ATLANTA – Legislation extending aid to pregnant women in Georgia through the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program sailed through the state House of Representatives Monday.
House Bill 129, which passed 173-1, is sponsored by freshman Rep. Soo Hong, R-Lawrenceville, one of Gov. Brian Kemp’s House floor leaders. Kemp proposed the legislation during his State of the State address last month.
Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, spoke in support of the bill but used the occasion to call on the General Assembly to update the criteria used to qualify for TANF benefits, which haven’t changed in more than 30 years.
A parent can earn an annual salary of no more than $9,400 to be eligible for TANF. That’s so low that only 40% of Georgians living below the poverty line qualify for the program, Au said.
“TANF benefits have not been updated since 1991,” she said. “What has happened to the price of goods and services in the last 32 years?”
The bill now heads to the Georgia Senate.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Students from the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition outside the state Capitol. (Photo courtesy Georgia Youth Justice Coalition)
ATLANTA – The General Assembly is unlikely to change Georgia’s education funding formula this session, legislators have told Capitol Beat.
A state Senate study committee chaired by Sen. Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, met several times last fall to consider changes to the state’s complicated education funding method, which was established in 1985. The formula provides funds to local school districts based on how many students are enrolled, using a host of additional factors to determine amounts.
After listening to testimony from educators, experts and others from across the state, Dugan said he has identified four priority areas he’d like to see updated in the funding formula. The formula should be changed to provide for more school counselors and psychologists, add funding for technology and create a mechanism to provide additional funding for schools serving students living in poverty, he said.
Dugan said legislators will likely introduce bills aimed at these areas later this session, but he does not expect the General Assembly to fully debate or vote on the bills until 2024.
“I’d rather not be haphazard with something that affects the lives of so many,” Dugan said. “Once it hits, it’s going to suck a lot of air out of the room.”
A plan to create a “poverty index” or “opportunity weight” to help school districts address the additional challenges of educating students in poverty has drawn support from across the political spectrum. But it’s not yet clear what shape Georgia’s opportunity weight will take.
“The poverty weight is a compelling necessity,” said state Sen. Nan Orrock, D- Atlanta, who was the sole Democrat on the Senate study committee. “We heard testimony from a number of sources … that we are in a big minority [among states] in not having that opportunity funding.”
Orrock noted that with a record budget surplus, there is plenty of funding for the state’s education system.
“Georgia already devotes money to trying to improve outcomes for students who live in poverty, but it isn’t as direct or clear as it might be,” said Kyle Wingfield, president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a think tank that advocates free-market approaches to public policy. “It would be a good idea for the state, under a student-centered budgeting reform, to fund low-income students in a direct way.”
“But absent a broader reform, lawmakers may be asked simply to increase funding overall without much of a plan or explanation for how that is going to improve outcomes for those students.”
“We appreciate that the conversation has begun,” said Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators. “The discussions of the resources needed by our students living in poverty, the need for more school counselors, psychologists and social workers [and] the relief educators need from administrative tasks …. must continue and move us toward actions to address these needs.”
One bill would, if passed, address the poverty weight this session. House Bill 3, sponsored by Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Rex, would provide an additional 25% in funding for each student living in poverty.
“In our opinion, it’s surgical and good stewardship, said David Schaeffer, vice president at the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. The bill has also drawn the support of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, a group of high school and college students from across the state.
However, it’s unlikely that the Democratic-sponsored bill will garner sufficient support to pass in a Republican-controlled legislature.
Another funding challenge school districts will soon face is a dramatic increase in the cost of employee health insurance. That’s because the State Health Benefit Plan (SHBP) has increased the cost of health insurance for each employee from $945 to $1,580 per month, about a 67% increase.
The state will pick up that tab for certified school employees, including teachers, administrators, counselors and media specialists. But local districts themselves typically cover that cost for non-certified, or classified, employees, including custodians, bus drivers and school nutrition workers. There are about 96,000 such workers across Georgia.
The dramatic increase, which is set to start in 2024, would pose a heavy burden for local school districts, Schaeffer said.
To help them cope with the increase, the state House of Representatives’ budget proposal includes a three-year phase-in, in which the state would help cover the increase for the first three years.
There are some bright spots for teachers and students coming out of this year’s budget. The state is fully funding the existing education formula.
“That’s good news,” Schaeffer said, noting the full funding will help schools maintain their buildings and attract and retain teachers.
The fiscal 2024 budget also includes $27 million to provide one counselor for every 450 students. However, that would still mean Georgia has a lower-than-recommended student-to-counselor ratio. The proposed budget also includes an additional $5.9 million for student transportation costs and $23 million in bond funding to buy school buses.
Gov. Brian Kemp has also proposed $2,000 pay raises for state employees, including teachers, which is likely to be approved. The increase would take effect in September and comes after a $2,000 raise last year.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The first certificate of need (CON) reform bill to surface in the General Assembly this year was prompted by a specific hospital project but would have statewide implications.
