ATLANTA – Longtime state Rep. Penny Houston announced Tuesday that she will not seek reelection this year.
Houston, R-Nashville, has served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 26 years under seven House speakers. She told her House colleagues she wants to spend more time with her family.
“I hope I’ve been a voice for the people of rural Georgia and a voice for people who don’t have a voice,” Houston said.
Houston chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Economic Development, which oversees funds for eight state agencies. She also serves on the House Ways & Means, Banks & Banking, Economic Development & Tourism, Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight, Appropriations committees, as well as the House Rural Development Council.
Houston said she plans to contribute to her community in different ways now that she’s leaving the General Assembly. Specifically, she said she will advocate for improved dental care in rural Georgia.
Houston’s House District 170 includes Berrien County and portions of Cook and Tift counties.
ATLANTA – The state Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $37.5 billion midyear budget Tuesday that includes $1,000 one-time pay supplements for Georgia teachers, state workers and University System of Georgia employees.
The spending plan, which the full Senate is expected to take up later this week, contains $5 billion in new spending, $2 billion of which would come out of an unprecedented $16 billion budget surplus.
Georgia’s public school teachers are making $65,000 to $69,000 a year on average, committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, told committee members before Tuesday’s unanimous vote. That’s among the highest in the South.
But more than 29,000 of the 55,000 state employees earn less than $40,000 annually, he said.
Besides the pay supplements, the midyear budget also takes advantage of the healthy surplus by funding more than $1.1 billion in capital projects for the first time in memory with cash rather than bonds. Tillery said the pay-as-you-go approach will represent a huge savings for Georgia taxpayers.
“It will save our children and grandchildren millions and is a smart move given our current economy, he said.
The capital projects list includes $450 million for a new state prison in Washington County, $178 million for a new dental school at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus in Savannah, and $50 million for a new medical school at the University of Georgia in Athens. Gov. Brian Kemp recommended all three projects in the midyear budget he presented to the General Assembly last month.
The Senate committee allocated $40 million to renovate the Atlanta Farmers Market in Forest Park, less than the $50 million the governor requested but more than the $35 million in the version of the midyear budget already passed by the state House of Representatives.
Among the items the Senate added is $3.1 million to design a new medical examiner’s office in Macon.
The committee signed off on the House’s recommendation for $110,000 to add visible watermarks to paper ballots but only gave tentative approval to $5 million for new paper ballots that no longer rely on QR codes. The latter item will have to be worked out by negotiators appointed to the joint House-Senate conference committee that will craft the final version of the midyear budget.
While the capital projects funded with cash in the midyear budget are usually found in the “big” budget for the full fiscal year, the midyear spending plan typically includes the annual adjustment to the state’s K-12 per-pupil funding formula to account for enrollment growth. In this case, the Senate committee added $100.7 million to the formula.
ATLANTA – Legislation that would let Georgia Power customers buy electricity from third-party providers of solar energy got a first hearing in the General Assembly Monday.
Under House Bill 1152, customers could subscribe with community solar providers for projects producing no more than six megawatts of power. Because the measure calls for the amount of credit on bills community solar customers would receive to be determined by the state Public Service Commission (PSC), it would be limited to Georgia Power customers since the state’s other utilities are not regulated by the PSC.
“Community solar” projects are smaller than utility-scale solar projects but larger than rooftop solar panels installed by individual property owners. Community solar allows residential and business property owners who might not be able to afford rooftop solar to participate in solar energy development.
Georgia ranks among the top 10 states for utility-scale projects but in the bottom 10 for smaller “distributed generation” projects, Bryan Jacob, solar program director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told members of a House subcommittee Monday.
“This bill will help us right that ship,” he said.
Elizabeth Van Holt, new markets director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, said her organization has invested $10 billion to build seven gigawatts of community solar projects in 20 states.
“It’s a pro-jobs, pro-development bill,” she said of House Bill 1152. “It’s an opportunity for ratepayers to lower their bills.”
Van Holt said passage of the bill would mean Georgia wouldn’t have to import one-sixth of its energy from other states.
But representatives of Georgia Power, who spoke out against the bill, said there is no energy supply shortage in Georgia that needs to be addressed.
“The market for solar right now in Georgia right now is really vibrant,” said Wilson Mallard, the Atlanta-based utility’s director of renewable development. “There’s no shortage of opportunity for solar developers.”
Mallard also argued the legislation would result in a shifting of costs to Georgia Power customers not participating in the community solar program.
“We remain responsible for the reliability of the grid,” Mallard said. “But now, we’re going to short our collection of costs. That’s absolutely going to create a cost shift.”
