Georgia lawmakers quickly heard then shelved a bill Wednesday aimed at bringing more real-time scrutiny to state tax incentives before they gain approval from the General Assembly.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, would require measures that create or change tax incentives to include an economic analysis that examines the proposal’s impact on state revenues, spending, overall economic activity and the public interest.
Tax-credit bills would have to obtain the analysis before they could clear the state legislature and pass into law, ending the tradition of bringing tax measures at the last minute that squeak through the legislature without substantial scrutiny.
“These expenditures need to be analyzed to see if they will accomplish their stated goal,” Rahman said. “We really don’t know exactly [about economic impacts] unless we have mandated that we need to have fiscal notes.”
Lawmakers on the state Senate Finance Committee did not vote on the bill Wednesday. They also did not vote on an income-tax credit bill aimed at benefitting low-income Georgians and small businesses sponsored by state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta.
The committee’s chairman, state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, did not call any votes on the bills Wednesday. He has been among the few Republican state lawmakers to call publicly for closing tax-break loopholes and raising new revenues instead of cutting state spending amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Proposals on tax breaks, credits, exemptions and exclusions routinely crop up in the final hours of Georgia legislative sessions, flying under the radar as lawmakers give a weary thumbs up after months of bill-wrangling.
Rahman’s bill would require tax-break measures and their amendments that do not receive tailor-made economic analyses to be halted before they can move forward in the legislative process. Measures without an analysis that pass the General Assembly would be repealed, according to the bill.
Hufstetler, an anesthetist who has chaired the Finance Committee since mid-2019, said he was concerned Rahman’s bill could force the state auditor to turn around large numbers of tax-break analyses at the last minute during legislative sessions.
“What if [the state auditor] gets 500 bills?” Hufstetler said. “I like the idea, don’t get me wrong…. We are all over the map of when something gets close scrutiny and when something doesn’t.”
Despite his skepticism Wednesday, Hufstetler has called recently for shining more light on Georgia’s $9.5 billion tax-incentive structure, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic battered state tax collections so badly last year it prompted $2.2 billion in state-agency spending cuts.
Hufstetler has also publicly backed hiking the state’s tax on tobacco products from the current 37 cents a pack to the national average of $1.81, a move capable of raising an estimated $700 million in additional revenues per year.
So far, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled General Assembly have only advanced a measure by state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, to audit five tax-credit programs each year on a rotating basis. They have not shown interest yet in levying higher taxes on cigarette purchases.
President Donald Trump rallied for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of the Senate runoff elections in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Fulton County authorities have launched an investigation into alleged attempts to influence Georgia’s 2020 elections including a call former President Donald Trump made in January pressuring state election officials to overturn his losing results.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis notified several state officials her office is investigating possible illegal acts of soliciting election fraud, false statements, conspiracy and racketeering stemming from the Nov. 3 general election.
Trump, who is not mentioned by name in the letter, made a series of widely publicized phone calls in the waning days of his tenure to Georgia officials including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his 11,779-vote loss in the state to current President Joe Biden.
The call has since become part of a second round of impeachment proceedings leveled at Trump over alleged moves to influence the 2020 elections and incite violence among supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Willis, who defeated former longtime Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard last summer, said in her letter investigators would soon start issuing subpoenas ahead of empaneling a grand jury in March.
Her letter was sent to several state officials who had contact with subjects of the investigation including Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and members of the General Assembly. It was obtained by Capitol Beat News Service and other news outlets on Wednesday.
“I know we all agree that our duty demands that this matter be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted in a manner that is free from any appearance of conflict of interest or political considerations,” Willis said.
“The Fulton County District Attorney’s office will conduct itself in a manner that will build public confidence in our elections, our law enforcement system and our judicial process.”
Trump’s claims of election fraud in Georgia were roundly rejected by federal courts and Republican officials including Raffensperger and Kemp, who quickly became targets of the former president’s anger.
Several Republican-led hearings were held in the General Assembly in the weeks after the Nov. 3 that allowed former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – Trump’s personal attorney at the time – and others to air a host of fraud claims that went largely unchecked.
Despite lacking evidence, the fraud claims have prompted Republican state lawmakers to prepare a package of bills in the 2021 legislative session aimed at boosting requirements for Georgians to prove their identity to vote by mail, following record numbers of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 elections.
Gov. Brian Kemp (at podium), unveiled $1,000 bonuses for state employees on Feb. 10, 2021, while flanked by Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (left), Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (right) and top-ranking General Assembly lawmakers. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Georgia officials unveiled plans Wednesday to give $1,000 bonuses to a large chunk of state government employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The one-time supplemental payments would go to around 57,000 state workers making salaries less than $80,000 annually, adding to $1,000 checks Gov. Brian Kemp has already pledged this year for K-12 public school teachers and staff.