Senate Bill 99 would exempt parties wishing to build an acute-care hospital in a rural county from Georgia’s CON law, which requires applicants to show a need for any planned health-care facility in the community where they plan to locate. The legislation would apply to counties with fewer than 50,000 residents.
“This bill is a way to almost immediately expand health care into rural Georgia,” state Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, told members of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee this week.
Dolezal said the legislation is being driven by a private developer’s plan to build a 100-bed acute-care hospital in Butts County. The 25-bed Wellstar Sylvan Grove Hospital in Jackson is more than 40 years old and has services limited mostly to rehabilitation, he said.
“That 25-bed rehab facility is just not meeting the needs of that area,” he said.
But executives from the nonprofit Wellstar Health System told committee members exempting the proposed hospital from the CON process would let the new facility open for business close to both the Sylvan Grove facility and the 160-bed Wellstar Spalding Regional Hospital in Griffin.
Leo Reichert, Wellstar’s executive vice president and general counsel, said Sylvan Grove isn’t just a rehab hospital. Its emergency room sees 14,000 patients each year, he said.
“A new hospital is going to cause significant harm to those two [Wellstar] facilities,” Reichert said. “There aren’t that many folks there. There aren’t that many needing services there.”
Tim Kibler, vice president for government affairs for the Georgia Association of Community Hospitals, said hospitals already are having trouble finding enough employees without adding more health-care facilities.
“We have a profound workforce shortage of doctors, nurses, techs, CNAs (certified nursing assistants), virtually every provider in that space,” he said. “Were the state to have this proposal become law, it would become a case of [hospitals] fighting each other for staff.”
Committee Chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, a cosponsor of Dolezal’s bill, pushed back at those arguments in light of the chronic inadequate access to health care in rural Georgia.
“We have been beaten up for the last decade for not doing enough for rural hospitals,” he said. “Here we’ve got people offering to build for free a 100-bed hospital in an area that has a 25-bed hospital. Why is that harmful?”
The committee did not act on the bill this week, holding it for consideration for potential action later in this year’s legislative session.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose slightly last month, as a decline in individual income tax receipts was offset by gains in sales and corporate income tax revenue.
The state Department of Revenue brought in nearly $3 billion in January, up 1.1% over January of last year.
However, individual income tax collections fell by 4%, due in large part to a 198.4% increase in refunds issued by the revenue agency.
For months, economists have been warning a recession is likely this year that would put a dent in tax revenues.
The trend hasn’t shown up thus far when it comes to sales and corporate income taxes. Net sales tax receipts in Georgia were up 9.9% last month compared to January of last year.
Corporate income taxes, a more volatile source of revenue than sales or individual income taxes, shot up in January by 234.9% as refunds declined while payments increased.
Once again, collections of the state sales tax on gasoline and other motor fuels fell, this time by 98.7% compared to January of last year.
However, those numbers will shoot back up when the February monthly revenue report is released because Gov. Brian Kemp’s executive order last March temporarily suspending the gas tax to combat higher pump prices was allowed to expire in January.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA — A new bill would prohibit transgender Georgians under 18 from receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy or surgery.
“The state has a compelling interest to protect all young Georgians from harm,” said Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Gwinnett, the bill’s main sponsor. “Allowing Georgians who cannot legally vote, smoke, or purchase a firearm to make a high-stakes decision with irreparable consequences is dangerous and must be addressed immediately by the Georgia General Assembly.”
The eight-page bill includes a long list of procedures that would be barred, including gender-affirming hormone therapy and surgical procedures.
The legislation includes some exceptions, including for people who are “born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development” and for the treatment of “a physical disorder … injury … or illness that is certified by a physician.”
A physician who provides any of the services to a person under 18 would be considered to have committed “unprofessional conduct” and would be subject to discipline by their licensing board.
The bill would prevent school employees, including teachers and counselors, from “encourag[ing] or coerc[ing] a minor not to tell their parent or guardian that “the minor’s perception of his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex.” It would also prevent school employees themselves from keeping that information from parents.
Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, support gender-affirming care for transgender children when the physician and family deem it appropriate.
“There is strong consensus among the most prominent medical organizations worldwide that evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender children and adolescents is medically necessary and appropriate,” Dr. Moira Szilagyi, then president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, wrote last year. “It can even be lifesaving.”
The legislation drew immediate criticism.
“Our representatives should not be substituting their judgement for that of parents and families with regard to the most private and intimate of medical decisions,” said Peter Isbister, a leader of the group TransParent, a support organization for the families of transgender youth that represents 80 families from across Georgia.
“If passed, this legislation will cause untold anguish and suffering for our families,” Isbister added, noting families could be forced to leave the state if the bill passes. “It is not good for, and should be rejected by, our beloved state.”
One unintended consequence of the bill could be the prohibition of circumcision, said state Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain. That’s because the bill includes a provision that would prohibit the removal of “any healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue.”
Circumcision is a common practice and is required or strongly encouraged in some religions, including Judaism and Islam.
The state Senate will assign the bill to a committee on Monday.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
