ATLANTA – The state Senate gave final passage Wednesday to controversial legislation offering private-school vouchers to Georgia students attending low-performing public schools.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 33-21 along party lines to adopt a version of the vouchers bill the state House’s GOP majority narrowly passed last week.
The measure includes a number of changes to a version of the bill the Senate passed last year. It would limit the voucher program’s financial impact on state coffers by prohibiting spending more than 1% of Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) student funding formula on vouchers, a cap that is currently set at $140 million a year.
In a bid to steer the vouchers to low- and middle-income Georgians, only students in families earning no more than 400% of the federal poverty limit – currently $120,000 a year for a family of four -would qualify for the program. The cap would be increased only if the General Assembly puts more money into vouchers.
Wednesday’s debate focused in part on which students would benefit from private-school vouchers.
Since wealthy Georgians already can afford private schools without the state’s help, vouchers are designed to help working-class families, said Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth.
“This bill is for the single moms out there working two jobs to keep the lights on who want school choice for their kids,” he said.
But Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said the $6,500 vouchers the bill offers aren’t enough for poor families to send their children to a private school.
“The state spends more than that on public schools,” she said. “$6,500 is a shiny object to distract from the failures of Georgia’s education system.”
Parent and other Senate Democrats also argued that spending $140 million a year on private-school vouchers will divert tax dollars from already underfunded public schools.
Republicans countered that the money that goes into the QBE formula for public schools will not be affected by the funding going into vouchers.
The House also added several provisions to Senate Bill 233 that are unrelated to vouchers. The legislation codifies into state law several teacher pay raises the General Assembly has funded since 2019, Kemp’s first year in office.
It also lets public schools spend capital construction money on new and improved pre-kindergarten facilities.
The measure now heads to Kemp’s desk for his signature. The governor made vouchers a priority this year, endorsing the bill during his State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate in January.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate gave final passage to an election-year tax cut bill Wednesday, sending it on to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
The legislation, which was proposed by the governor, will accelerate a state income tax reduction that took effect this year, rolling back the income tax rate from 5.49% to 5.39%. The bill will save Georgia taxpayers about $1.1 billion this year, Sen. Bo Hatchett, Kemp’s Senate floor leader, said before Wednesday’s vote.
“We are continuing to conservatively manage our budget and put money back in the pockets of our taxpayers,” said Hatchett, R-Cornelia.
While the measure cleared the Georgia House of Representatives unanimously last month, 12 Democratic senators voted against the bill on Wednesday. Forty senators supported it.
ATLANTA – Controversial legislation prohibiting businesses seeking state economic development incentives from voluntarily recognizing unions if a secret-ballot election option is available gained final passage in the General Assembly Wednesday.
The state House of Representatives’ Republican majority passed Senate Bill 362 96-78, voting along party lines, sending it to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature. The Senate passed the measure last month, also in a largely party-line vote.
Kemp asked lawmakers to enact the bill this year as part of his agenda for the 2024 legislative session.
On Wednesday, the governor’s House allies argued the legislation will protect workers’ right to privacy. Among other things, it forbids companies from disclosing their workers’ contact information to union organizers without written permission.
“It will make sure employees’ privacy is protected,” said Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, Kemp’s floor leader in the House.
But House Democrats charged the bill is an anti-union measure in that it prohibits businesses from voluntarily recognizing unions.
“I, as a small business owner, should have the final decision in how I handle labor,” said Rep. Long Tran, D-Dunwoody, who owns a coffee shop.
Other Democrats said punishing companies that wish to voluntarily recognize a union by denying them economic development incentives would discourage skilled out-of-state workers from moving to Georgia and helping to plug a serious workforce shortage.
“Why are we passing legislation that will make it harder for companies to fill the jobs they bring to Georgia?” asked Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta.
Rep. Bill Werkheiser, R-Glennville, chairman of the House Industry and Labor Committee, said “card check” union elections are already illegal in Georgia under legislation the General Assembly enacted in 2013.
