Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry
ATLANTA – The state agencies in charge of responding to weather emergencies are bracing for a winter storm expected to hit North Georgia and metro Atlanta during a three-day holiday weekend.
Georgia Department of Transportation crews began treating interstate and state highways Friday morning with brine solution in an area stretching from the northern counties south to the line running from Columbus to Augusta.
While the forecast remained uncertain as of Friday afternoon, winter precipitation was expected to begin falling on Sunday morning, with two to five inches of snow likely in Northeast Georgia and up to eight inches at the higher elevations.
The metro region was expected to get up to one inch of snow and ice through Sunday night, James Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, told reporters during a news conference Friday.
With winds of up to 35 miles an hour possible, Stallings said fallen trees could cause power outages.
With thousands of Georgia Bulldogs fans headed to Athens Saturday to celebrate the Dawgs’ college football championship at Sanford Stadium, Stallings suggested attendees either get home Saturday night or hunker down in Athens through the weekend.
“The least amount of travel we have on the roads helps us,” he said.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry said DOT crews will start spreading salt and gravel on Saturday night along 19,500 miles of highway that will need to be plowed. Highway workers from South Georgia will be brought north to help, he said.
“This is an all-hands-on-deck response,” he said. “We’re here for the duration.”
Col. Chris Wright, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, urged Georgians to stay off the roads during the weekend to allow highway crews and other emergency personnel to do their jobs without disruptions.
“Our state is going to be impacted in some manner by this storm,” he said.
Gov. Brian Kemp urged Georgians to keep up with the latest reports on the storm’s progress.
“Hopefully, the storm will under-deliver,” he said. “But it could over-deliver. … We’re throwing all the resources we have available at this.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp is asking the General Assembly to approve a record $30.2 billon state budget heavy with new spending on schools, health care and public safety.
The fiscal 2023 budget, which takes effect in July, takes advantage of a huge revenue surplus driven by higher-than-expected state tax collections. The timing is fortuitous for Kemp, who is running for reelection this year facing both Republican primary and general election opposition.
The state’s robust financial outlook is allowing the governor to fulfill a commitment he made on the campaign trail in 2018 to give teachers a $5,000 pay raise.
The fiscal 2023 budget would include a $2,000 raise for teachers who received the first $3,000 increase three years ago.
In addition, the $29.9 billion fiscal 2022 mid-year budget Kemp is proposing would give school administrators and support staff a one-time salary supplement of $2,000, while $1,000 would go to school bus drivers, nurses, nutrition workers and part-time school employees.
Kemp’s health-care spending requests focus particularly on rural Georgia. He is recommending $1 million to support programs at Mercer University aimed at addressing a shortage of physicians in rural parts of the state.
Kemp also wants to expand Medicaid coverage for new mothers from six months to a full year.
Besides the teacher pay raise, the governor also is calling for a $5,000 increase for law enforcement personnel and other state employees.
On the crime front, he is looking to build on existing initiatives targeting street gangs by funding a new anti-gang unit in the state attorney general’s office.
Kemp also is asking for more than $7 million to upgrade the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab equipment and hire 32 additional staff in the crime lab and medical examiner’s office to handle their increased volume.
The state’s coffers also are healthy enough to pay for a nearly $1.3 billion package of bond projects.
Highlights include $80 million toward the expansion of the Savannah Convention Center, a $210 million project that already has received substantial bond funding.
The bond package also puts $37.1 million toward Phase I of the Science Hill modernization project on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, $28.5 million to build a Technical and Industrial Education building at Southern Regional Technical College in Moultrie and $28 million for the Gateway Building at Georgia Gwinnett College.
The mid-year and fiscal 2023 budgets will get a first airing next week at joint hearings of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees.
This story available is through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
The proposed city of East Cobb would center around the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
ATLANTA – Legislation calling for the formation of a city of East Cobb cleared a committee in the Georgia House Thursday despite concerns raised by representatives of Cobb County.
The Republican-controlled House Governmental Affairs Committee approved House Bill 841 mostly along party lines and sent it on to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
The bill calls for a referendum this November to let East Cobb residents vote on whether to form a city.
Supporters of cityhood told committee members their goal is to create a level of government as close to them as possible.
“This is not a criticism of Cobb [County] or its leadership,” said Craig Chapin, a member of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood. “Where we’re coming from is an ability to have local control over issues that are closest to us.”
But Cobb County Commission Chairman Lisa Cupid and county department heads who accompanied her to the committee meeting said cityhood for East Cobb would have financial and service impacts residents should know about before they vote.
While the legislation calls for the new city to provide zoning and code enforcement services, other related services including business licensing and permitting would stay with the county, Cupid said. That could mean longer wait times, she said.
“Without having these included in the city of East Cobb, there’s dependency on the county to cooperate with the city,” she said.
Cobb Public Safety Director Randy Crider said fire protection in East Cobb could suffer because the proposed city’s fire department would only have two fire stations, compared to six in Marietta and five in Smyrna. Fewer than 1% of fire departments in the country have the level of certification of Cobb’s department, Crider said.
