ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose by 1.1% last month compared to August of last year but only because the state wasn’t collecting the sales tax on gasoline and other motor fuels a year ago.
Not counting the $181.6 million in fuel taxes that came in last month, tax receipts for August were down by 4.8% compared to August of last year, the Georgia Department of Revenue announced late Friday.
Individual income taxes declined by 5.2%, a drop-off driven by an increase in refunds issued by the revenue agency combined with a decrease in payments.
Net sales tax receipts decreased by 10.1% in August. Typically more volatile corporate income taxes fell by 103%. As with individual income tax revenues, the decline resulted from the state issuing more refunds while receiving less in payments.
Tax collections in Georgia now have declined in four of the last five months. Then-state economist Jeffrey Dorfman predicted last January that Georgia tax revenues were likely to drop this year because last year’s huge increase in capital gains tax payments was unlikely to be repeated.
However. the state finished fiscal 2023 at the end of June with an estimated budget surplus of nearly $4.8 billion built up during the last three years. With that much black ink, Gov. Brian Kemp is allowing state agencies to request 3% spending increases in both their fiscal 2024 midyear and fiscal 2025 budgets.
Kemp also suspended the gasoline tax again earlier this week, citing rising prices at the pump. That loss in tax receipts will be reflected in next month’s revenue report.
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers have taken steps in recent years to rein in the costs of the state’s increasingly popular dual enrollment program, which lets high school students receive credit for taking college courses.
But they’re not resting on those achievements. Given Georgia’s growing workforce demands, two legislative committees are working this summer to find ways both to ramp up the program and make it financially sustainable.
“The whole point of this study committee is developing more highly skilled talent at younger ages,” state Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, said last month at the first meeting of a joint House-Senate study committee on dual enrollment he co-chairs. “The idea is to get [students] certified faster and into the workforce faster.”
“We’re not trying to fix something that’s broken,” added Georgia Rep. Matt Dubnik, R-Gainesville, the study committee’s other co-chairman. “We’re simply trying to take a good program and make it even better.”
The cost of the dual enrollment program, which had about 49,000 students enrolled as of last year, peaked at $105 million in fiscal 2020. That had been reduced to $76 million by the time the General Assembly adopted the fiscal 2024 state budget last March.
The difference is House Bill 444, which the legislature passed in 2020, capping the dual enrollment program at 30 hours.
Until then, dual enrollment students were free to take as many college courses as they wanted while still in high school, Irene Munn, a board member with the Georgia College and Career Academies Network, told the study committee.
“It was just way too much,” she said. “We set parameters on the amount of money [the state is] investing in dual enrollment.”
But Munn said House Bill 444 created “stumbling blocks” that needed to be addressed. Students were having to wait until they hit the 30-hour cap to begin taking technical college courses.
The General Assembly responded this year by passing Senate Bill 86, which lets dual enrollment students use funds from the state’s HOPE Grant program to pay for those career courses and earn an associate degree.
“It’s allowed us to get qualified students into the workforce sooner,” Munn said. “We’re getting kids into well-paying jobs at 18 and 20.”
Getting students into the workforce quickly is proving critical to meeting Georgia’s workforce demands. A wide range of professions are suffering shortages of workers.
“More nurses are retiring every year than are coming into the practice,” Scott Steiner, president and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, told members of the joint study committee. “We’ll be 80,000 short in Georgia by 2030 if we don’t turn it around.”
The number of trained workers is also failing to keep up with demand in other careers, including the skilled manufacturing trades.
Part of the problem is the stigma that surrounds blue-collar jobs. High-school counselors tend to steer students toward four-year colleges, as do many college-educated parents.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said the state needs to do more outreach to show students and parents the benefits of a skilled trade.
“I think we should really focus on how do we put some budgetary money into advertisement through social media, reach the kids where they are and show how attractive this is,” she said. “A big part of that is showing how much money you can make.”
“If you can take a 17- or 18-year-old graduate from high school coming from a family that’s in generational poverty … that’s transformational, not only for the student but for that family,” added Dan Weber, a former state senator now serving as executive director of the Georgia Charter System Foundation. “They can come out making $45,000 or more a year.”
Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, suggested the state do more to spread the word about the advantages of a technical college education by creating an online “decision tree” that would steer students and parents toward trades they might be interested in pursuing. The GAFutures and Georgia Degrees Pay websites may not be enough, he said.
“There are still a lot of parents and students who don’t know they’re out there,” Martin said.
Greg Dozier, commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, said the system is working to expand the number of technical college courses that allow students to transfer credits seamlessly to a University System of Georgia institution.
