ATLANTA – Georgia Senate budget writers put their stamp Monday on Gov. Brian Kemp’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state spending plan.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously to send the proposed budget to the floor, where it is expected to get a vote on Tuesday.
As was the case when the state House of Representatives approved the budget early this month, the Senate panel heavily tilted spending toward education and health care.
The budget would restore $567.5 million in “austerity” cuts to Georgia public schools lawmakers imposed last year when the state’s economy was being hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our state finances have out-performed what we expected them to be,” Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the committee’s chairman, explained.
The Senate also supported the House in adding $1 million in grants to charter schools and kicked in another $1 million on its own for grants for computer science instruction.
Like the House, the Senate put special emphasis on mental health, adding about $40 million more for the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities than Kemp recommended in January.
Both the House and Senate want $12.3 million to fund a 5% increase to providers of services to Georgians with intellectual and developmental disabilities and $7 million for a behavioral crisis center.
The Senate version of the budget would fund pay raises for a number of “critical positions” in state agencies , including the departments of Banking and Finance, Driver Services, Corrections and Juvenile Justice.
The committee also supported Kemp’s recommendations for $10 million to expand the deployment of rural broadband. Another $20 million for that initiative is included in the fiscal 2021 mid-year budget the governor signed last month.
The Senate budget ups the ante on a controversial proposal to hire a “chief labor officer” to help the Georgia Department of Labor catch up with a backlog of unemployment claims arising from the pandemic. The committee is recommending $198,916 for the position, up from $99,458 in the House budget.
Senate budget writers added a number of new spending items, including $1.5 million to pay for additional ballot security measures required in legislation the Senate passed two weeks ago.
The committee also added $1 million to pay for consultants working with the Georgia Commission on Freight and Logistics, and put in $700,000 for the Georgia Research Alliance, one of several proposals from Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan aimed at boosting Georgia’s bid to become the technology leader of the East Coast.
The Senate also is looking to a nearly $1 billion bond package to fund building projects requested by senators. The committee increased funding for the planned Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center at Georgia Southern University – named for the late senator and his wife – from the $32.2 million the House recommended to $36.7 million.
Senate budget writers put in $1 million in bonds to design an academic building on the Cumming campus of the University of North Georgia and recommended funding to build commercial truck driving facilities at Atlanta Technical College, Georgia Piedmont Technical College in Lithonia and Wiregrass Technical College in Douglas. Commercial truck driving is among occupations that have been identified as in short supply in Georgia.
The Senate committee’s budget acknowledges the influx of federal funds heading Georgia’s way following congressional passage of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan economic stimulus bill earlier this month.
But Tillery cautioned those will be one-time funds. He said Georgia’s revenue situation still remains precarious, as the state Department of Revenue prepares for what promises to be a huge flurry of income tax refunds it will have to issue to unemployed Georgians whose benefits were taxed.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty on the horizon,” he said.
Legislation to block local governments in Georgia from limiting what fuel sources offices, houses and other buildings can use is poised to clear the General Assembly after a key vote on Monday.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, that aims to restrict local bans on fuel choices passed out of the state Senate by a 34-15 vote, irking environmental advocates who say the limits could hinder Georgia in the push to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions.
Supporters say Williamson’s bill would prevent city and county governments from crippling businesses and households that rely on more cost-effective fuels like natural gas, while still allowing local officials to incentivize other sources like solar power.
The bill faces a good chance of gaining final passage in the state House of Representatives after the same chamber approved it last month by a 103-62 vote largely along party lines, with some Democrats voting in favor.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon, who carried the bill in the Senate, said its intent is to stave off future efforts in Georgia to abolish the use of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas going forward, similar to moves being made in cities in other states such as in California and Washington.
“Local officials will still have lots of tools available to them to reduce their emissions and respond to their constituents’ priorities,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor Monday.
“What this is really about is the preservation of the consumers’ choice to make smart decisions on what’s best for them and their family and, ultimately, their home.”