“I’d be curious to know how their residents are going to have a better fire department than the one they currently have,” he said.
Bill Volckmann, Cobb’s chief financial officer, said the rest of Cobb County would lose significant tax revenue from the county’s general fund, fire fund and 911 fund if East Cobb becomes a city.
Some committee members questioned the proposed structure of the East Cobb city government, which calls for six council members who would elect a mayor among themselves rather than let the residents vote.
“As a former mayor, I always like to see the executive branch elected separately from the legislative branch,” said Rep. J Collins, R-Villa Rica.
But Rep. Matt Dollar, R-Marietta, the bill’s chief sponsor, said some cities have seen mayors elected by voters independently of city councils become too powerful and try to force their agendas through without consensus.
“I really wanted this to be a true city council,” he said. “The mayor would be first among equals.”
Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, said he supported the bill because it would give East Cobb residents a chance to decide the issue for themselves.
“We’re not going to be the final say-so on this,” he said. “The people of this area will vote on whether or not they want to become a city.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting non-U.S. citizens from voting in Georgia cleared a state Senate committee Thursday.
The Senate Ethics Committee’s Republican majority passed the measure 7-2 along party lines after opponents criticized it as unnecessary. Georgia law, federal law and the U.S. Constitution already contain a ban on noncitizen voting.
“There is absolutely no need to amend the Georgia Constitution,” said Cindy Battles, director of policy and engagement for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda.
Katherine Maddox of Atlanta linked the proposed constitutional amendment to the dispute over the 2020 presidential election results and the attack on the U.S. Capitol a year ago by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
“What is the inspiration for this bill … unless it’s to belabor a point I would think the majority party would be trying to distance itself from: violence and racism,” she said.
But the resolution’s supporters said it is simply an attempt to clarify a ban on noncitizen voting that is not clear as written in the current state constitution.
Sam Teasley, director of external affairs in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said it is “permissive” in that it states citizens may vote but does not specifically prohibit noncitizens from casting a ballot.
“It is not clear,” he said.
Teasley’s boss, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, this week called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning noncitizens from voting.
“In Georgia, the right to vote is sacred,” Senate President Pro Tempore and GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Butch Miller said Thursday. “Citizenship matters.”
Miller’s resolution passed the committee 7-2 and now heads to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule it for a vote of the full Senate.
However, it faces an uphill battle. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote to pass, and Senate Republicans lack the 38 votes they would need to reach that supermajority without help from Democrats.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp asked Georgia lawmakers Thursday to use a record budget surplus to raise the salaries of teachers and state employees and hire more nurses and state troopers.
In his fourth and final State of the State address of a four-year term, Kemp told a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate education, health care and public safety will top his agenda as he seeks reelection.
“It invests historic levels of resources in our students and educators,” the governor said toward the end of a 26-minute speech. “It reduces the cost of health insurance for Georgia families [and] recruits 1,300 new nurses and doctors into communities where they’re needed most.”
Kemp recommended a $2,000 raise for Georgia teachers, the final installment of a $5,000 increase he promised four years ago on the campaign trail.
“Teachers are asked to do more and more every year,” Kemp said. “And the need for a world-class K-12 education to prepare our children for an ever-changing workforce has never been greater.”
Kemp also announced his fiscal 2022 mid-year budget will include $425 million to fully fund the K-12 school funding formula, doing away with “austerity” cuts that have plagued Georgia school systems for most of the last two decades.
Legislative Democrats praised Kemp for recommending additional funding for education but said the governor could do more.
State Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler said Democrats will continue pushing for a full-blown expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program through the Affordable Care Act and a statewide minimum wage of $15 an hour.
“With a record-breaking budget surplus, this is the best time to invest in Georgia, not maintain the status quo,” said Butler, D-Stone Mountain.
The governor also endorsed legislative efforts to enact a parental bill of rights to ensure parents are involved in their children’s education and a bill prohibiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Georgia schools, which teaches that racism has played and continues to play a major role in American history and culture.
“I look forward to working with members of the General Assembly this legislative session to protect our students from divisive ideologies – like Critical Race Theory – that pit kids against each other,” he said.
On health care, Kemp asked for $1 million for the University System of Georgia to expand nursing programs to support up to 500 students a year for five years and funds for the Technical College System of Georgia to add up to 700 nursing students.
“Physicians and nurses are in short supply across the country, but especially in rural Georgia,” he said.
The governor also proposed a $5,000 pay raise for state employees to make it easier to hire and retain workers, including law enforcement personnel, and requested $3 million to support an additional state trooper class of 75 cadets during the coming year.
“With many urban -and some rural – counties facing alarming levels of violent crime, we have the responsibility to act,” he said.
Kemp also used the State of the State pulpit to tout his efforts to keep Georgia’s economy open during the coronavirus pandemic, a stand he said has
played a key role in the recovery Georgia is now enjoying.
“Because Georgia protected both lives and livelihoods, our best and most prosperous days are ahead,” the governor said. “Georgia is on the move because we chose freedom over government shutdowns.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
