to work with suicide data.

Nursing homes, which have been hit particularly hard with patient hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, would get $7.4 million to “stabilize” staffing. Another $11.9 million would go toward a 2% rate increase for skilled nursing centers..

The House also added $25.3 million to pay for a 10% increase for home- and community-based services, while the Department of Public Health would receive $1.5 million to track the state’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

The House budget recognizes high turnover rates in some state agencies by raising salaries, including $1.6 million earmarked for medical examiners with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“Many of our docs in that division are being hired away,” England said.

Two House adds to the Secretary of State’s office include $150,000 to help cover the costs of processing temporary licenses for nurses who have come to Georgia from out of state to work with coronavirus patients, and $667,642 to help jump-start Georgia’s medical cannabis initiative.

Nearly 70 businesses have applied for licenses to produce low-THC cannabis oil for medical use in Georgia, the commission in charge of the program announced last month.

The Department of Driver Services would receive $250,000 for a new program to provide free IDs to Georgians who now have to pay $32 for the cards. Georgians who don’t have a driver’s license could use the card to comply with voter ID requirements.

The Republican-controlled House passed a controversial bill this week that includes stricter identification requirements for absentee voting.

“We have heard from Georgians who are concerned about fees associated with obtaining a voter identification,” House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, who proposed the initiative, said Wednesday. “I am committed to eliminating barriers to voting for all legally eligible Georgians.”

House budget writers also added $50 million to the $883 million package of bond projects Kemp recommended in January.

Highlights include $32.2 million for construction of the Jack and Ruth Hill Convocation Center at Georgia Southern University, named in honor of the late Sen. Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, and his wife, up from $12.2 million the governor requested. Both died last spring.

Other projects the Appropriations Committee added include:

  • $4 million to renovate Bandy Gymnasium on the campus of Dalton State College.
  • $3.5 million for Phase 2 of renovations to the campground at Stone Mountain Park.
  • $2.95 million for an extension of the campground at Jekyll Island.
  • $2.8 million for the Dr. Mark A. Ivester Center for Living and Learning at North Georgia Technical College in Clarkesville.
  • $2.5 million to renovate Christenberry Field House at Augusta University.

The full House is due to take up the budget on Friday.

In-state college tuition for undocumented Georgians advances in state House

Legislation allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition for Georgia public colleges and universities cleared a major hurdle in the General Assembly on Thursday.

The House Higher Education Committee passed a measure brought by Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, that would extend lower-cost tuition rates to thousands of so-called “Dreamers” in Georgia who are protected from deportation under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Carpenter’s bill stalled in the same committee last year amid uncertainty over then-President Donald Trump’s moves to scrap the DACA protections that were created during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

The bill now heads to the full House of Representatives where it could face stiff opposition from Republican lawmakers fearful of incentivizing undocumented immigrants to reside in Georgia illegally for the benefit of their children.

However, some Georgia Republicans have praised Carpenter for bringing the bill in the face of attacks from immigration hardliners in the state legislature and outside advocacy groups.

“This took a lot of courage and a lot of guts,” said Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta. “This measure makes a tremendous amount of sense.”

The bill would cover DACA recipients who have lived continuously in Georgia since 2013 and are younger than 30, estimated by Carpenter at about 9,000 potential students who would be newly eligible for in-state tuition.

State law currently bars many non-citizen residents like DACA recipients from qualifying for in-state college tuition, which tends to be much lower than what students arriving from outside Georgia pay.

Carpenter’s bill would ease financial pain for DACA recipients who consider Georgia their home but tend to pay double or more to attend public colleges. It would let schools set the rates for DACA recipients at in-state tuition levels or up to 10% higher.

The bill would not allow in-state tuition to attend Georgia’s research schools including the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University and Augusta University.

Supporters say lowering tuition rates would bolster Georgia’s workforce with better-educated and higher-skilled workers in Georgia while giving longtime residents a reprieve as they navigate paths to citizenship.

Opponents have criticized the measure as a slap in the face for Georgia citizens that could attract more undocumented persons and take college spots away from U.S. citizen students from other states.

Carpenter’s bill still needs to clear the House Rules Committee and pass out of the full House no later than Monday for it to remain alive in the current legislative session.

Initial unemployment claims up in Georgia after two weeks of decline

Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler

ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia increased last week after falling for two weeks in a row.

Jobless Georgians filed 28,387 initial claims last week, up 2,940 from the previous week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.

Meanwhile, the agency continued working to thwart a wave of fraud that’s been a nagging problem not just in Georgia but across the nation.

Nearly 10,000 Georgians who have returned to work during the last five months have continued to request unemployment benefits, state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said.

“It’s good to see Georgians go back to work, but it is critical that employees report these wages to us to avoid overpayments and potential legal action,” he said. “Reporting false information on your weekly certifications is against the law, and we are required to investigate any instances of potential fraud identified during wage cross-matches.”

Since coronavirus broke out in earnest in Georgia last March, the labor department has paid out more than $19 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to nearly 4.5 million Georgians, more than during the last nine years combined prior to the pandemic.

Last week, the job sector accounting for the most first-time jobless claims was accommodation and food services with 5,705 claims. The manufacturing sector was next with 3,170 claims, followed by administrative and support services with 3,116.