But House Minority Whip Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, said the state was sued over the 2013 bill and lost.
He and other Democrats warned passage of this year’s bill will lead to a flurry of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.
However, Rep. Soo Hong, R-Lawrenceville, another House floor leader for the governor, said similar legislation has been taken to court in another state and been upheld.
“There is no preemption issue in this bill,” she said.
ATLANTA – Coroners in Georgia would receive hefty pay raises under legislation that cleared a state Senate committee Tuesday.
House Bill 625 would upgrade coroner to a full-time position and set a range of salaries, depending on the population of the county they serve.
The minimum salary for coroners would be $35,000 a year. Minimum salaries would go much higher for coroners in the largest counties that use coroners. Under current law, coroners in many counties earn no more than $3,600 annually.
Deputy coroners would be paid $250 for each case they handle, up from the current $175.
“We’re not trying to put a burden on counties,” state Rep. Danny Mathis, R-Cochran, told members of the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee Tuesday. “What we’re trying to do is compensate people in these positions who are competent.”
Mathis, who served as coroner in Bleckley County for 18 years, said the coroner system costs counties far less to operate than systems that use full-time medical examiners. Only four counties in Georgia – Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett – use medical examiners, he said.
But Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, who represents six counties in southeastern Georgia, said he has been deluged with emails from county officials alarmed at the huge pay hikes in the bill.
“They tell me that they’re not prepared, they can’t afford it, that it’s not in their budget,” he said.
Todd Edwards, deputy director of governmental affairs for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, said counties have the legal authority to raise their coroners’ salaries if they so choose.
“This might better be taken care of at the local level,” he said.
The committee amended the legislation Tuesday in an effort to resolve some of the concerns. One change would delay the bill’s effective date from Jan. 1, 2025, to the beginning of 2026 to give counties more time to incorporate the higher pay in their budgets.
A second amendment would delete from the legislation a provision calling for coroners to receive retroactive cost-of-living and longevity increases after the new salaries take effect.
The bill, which the House passed overwhelmingly late last month, now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
ATLANTA – Members of a state House committee expressed concerns Tuesday about legislation that would revive the Georgia Consumers’ Utility Counsel (CUC) to represent Georgians before the state Public Service Commission (PSC).
The CUC operated in Georgia from the 1970s until 2008, when it became a victim of budget cuts brought on by the Great Recession, Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, chief sponsor of Senate Bill 457, told members of the House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee.
“We’ve got some complex issues out there,” said Hufstetler, R-Rome. “We want to make sure consumers have an advocate for them.”
But Tom Bond, director of utilities for the PSC, said commissioners don’t believe reviving the CUC is necessary because members of the commission are elected by Georgia voters.
“There is no intermediary between them and their constituents,” he said.
Bond said the commission also has a Public Interest Advocacy Staff to represent the interests of consumers as well as a hearings process that allows multiple intervenors to argue the public’s case.
However, Bryan Jacob, solar program director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which frequently serves as an intervenor in matters before the PSC, said the interests of intervenors don’t necessarily align with those of the public.
“We are not a consumer advocate,” he said. “We are a clean energy advocate. … Residential and small business customers deserve to have an advocate that exclusively represents their interests.”
Committee members raised concerns about the costs of reviving the CUC and whether its duties would duplicate those of the state attorney general’s office, which has a Consumer Protection Division.
Hufstetler said the attorney general’s office handles all types of consumer complaints.
“Utilities are a tiny fraction of what they work on,” he said.
Other committee members said the presence of a CUC might increase the amount of costly litigation the state is forced to handle.
But Hufstetler said records from the previous iteration of the CUC did not show a rise in lawsuits during its tenure.
The Senate passed Hufstetler’s bill unanimously late last month, but it could face tougher sledding in the House. The committee did not vote on it Tuesday, and only four legislative days remain in this year’s General Assembly session.