Opponents have slammed the bill as an attempt by state officials to impose their will on local governments on the one hand and a short-sighted boon for power companies on the other.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, who pitched a failed amendment Monday to sunset the local limits in mid-2026, said Georgia would be better served to allow local elected officials to set their own energy policy rather than potentially handcuffing them from prioritizing alternative fuels.
She added a handful of Georgia cities have set long-term goals to convert their buildings to 100% clean energy, but none have moved to require that change in fuel consumption.
“There’s not really a good reason to do something that seems like maybe a good idea now, but ties our hands later,” Parent said. “By tying the hands of local governments, we basically ensure that 50 or 60 years from now, we’ve prevented any sort of ability of local governments in Georgia to keep up with the times.”
Some Democrats joined Republican senators on Monday to vote in favor of the bill including Sens. David Lucas of Macon, Valencia Seay of Riverdale and Freddie Powell Sims of Dawson.
Along with Williamson, the bill was co-sponsored in the House by Reps. Matt Hatchett of Dublin, Trey Kelley of Cedartown, Don Parsons of Marietta and Lynn Smith of Newnan. Democratic Rep. Gloria Frazier of Hephzibah also co-sponsored the bill.
ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, and former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle announced their candidacies for Georgia secretary of state Monday by attacking incumbent Brad Raffensperger’s handling of last year’s elections.
Hice, who immediately picked up the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, accused Raffensperger of standing by while widespread election fraud compromised the integrity of Georgia’s elections process.
“Though I am encouraged to see the General Assembly taking it upon themselves to address some of the glaring issues in our elections, Georgia deserves a secretary of state who will own the responsibilities of the office,” Hice said in a prepared statement.
“If elected, I will instill confidence in our election process by upholding the Georgia Constitution, enforcing meaningful reform and aggressively pursuing those who commit voter fraud.”
Belle Isle was runner-up to Raffensperger in the 2018 Republican primary.
“I am running for secretary of state to clean up the mess, secure the mail-in ballot, and restore voter confidence,” Belle Isle said in a prepared statement. “In the recent elections, we witnessed voter suppression on a massive scale, triggered by voter uncertainty and made worse by the secretary’s poor decisions, carelessness, and failure to lead. … It’s time to hold the secretary of state accountable.”
Raffensperger and other state elections officials have repeatedly refuted claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the 2020 election cycle, and multiple federal courts either declined to take up lawsuits filed by disgruntled Republicans or dismissed them.
Trump, who has consistently refused to concede that Biden carried Georgia in the November election, put his stamp of approval on Hice’s 2022 candidacy Monday.
“Unlike the current Georgia secretary of state, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Trump wrote in a prepared statement. “I have 100% confidence in Jody to fight for free, fair, and secure elections in Georgia, in line with our beloved U.S. Constitution.”
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan came to Raffensperger’s defense during the weeks of criticism other Georgia Republicans leveled at the secretary of state.
On Monday, former Georgia Rep. Buzz Brockway, who also unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for secretary of state in 2018, suggested Republicans’ targeting of Raffensperger rather than recently victorious Democrats is misplaced.
“We now have two announced primary challengers to the incumbent SOS (secretary of state) and zero announced candidates against [Democratic U.S.] Sen. Raphael Warnock,” Brockway wrote in a Twitter post. “I’m beginning to question how serious the GOP really is in blocking [President Joe] Biden’s agenda.”
The pandemic has sparked legislation to add a “chief labor officer” to the Georgia Department of Labor.
ATLANTA – A controversial proposal to hire a “chief labor officer” to help handle an unprecedented deluge of unemployment claims brought on by the pandemic squeaked through a Georgia House committee Monday.
The Industry and Labor Committee approved Senate Bill 156
6-5 and sent it to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
The bill, which the state Senate passed 32-18 two weeks ago, would add a chief labor officer to the Georgia Department of Labor’s payroll, appointed by the governor to work with the state labor commissioner.
The measure came in response to a barrage of complaints lawmakers have been subjected to for months from jobless constituents whose unemployment claims were being delayed. Claimants have described a lack of response from the labor department, including telephone calls going unanswered.