Kemp joined Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and top General Assembly budget writers Wednesday to announce the one-time checks.
“We have worked long beside one another during this pandemic,” Kemp said at the state Capitol in Atlanta Wednesday. “And we will continue to do that.”
State officials gave few details Wednesday on how the bonus would be paid other than it would entail $59.6 million to be included in the state’s mid-year budget.
Georgia Senate lawmakers passed the $26.5 billion amended 2021 budget Tuesday, sending it back to the state House for final revisions where the $1,000 checks will be added, according to Ralston.
“We wanted to extend that $1,000 bonus beyond our teachers to many of our front-line state employees who have also served our citizens through the worst days of this pandemic,” Ralston said.
The bonus would benefit state public-health workers, state troopers, labor department employees, food inspectors, child-support caseworkers and staff from other state agencies.
It would not, however, go to employees under the state Board of Regents — which oversees Georgia’s public college and university system — as well as “some state authorities,” Ralston said. He did not elaborate on those authorities.
House and Senate lawmakers still have to finalize the mid-year budget before moving on to the fiscal 2022 budget that funds state agencies and public schools throughout the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Kemp has directed budget-writers to avoid any spending cuts similar to the $2.2 billion reductions imposed last year as the pandemic pummeled Georgia’s economy. State revenues have since rebounded for officials to craft upcoming agency budgets with a rosier outlook.
ATLANTA – Nearly 70 businesses have applied for licenses to produce low-THC cannabis oil for medical use in Georgia, the commission in charge of the state’s medical cannabis program announced Wednesday.
The companies are seeking either Class 1 or Class 2 licenses. Under legislation the General Assembly passed in 2019, Class 1 licenses will let the recipient grow marijuana indoors in up to 100,000 square feet of space.
Class 2 licenses will authorize recipients to grow an indoor crop occupying up to 50,000 square feet.
About 14,000 Georgians suffering from a list of chronic diseases eligible for treatment with medical cannabis and registered with the state will be able to receive the oil. The list of diseases that qualify patients for cannabis oil under the legislation include cancer, seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, mitochondrial disease and sickle-cell anemia.
The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission launched the license application process last November.
The commission has put an emphasis on attracting applications from businesses owned by minorities, women and/or veterans.
“Today is a great day for patients who need access to low-THC oil, and economic development for minority-, women-, and veteran-owned businesses,” said Andrew Turnage, the commission’s executive director.
The commission will announce contract awards at the end of the review process, likely in late spring or early summer. Companies then can begin to construct facilities and begin production, a process that could take six to eight months.
Once the manufacturing licenses have been awarded, the commission will develop rules and regulations for granting licenses to dispensaries that will distribute the low-THC oil to patients.
Patients and other members of the public will be able to keep track of the program’s progress and sign up for notifications by clicking on the commission’s website at www.gmcc.ga.gov.
ATLANTA – A Georgia House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday that would prohibit local governments from adopting building codes based on the source of energy to be used.
House Bill 150, which passed 12-2 and now moves to the full House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee, has drawn fire from environmental advocates who say it would make it harder for cities and counties to push renewable energy over dirty fossil fuels.
In Georgia, the cities of Atlanta, Augusta, Athens, Savannah and Clarkston have set long-term goals of converting their buildings to 100% clean energy.
“I know a carbon-free energy goal is going to be a long haul,” Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club, told the subcommittee Wednesday. “[But] cities should have the right to choose.”
The two Democrats on the subcommittee who voted against the bill echoed similar arguments that the measure strikes a blow against local control.
“I may have a preference for renewable energy, but that’s not what this is about,” said Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates. “This is about preempting 535 cities [in Georgia] from doing what their elected people were elected to do.”
But the subcommittee’s Republicans said the concept of local control should apply to residents of cities and counties, not their elected officials.
“Many homes in my district are warmed by petroleum gas,” said Rep. Beth Camp, R-Concord. “If a municipality makes a decision to terminate a form of energy, they’re telling people what they can and can’t do in their homes.”
Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, the bill’s chief sponsor, said nothing in the measure prohibits local governments from using tax subsidies to encourage builders to use renewable energy.
Atlanta-based Georgia Power, an affiliate of Southern Co., supports House Bill 150 as protecting its commitment to a diverse portfolio of energy supply sources, including coal, gas, nuclear power and renewable energy including solar.
Southern merged with AGL Resources – now known as Southern Company Gas – in 2016.
