Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a $27.2 billion state budget for the 2022 fiscal year in Georgia that restores most cuts made last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the remaining shortfalls expected to be covered by federal relief funds.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, devotes large amounts of spending to Georgia health care services and education, adding back more than half of the nearly $1 billion cut from public schools as part of 10% reductions instituted last year amid pandemic-driven revenue declines that began rebounding last summer.
State officials are banking on roughly $350 million in public-school cuts that were not restored in the recently passed budget to be plugged by some of the roughly $6 billion in COVID-19 relief Georgia is set to receive from the federal government.
Kemp marked his signing of the fiscal 2022 budget with a fly-around tour Tuesday touting the spending restorations and Georgia’s recovering economy in Atlanta, Columbus, Valdosta and Augusta.
“This balanced budget does not raise taxes, cut essential services or enact widespread furloughs or layoffs,” Kemp said at a news conference Tuesday morning in Atlanta. “Despite once-in-a-lifetime challenges, our state budget remains on solid financial footing.”
The governor also highlighted roughly $139 million in funding for the University System of Georgia to cover increasing enrollment and $3.5 million for the state Department of Early Care and Learning to bolster child-care services for low-income families.
“These investments highlight our ongoing commitment to ensure that every Georgia child, student, educator and school staff member have the resources, training and tools that they need,” Kemp said.
Beyond largely restoring last year’s spending cuts, the new budget includes about $40 million in additional spending for mental health services and another $10 million to expand broadband connections in rural areas, on top of $20 million lawmakers approved for rural broadband in the fiscal 2021 mid-year budget.
Around $340 million in additional spending on highway, public transit, bridge repair and railroad projects are also included in the budget for the state Department of Transportation, Kemp noted.
The 2022 budget also includes nearly $40 million for a new Rural Innovation Fund to help local elected officials and economic development leaders create jobs. Several bond-funded projects including $36.7 million for a new convocation center at Georgia Southern University and $21 million for a conference center at Lake Lanier Islands were also backed in the budget.
Many Democratic state lawmakers criticized the budget for not tapping more into the state’s rainy-day fund to increase spending on schools and health care, as well as for avoiding allocating funds for a full expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program that Republicans in control of both General Assembly chambers have long opposed.
Kemp declined to outright veto extra spending the General Assembly approved in addition to his original budget proposal, though he did advise several agencies to disregard implementing a few items including nearly $1 million for new public-safety jobs aimed at boosting officer retention.
The budget’s drafting was spearheaded at the state Capitol by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia.
ATLANTA – Normal restrictions on commercial trucks in Georgia are being waived under an executive order Gov. Brian Kemp has issued in response to the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline.
The Alpharetta-based company that supplies nearly half of the gasoline consumed on the East Coast reported a ransomware attack last Friday that forced a shutdown of a 5,500-mile pipeline running from Texas to New Jersey. The FBI blamed the attack on DarkSide, a group of hackers believed to operate out of Russia or Eastern Europe.
To help relieve gasoline shortages brought on by the shutdown, Kemp issued an executive order Monday suspending federal regulations governing the number of hours commercial truck drivers can operate and waiving normal weight, height and length limits on trucks subject to state “oversize” permits.
The order also suspends the collection of gasoline and diesel fuel taxes during the emergency and prohibits price gouging.
Georgia governors have issued similar executive orders during other disruptions in fuel supplies, usually following hurricanes or other natural disasters that affect refineries or pipelines.
The shutdown of the Colonial pipeline is expected to send pump prices higher and force refiners to cut production because they can’t transport the fuel.
Kemp urged motorists not to panic.
“There is no need to rush to the gas station to fill up every tank you have and hoard gas,” he said. “With the measures we have taken today, I am hopeful we can get more supply to stations and get through to this weekend when we hope Colonial will return to normal.”
Colonial officials say they are working on “substantially restoring operational service” by the end of this week.
Kemp’s executive order is due to expire at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler opposed legislation to create a chief labor officer in the agency.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed legislation Monday that would have created the position of chief labor officer within the Georgia Department of Labor.
In his veto message, Kemp wrote that the powers the bill would have given the new position would have put it in conflict with the constitutional authority of Georgia’s elected commissioner of labor.
Senate Bill 156, a bipartisan measure, arose from a backlog of unemployment claims that built up in the labor department during the coronavirus pandemic. For months, lawmakers were deluged with complaints from constituents reporting delays in receiving benefit checks and the lack of response from the agency when they call to ask about their cases.
The bill cleared the General Assembly on the last day of this year’s session, 142-22 in the Georgia House of Representatives and 29-20 in the state Senate.