Dozier said more technical college students are entering the system directly out of high school rather than waiting until they make mid-career switches. As a result, the average age of a technical college student in Georgia has dropped in recent years from 36 to 26, Dozier told members of a second ad hoc committee on dual enrollment formed by the House.
“We no longer have that lost decade,” Dozier said Friday.
The two committees will continue meeting this fall to develop recommendations for the General Assembly to consider during the 2024 legislative session starting in January.
ATLANTA – The U.S. Soccer Federation is moving its headquarters from Chicago to Atlanta and building the first-ever National Training Center in the metro area, the organization announced Friday.
The Arthur M. Blank Foundation is contributing $50 million toward the state-of-the art facility, which will house U.S. Soccer’s nine teams. The money also will be used to grow the game of soccer across the U.S.
“America’s top athletes deserve the best when it comes to preparing them for competition on the global stage,” Blank said. “Atlanta’s incredible passion for soccer, corporate community and unmatched infrastructure make this a natural home for the National Training Center.”
“For many decades, sports have been an essential part of Georgia’s history and culture,” Gov. Brian Kemp added. “From hosting visitors to training the next generation of athletes, we’re glad that this project will create new opportunities for local businesses and hardworking Georgians.”
The Coca-Cola Co., which announced a long-term partnership with U.S. Soccer in July, played an important role in bringing the National Training Center to Atlanta.
U.S. Soccer CEO and Secretary General J.T. Batson is leading the search for a site in the Atlanta area for the new center. A final decision on the location will be made in January.
Besides the popularity of Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United with local fans, Atlanta will be among the host cities for soccer’s World Cup in 2026.
ATLANTA – Pay raises of $11,000 for state law enforcement officers during the last two years still haven’t solved recruitment and retention challenges for a Georgia State Patrol forced into a bidding war.
“Agencies are competing over an ever-decreasing pool of candidates,” Lt. Col. William “Billy” Hitchens III, deputy commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, told a state House “working group” Thursday.
Despite the raises, Georgia is 36th in the nation in trooper salaries and 50th in number of troopers per capita, Hitchens said.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, formed the House Working Group on Public Safety earlier this year to look for ways to attract and retain more law enforcement officers.
Hitchens said many factors across the country have made the task more difficult in the last several years, including the public demonization of police after the highly publicized deaths of Black citizens at the hands of white law enforcement officers, moves by some cities to defund the police, and calls for end to “qualified immunity” for police officers.
“You can’t expect police officers to make split-second decisions without qualified immunity,” he said. “They will not act because they have no [legal] protection.”
Lt. Col. Joshua Lamb, director of administrative services for the Department of Public Safety, said the agency is moving to address the recruitment issue with an accelerated trooper school program that allows candidates to complete their training in fewer than the 32 to 34 weeks the traditional model requires.
“That was probably one of the biggest steps we’ve taken to make it more appealing without lowering standards,” he said.
But Hitchens said more is needed if the Georgia Department of Public Safety is to compete successfully with what other law enforcement agencies are offering. He listed such perks as education incentives, signing bonuses, and moving expenses as examples of what other police agencies are providing to lure recruits.
Lamb also suggested Georgia lawmakers consider providing annualized cost-of-living adjustments to troopers and convert to a defined-benefit retirement plan rather than the 401(k) model currently in use.
State Rep. J Collins, R-Villa Rica, chairman of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee and a member of the working group, said Hitchens and Lamb made a good case for the severity of the department’s workforce plight.
“The numbers don’t lie. They are what they are,” Collins said. “The benefits and pay have to increase for us to get those numbers up.”
ATLANTA – Col. Chris Wright will retire from his position as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety Oct. 1 after three years in the leadership post, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday.
The state Board of Public Safety voted Thursday to promote Lt. Col. William “Billy” Hitchens III, the agency’s deputy commissioner, to succeed Wright.
Kemp praised Wright for leading the Georgia State Patrol during a difficult period in its history.
“During times of civil unrest and the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, Colonel Wright demonstrated resilience, foresight, and strength that has led to reductions in crime and safer communities all across Georgia,” the governor said.
Besides serving as deputy commissioner, Hitchens also oversees the state patrol, the public safety agency’s Motor Carrier Compliance Division and the Capitol Police. After graduating from the 69th Trooper School in 1995, he was assigned to Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics and received a Meritorious Service Award for his actions prior to and immediate after the bombing.
Also on Thursday, the public safety board confirmed Maj. Kendrick Lowe to step up to deputy public safety commissioner and promoted Lt. Col. Joshua Lamb to the role of assistant commissioner.
