ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp issued an executive order Thursday creating a task force to look for ways to grow the ranks of Georgia’s health-care workforce.
The 15-member Healthcare Workforce Commission will focus on shortages plaguing a wide range of health-care professions including physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and emergency medical personnel.
Kemp’s executive order cites the pandemic as a contributor to a health-care workforce shortage that existed before COVID-19 struck two years ago.
“Our health-care heroes have been through it all during the pandemic, and we thank them immensely for the sacrifices made and dedication shown,” the governor said. “To ensure the future health of Georgians and Georgia’s health-care system, it is imperative for the public and private sector to come together and examine current needs and identify strategies for workforce recruitment and retention.”
Shortages among Georgia’s health-care workforce have long been on the radar screens of state policy makers. Most recently, the mental health system overhaul the General Assembly passed unanimously late last month includes a service-cancelable loan program offering loan forgiveness to several types of mental-health specialists.
The new commission will work to develop strategies for retaining the state’s current health-care workforce as well as expanding education initiatives – including scholarship and loan forgiveness programs – to build up the pipeline that feeds new workers into the system.
The panel will be chaired by the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health and include representatives of doctors, nurses, emergency medical responders, mental health-care workers, long-term care workers, health-care educators and the hospital industry.
The executive order calls for the commission to issue recommendations by the end of December.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The State Transportation Board signed off Thursday on a $685.5 million plan to redesign the interchange of interstates 285 and 20 east of Atlanta.
The board voted to begin negotiations with one of three roadbuilding consortiums selected from a shortlist of competitors to build the project. Construction is due to begin in the middle of next year and be completed by late 2026.
The consortium East Interchange Builders scored tops in the competition, both for the technical and financial aspects of its proposal, Meg Pirkle, chief engineer for the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT), told board members. The lead partners are Archer Western Construction and E.R. Snell, two of Georgia’s leading highway contractors.
The frequently congested interchange on the east side of metro Atlanta’s Perimeter Highway in DeKalb County was ranked as the nation’s 25th worst bottleneck last year.
The overhaul will include reconstructing ramps to create more direct alignments, adding new collector-distributor and auxiliary lanes, replacing several bridges and erecting new noise barriers.
The work will be done through a design-build-finance contract, the same model that was used to build the Northwest Corridor toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties and in the redesign of the I-285/Georgia 400 interchange, which is still under construction.
“We got three tremendous responses,” said board member Kevin Abel, chairman of the steering committee that oversaw the competition. “This is a great procurement we hope will repeat for the upcoming even more massive procurements [the DOT] is going to be taking on in the next couple of years.”
Under the design-build-finance contract model, the State Road and Tollway Authority will finance the project, while the DOT will manage the work.
This story isavailable through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Highway projects across Georgia are being squeezed by the increasing cost of construction materials brought on by the war in Ukraine and other inflationary pressures, a state Department of Transportation engineer said Wednesday.
The war has destroyed the Ukrainian city of Mariupol’s ability to continue functioning as a major steel center, Mark Mastronardi, a deputy chief engineer with the DOT, told members of the State Transportation Board. The U.S. imports 66% of its pig iron from Ukraine and Russia, which is now under economic sanctions imposed by the West as punishment for its attack on Ukraine, Mastronardi said.
“Ukraine is offline immediately,” he said. “With the sanctions, Russia is also offline.”
With strong state tax collections coming out of the pandemic, Georgia’s budget has been good to state agencies, including the DOT.
The fiscal 2023 budget that takes effect July 1 earmarks $2.2 billion for the DOT, up from $1.7 billion in the original fiscal 2022 spending plan. About 48% of the agency’s budget – just over $1 billion – will go toward capital projects in the coming year.
Rising construction costs, however, are a growing concern, and not just for steel.
Mastronardi said the costs of other construction materials including asphalt and concrete also are soaring, which is driving up highway contractors’ bids for road resurfacing and other projects.
“That’s having a real impact on us as an agency,” he said.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry said while it’s important to keep needed transportation projects moving forward, the DOT has a responsibility to taxpayers.