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler attacked the bill before the committee last week as both unnecessary and unhelpful. He said a bringing in a new management employee lacking knowledge in how the agency operates would do nothing to speed up claims processing.
On Monday, Roy Bowen, CEO of the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, echoed Butler’s concerns.
Week in and week out, the manufacturing job sector accounts for the second or third-largest number of initial unemployment claims filed with the labor department. Last week, 2,287 laid-off manufacturing workers filed for unemployment in Georgia, behind only the accommodations and food services and administrative and support services sectors.
“Georgia has handled this issue much better than any other state,” Bowen told members of the House committee before Monday’s vote. “No other department was as prepared to deal with the onslaught, the tsunami of unemployment claims.”
Bowen said hiring a chief labor officer to join a department already headed by a statewide elected commissioner would set a bad precedent.
“What you’re looking for is an ombudsman or liaison,” he said. “To call this person ‘chief labor officer’ is going to lead to havoc, confusion and undercutting of the labor commissioner.”
But the bill’s supporters say something needs to be done to help the overwhelmed department improve communications with claimants.
“This is in no way to criticize anyone personally,” Sen. Marty Harbin, R-Tyrone, the bill’s chief sponsor, said during last week’s committee hearing. “These are unusual times.”
Acknowledging the unique nature of the pandemic, the bill includes a sunset provision calling for the chief labor officer position to expire at the beginning of 2023.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed two bills Monday that will hand Georgians a slight income-tax cut and let foster parents tap into a larger tax credit when adopting children.
The governor, who has helmed the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic for a year now, called the two tax measures a boon for struggling Georgians and foster parents that looked financially “unthinkable” last March as the virus spread.
“As we return to normal here in the Peach State and look to fully restore our economy, it is critical that Georgians keep as much of their hard-earned money as possible to revive small businesses and industries still struggling under the weight of [COVID-19],” Kemp said at a bill-signing ceremony.
The tax-cut bill, sponsored by Georgia Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, allows Georgians to pay less income tax starting July 1 amid a rebound of the state economy during the pandemic.
The state’s standard deduction for married couples who file joint returns will increase by $1,100. Single taxpayers can deduct an extra $800, while Georgians ages 65 and older can deduct another $1,300. Married couples filing separately will be able to deduct an additional $550.
House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, who has pushed to continue cutting taxes after Georgia lowered its income-tax rate from 6% to 5.75% in 2019, said Monday the latest cut aims to benefit primarily lower- to middle-income families across the state.
“Today marks another chapter in Georgia’s continuing commitment to provide sustainable, meaningful tax relief to Georgians to let them keep more of their hard-earned money,” Ralston said.
Since the aid package bars states from lowering taxes while using the emergency aid money, Georgia could stand to lose nearly $200 million over the next two years by putting the income-tax cut into effect, according to Danny Kanso, senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
The tax cut passed last week out of the state Senate by 35-15 vote with nearly all Democratic lawmakers voting against it due to concerns over the federal COVID-19 aid restrictions.
Top state Republicans including Kemp and Ralston have slammed the Biden administration over the aid package’s tax-cut penalties as well as its funding formula, which they argue benefits larger Democratic-run states like New York and California at the expense of Georgia.
However, Ralston on Monday said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had signaled the federal officials “will dramatically curtail” the tax-cut restrictions in the relief package amid pushback from Republican leaders in several states.
Reeves’ measure will boost the annual tax credit for new foster parents from $2,000 to $6,000 annually for the first five years after adoption, then drop back to $2,000 per year. The credit will end when the foster child turns 18.
Clearing hurdles for foster care in Georgia has been a legislative priority for many state leaders including Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who on Monday called the increased tax credit a “real and substantial” incentive for families to adopt some of the state’s most vulnerable children.
“It’s going to remove barriers and hurdles for families that are just sitting on the precipice of being able to make the decision to bring on those kids,” Duncan said.
The number of Georgia children in foster care has declined over the past three years but remains high, according to state Division of Family and Children Services data. The state currently has about 11,200 children in foster care, down from 15,000 in March 2018.
