ATLANTA – Each of the three main credit rating agencies has given Georgia a rating of AAA with a stable outlook, which will yield savings when the state sells bonds next week.
The state will accept bids June 22 on general obligation bonds to fund $754 million in capital projects, primarily for K-12 and higher education, public safety and economic development.
“Securing the highest possible state bond ratings for yet another year is the result of decades of conservative state leadership and our balanced approach to protect both lives and livelihoods throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday.
“By keeping our state open for business, we have brought in record levels of jobs and investments all throughout the state.”
Of the states that issue general obligation bonds, only nine received AAA ratings this year from FitchRatings, Moody’s Investors Service, and S&P Global Ratings.
The ratings agencies cited the strength of Georgia’s economy as factors contributing to the AAA ratings. Specifically, they pointed to low unemployment, full funding of the state’s “rainy-day” reserves, a balanced approach to primary revenue sources, and consistent funding of obligations.
“The [AAA] rating reflects the state’s large and diverse economy, population and employment growth that outpaces the nation, solid reserves and liquidity, strong fiscal governance and low direct leverage from debt, pension and OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefit) liabilities,” Moody’s wrote.
“Very strong revenue performance year-to-date in fiscal 2022 will fund the state’s recently enacted tax cuts – including a gas tax holiday, one-time rebates and permanent cuts to income tax rates – with limited impact on financial reserves.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A surveillance video then-President Donald Trump’s lawyer played for Georgia lawmakers in December 2020 purportedly revealing ballot-counting irregularities at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena showed nothing illegal, former U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak told a congressional committee Monday.
Testifying on the second day of hearings before the U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Pak said his office investigated the video at the request of then-Attorney General Bill Barr.
The request came one day after former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, played the video during a state Senate hearing on alleged voter fraud during Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
“We found that the suitcase full of ballots … being seen pulled from under a table was actually an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe,” Pak testified. “Nothing irregular happened in the counting [of votes], and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false.”
Pak, a Republican appointed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia by Trump, appeared on a panel with two other witnesses who likewise discounted allegations of voter fraud hurled by Trump after he lost his reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden.
Former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, also a Republican, testified that after he publicly dismissed allegations of voter fraud in his city, he and his family received death threats on from people angered by tweets posted by Trump targeting Schmidt.
Prominent Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg told committee members that post-election reviews of lawsuits Trump supporters brought in each of six battleground states including Georgia found all but one had been dismissed. The lone exception was a case that did not affect the outcome of the election, Ginsberg said.
In the Georgia case, Richard Donoghue, who was serving as acting deputy attorney general at the time the State Farm allegations surfaced, indicated in video testimony Monday that his office also determined they were false and reported those findings to Trump.
Pak resigned from the Justice Department in early January of last year, shortly before Biden took the oath of office as president.
The Jan. 6 committee is scheduled to hold five additional hearings in the next two weeks. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is expected to appear at the fifth of the seven sessions.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia is seeking input from individuals and organizations about what it should look for when it awards new multibillion-dollar contracts for the state’s Medicaid program.
The Georgia Department of Community Health’s request for information is the first step in the process of awarding the new health care contracts, which are expected to take effect by July 1, 2024.
Georgia’s Medicaid program contracts with private health insurers to provide health care services to around 1.7 million Georgians, most of them low-income children and pregnant women. The contracts are worth more than $4 billion annually.
Georgia is looking at five priority areas when deciding on the new contract holders: health-care quality, equity, access and outcomes, value, and coverage and services.
The request asks individuals, organizations, and companies to share feedback about the current program’s strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for improving outcomes, respecting linguistic and cultural needs, serving rural Georgia, and many other topics.
Responses are due by 2 p.m. June 24.. Individuals and organizations should email their responses to CMO.RFP@dch.ga.gov.
Under the Medicaid managed care system, states pay companies a per-member, per-month rate to provide health care to members. The contracts are highly sought after by insurance providers.
“The business of Medicaid managed care involves billions of dollars, so the stakes are very high in the competition for contracts with state Medicaid agencies,” according to a 2020 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) report.
Companies that lose out on state contracts frequently sue, claiming violations of procurement rules and demanding do-overs of the process. Such protests prompted three rounds of rebidding in Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
The contracting process presents states with a unique opportunity to implement policy changes and improve outcomes, according to the RWJF report.