“Safety we can’t delay,” he said. “[But] we have shifted some of the resurfacing from this summer to the fall, hoping … we’ll have more favorable prices.”
Mastronardi said the agency also is considering extending the length of contracts on existing projects to spread out the costs and in some cases may be forced to reject some project proposals altogether as unaffordable.
“We do have things we think we can adjust,” he said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The three healthiest housing markets in Georgia are in the Augusta region, according to a new study.
The report, compiled by New York City-based financial technology company SmartAsset, analyzed criteria including how long residents stay in the same home, the percentage of homes with negative equity and decreasing in value, how long houses stay on the market, and how affordable homes are to people in that market.
The city of Martinez in Columbia County scored tops in the company’s healthiest housing markets index with a score of 99.66.
The Martinez market is the state’s most stable, with owners living in the same home an average of 13.3 years. Martinez also is the third-most affordable housing market in Georgia, with home costs eating up only 17.8% of the owner’s income on average.
Evans, another Columbia County suburb of Augusta, ranked second on SmartAsset’s healthiest housing markets index with a score of 96.10. Homes in Evans are even more affordable than those in Martinez, with home costs on average accounting for 17.3% of the owner’s income.
Nearby Thomson, located west of Augusta in McDuffie County, ranked third on the housing markets index with a score of 79.37. Thomson was second to Martinez in market stability, with owners living in same home an average of 12.9 years. However, Thomson rated worst in affordability among the top-10 housing markets, with housing costs on average requiring 22.2% of the owner’s income.
All three housing markets sold fastest among the top-10 markets, with houses on the market prior to being sold an average of 65.2 days in all three cities.
Here is a list of the remaining housing markets in the top 10, all located in the Atlanta region:
City Index
Roswell 74.76
Cumming 74.58
Dunwoody 73.84
Peachtree City 73.37
Tucker 72.44
Johns Creek 71.64
Sugar Hill 71.26
Source: SmartAsset
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Trucking executive Mike Collins is the leading fundraiser in a crowded 10th Congressional District Republican race that features Donald Trump-endorsed candidate Vernon Jones.
Collins had raised $1.1 million through the first quarter of this year in a bid to succeed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, who is leaving Congress to run for Georgia secretary of state. While $531,000 of Collins’ money came in the form of a loan he made to his campaign, he also raised $562,535 from individual contributors.
Jones, a former DeKalb County CEO and Democratic state representative, lagged behind Collins and six other Republican candidates in the battle for bucks. A late entry after dropping out of the race for governor, Jones had raised $265,651 through March 31.
All of the Republican hopefuls have raised in the six figures for what promises to be a lengthy run at the GOP nomination in the 10th District, largely Republican terrain stretching from Butts and Henry counties northeast through Athens to the South Carolina border. With so many candidates in the field, the contest for the nomination is virtually certain to stretch beyond the May 24 primary to a June 21 runoff.
David Curry, Henry County’s tax commissioner, raised $690,265 through the first quarter, including a personal loan of $415,000, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Businessman Marc McMain raised $596,153 through the end of last month, including a $330,000 personal loan.
Alan Sims, a Delta Air Lines pilot and retired Army colonel, raised $578,010, including a personal loan of $305,000.
State Rep. Timothy Barr of Lawrenceville raised $527,784 through the first quarter, all from contributions with no loans.
Former Congressman Paul Broun raised $456,029, also coming totally from contributors rather than loans.
Mitchell Swan, a retired Marine colonel, raised $290,488, including $61,600 in personal loans.
On the Democratic side, retail business owner Phyllis Hatcher has raised $31,038, compared to $18,124 raised by registered nurse and community activist Tabitha Johnson-Green and $8,999 brought in by Jessica Fore.
Collins has the most money left in his treasury by far heading into the final weeks of the primary campaign, reporting $743,953 cash on hand as of March 31. The only other candidates with more than $200,000 remaining in their campaigns at the end of last month were Curry with $298,602, McMain with $296,143, and Sims with $286,913.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