More than 190,000 jobs are listed online at https://bit.ly/36EA2vk for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume and assisting with other reemployment needs.

COVID-19 vaccines headed to Georgia school teachers, staff

Local schools in Georgia are gearing up to give teachers and staff doses of COVID-19 vaccine starting next week using a mix of on-campus curbside administration, large-scale distribution events and help from health clinics.

Teachers and school staff will be eligible for the vaccine and have first dibs next week at an 83,000-dose shipment of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine, as well as remaining supplies of the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, according to state officials.

Many school districts plan to inoculate teachers and staff who want the vaccine late next week and over the weekend, aiming to give them some recovery time in the event of possible mild side effects such as temporary flu-like symptoms and pain where the shot was given.

State officials are letting local school administrators decide their own logistics for administering vaccines rather than imposing state rules, marking an approach that several local superintendents praised at a meeting Thursday to outline plans for providing shots and boosting confidence among hesitant teachers.

“We really appreciate the trust in us to develop plans to work for our system,” said Dougherty County School System Superintendent Kenneth Dyer.

Atlanta Public Schools, where about 66% of staff have said they want the vaccine, has asked for more than 800,000 doses and plans to hold a “vaccination event” later this month to administer them, said Superintendent Lisa Herring.

Other districts like Calhoun City Schools and Henry County Schools are set to conduct on-campus vaccine events via curbside shots and in school buildings with nurses trained to administer the vaccines.

Cherokee County schools plan to host an “arena-style” vaccine event next Thursday and Friday with help from the local health department to the roughly 50% of the district’s teachers who have shown willingness to take the vaccine, said Superintendent Brian Hightower.

“We’re ready to have this event and make it a successful event, and at the same time continue instruction in our schools” Hightower said. “We want not only our schools to be open but we want them to remain open.”

The school rollout comes after Gov. Brian Kemp last week expanded who is eligible for the vaccine to teachers, school staff, adults with behavioral and developmental disabilities and the parents of children with complex medical conditions. Those groups may start receiving the vaccine on Monday.

State School Superintendent Richard Woods said vaccinating teachers and staff is critical to returning all Georgia K-12 students to in-person classes. Currently, around 30% of students are still receiving online-only instruction, he said.

“We’re looking at how we can make a significant dent in the last third of the school year,” Woods said. “We still have work to do but it’s a big opportunity for us as a state to look forward and be prepared.”

“It’s a good day for us as a state.”

Georgia House committee nixes horse racing

ATLANTA – A legislative committee Thursday rejected a proposed statewide referendum to legalize pari-mutuel betting on horse racing in Georgia amid questions on both its wording and lack of details.

Members of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee questioned the last half of the wording of the proposed ballot question at the end of the constitutional amendment.

After asking Georgia voters whether betting on horses should be legalized, the referendum went on to ask whether “to increase the minimum funding requirement for the educational shortfall reserves.”

The language referred to a provision in the constitutional amendment developed by Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, aimed at securing some of the excess reserves that have been accumulating in the Georgia Lottery for the last decade.

In 2011, the state both increased the percentage of lottery funds dedicated to HOPE scholarships that must be set aside as reserves to cover any potential shortfalls and reduced the percentage of tuition covered by HOPE, Evans explained to the committee at a hearing earlier this week.

“We made it less likely we would need the reserves, and we increased the reserves,” she said.

As a result, more than $1.3 billion in reserves has piled up, Evans said. The state could safely plow back $730 million of that into HOPE scholarships, she said.

“This state did not approve a lottery just to have a lottery,” Evans said. “This money should not be sitting in an account.”

But on Thursday, Rep. Penny Houston, R-Nashville, said adding language on educational shortfall reserves to a referendum on horse racing would be misleading.

“It sounds like a trick question to me,” she said.

Other committee members asked why such issues as where racetracks would be located and what steps would be taken to protect racehorses from abuse weren’t included in the constitutional amendment.

Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, the committee’s chairman and the resolution’s chief sponsor, said those details would be addressed in a longer “enabling” bill that would be introduced next year if the constitutional amendment passes.

Under this year’s legislation, 10% of a state tax on the proceeds from horse racing would go toward health care, while 50% would go toward a new “Opportunity Fund” supporting college scholarships for Georgians with family incomes of less than $58,000 a year. The other 40% would go into the state’s general fund budget.

Stephens said the economic benefits of legalizing horse racing in Georgia would spread far beyond the racetracks themselves to let farmers in South Georgia who suffered crop losses from Hurricane Michael in 2018 get into the businesses of horse breeding and hay farming.

“It’s an opportunity to create a brand new industry in parts of our state,” he said.

But Rep. Randy Nix, R-LaGrange, who opposes legalized gambling, was skeptical.

“This pie-in-the-sky … will not take care of South Georgia,” he said.

The defeat of the horse racing measures leaves some other avenues for legalized gambling still alive in the General Assembly.

But a bill aimed at legalizing sports betting without changing the constitution has yet to reach the House floor.

A subcommittee of the House Regulated Industries Committee approved a constitutional amendment Wednesday encompassing casinos, horse racing and sports betting. But it has yet to be taken up by the full committee.

Time is growing short for action on legalized gambling. Crossover Day in the General Assembly – the deadline for bills to clear either legislative chamber to remain alive for further consideration – will fall on Monday.