The new mental health bill also requires DCH to evaluate whether mental and physical health are being treated equally, track complaints about suspected violations of mental health “parity,” and publish information about the findings.
Gov. Brian Kemp has signed another bill lawmakers passed this year that will require DCH to post more financial data about Medicaid payments, spending, and numbers of primary care providers. That law takes effect July 1.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is vowing to raise teacher pay in Georgia to a minimum of $50,000 a year from the current $39,092.
Abrams called for fully funding education in the Peach State during remarks Sunday as she was endorsed by the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), the state’s second largest teacher organization.
“Central to our children’s educational success is supporting the teachers, paraprofessionals and support staff who help us grow resilient children,” Abrams said. “When our educators are highly valued and fairly compensated for their commitment to education, our children benefit.”
Abrams’ plan also would raise average teacher salaries from $62,500 to $73,500, moving Georgia from 21st in the nation in teacher pay to 10th.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has increased teacher pay in Georgia by $5,000 since taking office in 2019. The raises came in two installments, $3,000 in 2019 and the other $2,000 this year.
Kemp said Abrams’ plan would result in “runaway government spending” and higher taxes.
“Following the lead of her pals in the Biden administration, Stacey Abrams’ latest Hail Mary proposal for over $2 billion in new state spending annually joins an ever-growing pile of pie-in-the-sky plans that would make inflation worse and require higher taxes on Georgia families to pay for it all,” Kemp campaign spokesman Tate Mitchell said Sunday.
But Abrams said the raises she is proposing are necessary to recruit new teachers and retain those who are dropping out of the profession or moving out of state. She said her plan could be implemented without raising taxes.
The GAE opposed several education measures Kemp steered through the Republican-controlled General Assembly this year, including a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” establishing a process for parents to review curriculum and other instructional material for their children’s classes and legislation restricting how racism and slavery can be taught in Georgia schools.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Georgia’s Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission met in Atlanta on Thursday
ATLANTA – Georgia is starting “the decade of mental health reforms” Kevin Tanner, chairman of the state’s Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission, said this week.
The high-level commission, formed in 2019, developed long-range recommendations to address the state’s abysmal mental health outcomes. The General Assembly adopted some of those recommendations during the 2022 legislative session.
The commission met Thursday to check in on the progress of the reforms and plan for the next legislative session.
“This is one of the best budget and policy years the agency has seen in many, many years,” said Caylee Noggle, commissioner of the state Department of Community Health (DCH), which administers Georgia Medicaid and the State Health Benefit Plan covering teachers and state employees.
Commission members identified mental health pay rates and workforce shortages, care coordination, and helping people with mental illness avoid the criminal justice system as key priorities for the next round of reforms.
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said she is concerned that Georgia’s relatively low payment rates for inpatient psychiatric treatment contribute to a shortage of treatment options for Georgians.
Some Georgia mental health placement beds are filled by people from other states, who are sent here because of Georgia’s low rates, Oliver said.
“There’s still a big gap there,” Noggle acknowledged.
The new mental health services bill requires DCH to study and report on Georgia’s reimbursement rates by the end of this year.
Oliver said she would be closely watching the results of that rate study. She urged Noggle to use her role to ensure the rates are increased.
“It starts with you,” Oliver told Noggle. “It’s a pretty high priority in my mind.”
The lack of treatment options is reflected in the number of children with mental health complaints who repeatedly visit emergency rooms at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) hospitals, said Dr. Daniel Salinas, chief of community clinical integration for the hospital system.
Salinas said many of the children who repeatedly come to CHOA emergency rooms with serious mental health complaints had been in state custody and/or had histories of physical or sexual abuse.
Salinas said there’s a lack of “robust coordination” of mental health treatment plans for children.
Salinas said CHOA has set aside $170 million to develop mental health services over the next five years. The hospital system recently started an outpatient referral center and is piloting a program in which mental health services are integrated into a primary care center.
Oliver said she is particularly concerned about a subset of children in state custody who do not have placements with families or group homes and are instead living in hotels.
On the criminal justice front, Tanner said the issue of transportation to mental health services for people who are picked up by law enforcement came up frequently during last year’s discussions.
A subcommittee chaired by Georgia Supreme Court Presiding Justice Michael Boggs will study how many such rides are needed and what they cost, Tanner said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