Representatives of Georgia’s electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) also spoke in opposition to the bill, even though they would not be affected directly by the measure.
The subcommittee was only scheduled to hold a hearing on the legislation Monday and took no action on the bill.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp is steering an additional $26 million in federal pandemic relief funds toward the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s Victim’s Services grant program.
Following the addition of about $13.2 million to the program in December, the total dedicated to the council is now up to $94.2 million.
The grants help domestic violence shelters, sexual assault centers, human trafficking programs, child-advocacy centers, court-appointed special advocates, hospital-based violence intervention initiatives, elder abuse programs, and programs that address gun violence recover from the negative economic impact of the pandemic.
Specifically, the money is used to provide an array of lifesaving and supportive services, including housing assistance, financial counseling, legal assistance, medical services, victim compensation, transportation, and employment services.
The additional funding Kemp announced Monday will allow for continued assistance to more than 200 nonprofits that provide service to victims of crime across Georgia.
ATLANTA – Georgia legislative leaders’ pledge to rein in some of the state’s generous tax breaks to industry is starting with the most expensive on the books: the film tax credit.
A bill introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives earlier this month would require film production companies to meet at least four of nine criteria to qualify for an additional 10% tax credit on top of the 20% base credit the General Assembly enacted in 2008. House Bill 1180 also would raise the minimum companies would have to spend to earn the credit, and put new limits on the selling of credits.
“Our film tax credit has been very, very successful for Georgia,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said Feb. 7 during a news conference unveiling the bill. “We want to make sure that we streamline our tax credit so we continue to get the absolute best return on that investment.”
The film tax credit is widely credited with making Georgia one of the top movie and television production states in the nation. The existence of the credit generated $8.55 billion in economic impact in fiscal 2022, according to a study released late last year.
“What we have created here in Georgia is more extraordinary than you may realize,” independent filmmaker Tiffany FitzHenry of Peachtree City told members of the House Economic Development & Tourism Committee Feb. 13.
“We have the largest, most skilled crew base in the world, infrastructure and technology that is second to none, more stages, camera-ready communities and a bigger footprint for production than anywhere on the planet.”
At the same time, the film tax credit is costing Georgia taxpayers about $1 billion a year in lost tax revenue, making it by far the most expensive in the state’s arsenal of tax incentives.
The General Assembly first sought to limit that fiscal impact on the state’s coffers in 2020, passing legislation 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.
But House Bill 1180 promises to be more far-reaching in its potential impact.
Under the bill, film production companies must meet at least four of the following criteria to qualify for the most lucrative tax credit:
At least 50% of the crew on a given film production working in the state must be Georgia residents.
At least 50% of the vendors providing goods or services to film production crews must be Georgia vendors.
The film production company must spend at least $30 million in Georgia.
At least 50% of a production’s photography days must occur in one or more rural counties in Georgia.
At least 50% of the photography days in studio facilities must take place in Georgia studios, or the company must make capital improvements to a studio.
At least 50% of the photography days in studio facilities must take place in Georgia studios, or the company must enter into a long-term lease for a studio in Georgia.
At least 20% of a company’s post-production spending must be with Georgia vendors.
The company must participate in at least one Georgia workforce development program.
The company must include the Georgia promotional logo in its final production or engage in alternative marketing opportunities approved by the state Department of Economic Development.
The bill also doubles the amount a production company must spend on a single production to qualify for the tax credit from $500,000 to $1 million.
A third provision would cap the total amount of sales or transfers of credits within a calendar year at 2.5% of the governor’s revenue estimate for that year.
The bill has been endorsed by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which has long called for tighter controls on the state’s tax incentives.
“These common-sense safeguards would keep hundreds of millions of Georgians’ tax dollars in-state, rather than flowing to enrich out-of-state corporations, while placing important guardrails to better manage the state’s largest tax credit program,” said Danny Kanso, the organization’s senior fiscal analyst.
Representatives of the state’s film industry have pledged to work with lawmakers on the bill as it moves through the General Assembly while ensuring it doesn’t endanger what has been a hugely successful program.
“Georgia legislators and state leaders have a long history of bipartisan, pro-job creation policy decisions that have allowed our state’s film and television production industry to compete on the world stage, creating billions of dollars in economic impact to the benefit of Georgians across the state,” said Kelsey Moore, executive director of the Georgia Screen Entertainment Coalition.
“GSEC is committed to continuing to work with state legislators to maintain our state’s successful film tax credit and the economic opportunity it fuels for tens of thousands of Georgians and businesses.”