Under the legislation, the chief labor officer was to report to the General Assembly and be given the same authority as the commissioner of labor.
Kemp argued the bill did not provide any mechanism for resolving conflicts between the two.
“Instead, this bill would allow the chief labor officer to seek a writ of mandamus against the commissioner when the two experienced an irreconcilable dispute,” the governor wrote. “This would put the state in a position of using taxpayers dollars to sue between two branches of the same government to enforce a remedy against a duly elected state official.”
Kemp wrote that he understood the frustration over the claims backlog. But he suggested that instead of creating a new position, the administration and legislature should work with Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler to ensure the agency reviews unemployment claims and delivers benefits payments in as timely a manner as possible.
Butler opposed the bill as it went through the legislature. He argued it would do more harm than good by putting an untrained person in a position of authority over the agency.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s business community is asking the state to suspend federal unemployment benefits Congress approved during the coronavirus pandemic to incentivize out-of-work Georgians to fill jobs that are going begging.
In an op-ed released Monday, 14 organizations including the Georgia Chamber of Commerce point to a shortage of workers willing to fill a growing number of job openings.
“Our economy has quickly rebounded thanks to a balanced pandemic strategy coupled with record-high consumer spending,” the business groups wrote. “[But] retailers cannot keep certain items in stock, and factory orders are piling up. Because they cannot find labor, businesses are starting to turn down orders, raise prices, and some are even considering closing permanently.”
Business leaders and their Republican allies have been complaining for months that federal unemployment benefits aimed at helping employees thrown out of work by COVID-19 – which began last year at $600 per week and have since been reduced to $300 – offer some unemployed workers more than they could earn by returning to work.
President Joe Biden said Monday he doesn’t believe Americans are shirking work on a widespread basis. However, he also reminded workers they must follow the rules for receiving unemployment checks.
“Anyone collecting unemployment, who was offered a suitable job, must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits,” Biden said.
The president spoke just days after the latest jobs report showed that 260,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 1 million expected.
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler raised the growing labor shortage last week when he issued the labor department’s weekly employment update.
Butler met with Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday to discuss the issue.
“The governor and commissioner both agreed changes are needed in order to support employers who continue to see worker shortages,” Kemp spokeswoman Mallory Blount said following the meeting. “We expect final decisions on timing and other specifics in the coming days.”
According to the business groups’ op-ed, Georgia businesses have reported at least 406,000 job openings during the last 90 days.
“Getting those men and women connected to employers and back to work is the first step,” the organizations wrote.
“Second, we must address long-term shortages in the agriculture, hospitality and high-tech sectors, while helping our students prepare for a very different job market when they graduate.”
Besides the Georgia Chamber, other groups represented on the op-ed include the Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores and the Georgia Highway Contractors Association.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Monday overhauling Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law to greatly limit who can detain criminal suspects beyond on-duty police officers.
Enactment of the bill sponsored by former state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, marks the most high-profile bill on criminal justice to clear the 2021 legislative session following last summer’s nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
It came in response to the killing last year of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man gunned down while jogging near Brunswick during an altercation with three white men who said they believed he had burglarized a home under construction. Father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan claimed they were making a citizen’s arrest and pleaded not guilty.
At a bill-signing ceremony attended by members of Arbery’s family, Kemp said the broad overhaul of Georgia’s outdated citizen’s arrest law takes the state another step toward righting wounds of injustice even though “the stroke of a pen cannot bring back what you have lost.”
“Today we are replacing a Civil War-era law ripe for abuse with language that balances the sacred right to self-defense of a person and property with our shared responsibility to root out injustice and set our state on a better path forward,” Kemp said.
Under the bill, owners of Georgia businesses including retail stores and restaurants can still detain shoplifters and other thieves on their premises, as long as they hand those persons over to police officers “within a reasonable time.”
The overhauled law will also allow police officers who are off duty or outside their jurisdiction to make arrests if they witness a crime or have knowledge a crime was recently committed.
Additionally, it will not affect existing self-defense and stand-your-ground laws in Georgia that allow people to defend themselves, their property and others from threats of violence or deadly force.
Reeves’ bill passed in the General Assembly with near-unanimous support from both chambers, marking the 2021 session’s most resounding bipartisan success as Republican and Democratic lawmakers split over other contentious legislation on elections and police budgets.
The bill also followed Kemp’s signing last June of landmark hate-crimes legislation that aims to protect people in the Peach State from acts of violence or property damage perpetrated because of the victim’s race, sex or gender.
Jury selection in the state trial of the two McMichael men and Bryan is set to begin in October. They face federal hate-crimes and kidnapping charges along with state charges including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony.
