ATLANTA – Four South Georgia counties will receive nearly $15 million in preliminary grant awards for broadband internet expansion, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday.
The federal pandemic relief funds are coming through the second round of a grant program aimed at improving connectivity for homes and businesses in underserved areas. The much larger first round of grants sent $234 million last January to broadband projects in 28 Georgia counties.
“Since day one, my administration has prioritized brining opportunity to all parts of our state, including those areas often overlooked,” Kemp said. “These projects are just the latest steps we’ve taken to connect Georgians in rural communities with professional and educational opportunities, building on the significant progress we have made in recent years to close the digital divide.”
Combined with local matches, the new round of funding will invest nearly $30 million in broadband projects that will serve more than 3,500 locations in areas most in need of high-speed internet access.
The largest of the four awards – $6.32 million – will go to Windstream in Calhoun County, followed closely by $6.28 million allocated to the city of Colquitt in Miller County. Windstream’s operation in Echols County will receive nearly $1.2 million, and $985,147 will go to another Windstream in Webster County.
ATLANTA – A former member of Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has been named to serve on the state ethics commission.
Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Stan Wise late last week to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.
Wise, a Republican, was elected to the PSC in 1994 and served four consecutive six-year terms. Before that, he served on the Cobb County Commission.
Currently, Wise is an associate with the Pendleton Group, an Atlanta-based economic development consulting firm. He owned and operated an insurance business in Cobb for 20 years.
In 2003, Wise’s regulatory peers elected him president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). When he left office, he chaired the Gas Committee of NARUC for three years and served on the International Relations Committee.
Wise earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Charleston Southern University. He also served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve for six years.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp will lead an international mission this week starting in the “other” Georgia, the nation at the eastern end of the Black Sea tucked between Turkey and Russia.
The trip to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi will mark the first time a sitting U.S. governor has visited Georgia.
“I’m looking forward to visiting the brave National Guardsmen stationed in the country of Georgia as we meet with officials in that country to reinforce our commitment to our partnership with their military,” Kemp said.
“I’m also eager to promote our No. 1 state for business to the job creators and major industry leaders we’ll meet during this busy trip. In all of the back-to-back conversations, we’ll be able to share why Georgia is the best state in which to invest and bring opportunity.”
The first leg of the foreign mission will include meetings with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. The state delegation will consist of Maj. Gen. Tom Carden of the Georgia National Guard and Department of Defense as well as representatives from the state Department of Economic Development.
Kemp and the delegation will conduct bilateral meetings with national officials, visit a humanitarian shelter built in partnership with the state of Georgia’s National Guard, meet with members of the Marietta Fire Department currently leading swift water rescue training exercises, and hold other meetings designed to strengthen the relationship between the state and the country.
The governor, First Lady Marty Kemp, and the economic development delegation will continue the mission with a second leg in Paris to participate in the Paris Air Show. The delegation will meet with aerospace industry companies that have already invested in or are considering investing in Georgia.
“Connectivity leads to business, and it starts with building relationships,” state Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson said. “Missions reinforce these relationships and create new ones, opening the door for new opportunities.”
ATLANTA – The General Assembly began getting serious about scrutinizing the state’s large assortment of tax credits two years ago with the passage of legislation calling for independent cost-benefit audits of up to five tax credits each year.
Now, lawmakers are doubling down on that process with the formation of a committee of legislators that will begin meeting June 14 to examine every tax credit as well as tax exemption on the books in Georgia. The goal is determining which are giving taxpayers a good return in terms of economic development and job creation and which are simply wasting public dollars.
There will be no sacred cows, said state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, co-chairman of the Joint Tax Credit Review Panel and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax legislation.
“I don’t want to go in with any preconceived notions,” he said.
That would include the hugely popular Georgia film tax credit the General Assembly enacted in 2008, which industry insiders credit for the Peach State’s evolution into a movie and TV production magnet.
The credit grew from $669.4 million in 2016 to $961 million in 2019, a 44% increase, according to the Motion Picture Association. The tradeoff for that taxpayer investment was $4.4 billion in direct spending by the film industry in Georgia during the last fiscal year, up from a relatively paltry $93 million in 2007.
The film industry isn’t the only business that has come calling since the state sweetened the tax credit pot, said Georgia Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, chairman of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee. He also cited the $5.5 billion Hyundai “Metaplant” now under construction in Bryan County, the largest economic development project in state history, as an example of a project that wouldn’t be happening without generous tax incentives.
“The single reason I can think we are the No-1 state to do business, especially in the last 10 to 15 years, has been these tax incentives we’ve put together,” Stephens said. “I hope we don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Entertainment lawyer Steve Weizenecker questioned the value of putting additional scrutiny on the film tax credit. He pointed to legislation the General Assembly passed three years ago requiring all film productions located in Georgia to undergo mandatory audits by the state Department of Revenue or third-party auditors selected by the state agency.
The bill also tightened rules governing how film companies transfer or sell unused tax credits to other businesses, a common practice for production groups that conduct part of their movie-making work outside Georgia.
“This is a successful program doing what it’s intended to do,” Weizenecker said.
Danny Kanso, senior budget analyst at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a progressive-leaning think tank in Atlanta, welcomed the additional scrutiny the review panel is expected to give to the $9.5 billion to $10 billion a year in revenue the state foregoes every year because of tax incentives, including the film tax credit. For one thing, the state hasn’t conducted such a review in more than a decade.
“What we’re most hopeful will come out of this is a realization that we need more transparency,” Kanso said. “Georgia is one of the few states that does not have a formal process for analyzing these tax credits and exemptions. We don’t know who the companies are, how many jobs are being created, the award amounts.”
Kanso said the sheer number of tax credits on the books has raised concerns that the tax review panel will find it difficult to complete its work by the Dec. 1 timeline set by Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders in creating the committee.
“That’s a lot of work,” Kanso said. “There’s a bit of concern over how deep they’ll get with this analysis.”
But Hufstetler said the panel will actually have more time than the legislative process usually allows to examine the various tax incentives and make recommendations to the full General Assembly. The 40-day legislative sessions are rushed and don’t give lawmakers enough time to thoroughly study such a complex issue, he said.
“We can’t just say we’re No.-1 to do business,” he said. “We have to look at what everybody else is doing. … Every five years or so, we need to look at everything.”
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections last month were down for the third month in a row, the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
The state brought in $2.49 billion in tax revenue in May, a decrease of $205.7 million, or 7.6 %, compared to May of last year. However, year-to-date net tax receipts remained up slightly, by 0.2%, over the first 11 months of fiscal 2023.
The drop-off in tax collections last month was largely due to a 23.4% decrease in individual income taxes, driven primarily by a huge 119.3% increase in refunds issued combined with a 63.8% reduction in payments.
Net sales tax receipts actually rose 2.2% in May compared to May of last year.
Corporate income taxes also increased by 38.6% last month, with refunds down and payments up.
The state’s chief economist, Jeffery Dorfman, predicted in January that state tax revenues were likely to drop sharply this year because last year’s huge increase in capital gains tax payments was unlikely to be repeated. However, the state still is expected to finish the fiscal year at the end of this month with a healthy budget surplus built up during the last several years.
