ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections continued their downward slide last month, declining by 12.6% compared to March of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
Year-to-date tax receipts were more encouraging, with revenues down a slight 0.5% compared to the first nine months of the last fiscal year.
However, that’s only because the state has resumed collecting taxes on gasoline and other motor fuels, a tax Gov. Brian Kemp suspended during most of last year. Not counting those revenues, state tax collections actually fell 4.3% during the first nine months of fiscal 2024.
Individual income taxes declined by 16.1% in March compared to the same month a year ago, in part because Kemp and the General Assembly cut the state’s income tax rates effective Jan. 1.
Net sales tax receipts also fell by 4.5% last month compared to March of last year. Corporate income tax collections dropped by 28.3%, as refunds issued by the revenue agency rose by 88% while payments were down by 91.8%.
Despite the slowdown in tax revenues, which the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget expected, Georgia lawmakers adopted a record $37.9 billion midyear budget in February that includes $5.5 billion in new spending.
A month later, the legislature approved a $36.1 billion spending plan for fiscal 2025, which takes effect in July. It includes 4% cost-of-living raises for most state and university system employees, with an additional $3,000 for those in state agencies hit hard by turnover, including law enforcement and welfare workers.
The largesse stems from a $16 billion budget surplus the state has built up during the last three years.
ATLANTA – Opponents of a request by Georgia Power for a significant increase in electrical generating capacity raised a number of objections to the proposal during several rounds of hearings before state energy regulators.
But their complaints boil down to two issues: who’s going to pay to build that additional capacity and whether Georgia Power should increase its reliance on fossil fuels at a time it could invest more aggressively in renewable energy.
The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) will vote April 16 on the Atlanta-based utility’s request for 6,600 megawatts of additional capacity, up from just 400 megawatts the company forecast it would need just two years ago.
The utility cites an unexpected growth in demand for electricity – particularly among large industrial customers including data centers – as the reason for the request.
“The extraordinary economic development we are seeing in Georgia has created a need for additional generation capacity much sooner than anyone saw coming,” Steve Hewitson, a lawyer representing Georgia Power, told members of the PSC Thursday.
Georgia Power and the commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff reached an agreement last month outlining the sources the utility would be allowed to use to produce the additional generating capacity it is seeking.
Representatives of environmental and consumer-advocacy groups – including some that signed onto last month’s agreement and some that didn’t – support portions of the deal that call for expanding battery storage capacity by building projects at Robins Air Force Base near Warner Robins and Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta.
Those projects would generate 500 megawatts of power, down from the 1,000 megawatts Georgia Power proposed. Under the agreement, the other 500 megawatts would come through an expedited request for proposals Georgia Power would issue.
“That’s the energy of the future,” Jennifer Whitfield, a lawyer representing nonprofit Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, said of battery storage. “That’s where we’re headed.”
The agreement between Georgia Power and the commission’s staff also calls for new and expanded distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar, and demand response initiatives in which customers voluntarily agree to reduce energy use during periods of peak demand.
What the agreement’s opponents don’t like are plans to step up the use of fossil fuels by building three natural gas or oil-fired turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan and entering into power purchasing agreements (PPAs) for oil and gas from Mississippi Power – a sister company of Georgia Power – and Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC.
Opponents argued Thursday that neither the Plant Yates project nor the PPAs are needed at this time.
“It was well established by multiple witnesses in the record (of previous hearings) that the decision on these units (at Plant Yates) can wait until … next year,” said Bryan Jacob, solar program director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
“(The PPAs) start before there’s an actual need in the system,” added Curt Thompson, a former state senator representing the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.
How building the additional generating capacity would affect Georgia Power customers’ pocketbooks is the other main bone of contention.
Georgia Power officials say the revenue the new capacity would produce would exceed the costs of building the various projects. Thus, the company is projecting average residential customers would see a savings of $2.89 on their monthly bills from 2026 through 2028.
But Whitfield argued there are no guarantees in the plan.
“We have looked and looked for assurances that residential customers and small businesses will not be the ones subsidizing this request for the 51 (large industrial customers) it’s designed to serve, and we haven’t seen it,” she said.
The Georgia Power plan also is giving Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald reason to hesitate. He said he won’t vote for any plan that raises rates beyond the 52% increase customers already have seen following several rate hikes in recent years.
McDonald said Thursday that he will make a motion before the April 16 vote to delay implementing the plan until after the November elections, when the political landscape for the next few years will have become clearer.
“I want to know what the future’s going to be beyond October and beyond the early part of November before I can comfortably move on to increasing the capacity needs of the state,” he said.
But Commissioner Tim Echols said he’s plenty comfortable now with the assurances Georgia Power has offered in the agreement.
“This provides an incredible level of protection,” he said. “All the anxiety I had is relieved by this.”
Hewitson noted that seven groups that filed to participate in the case have signed onto the agreement, including some environmental and consumer advocates that have never signed previous agreements between the PSC staff and Georgia Power.
The company is guaranteeing it won’t come back and seek to recover any cost overruns that might occur with the gas projects barring an “act of God” such as a tornado or flood, Hewitson said.
“The company is well aware of the rate increases our customers have had over the last several years,” he said. “It is doing everything it can to minimize any rate pressure on customers.”
ATLANTA – The head of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia will take over the investigation of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ alleged involvement in attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia.
In a two-sentence statement, Pete Skandalakis, the council’s executive director, announced his appointment to pursue the case.
A Fulton County judge disqualified Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis nearly two years ago from looking into Jones’ connection to the election interference case, ruling her hosting of a campaign fund-raiser for Jones’ opponent in the 2022 race constituted a conflict of interest.
The investigation of Jones has been in limbo since then, while Willis went on to gain a grand jury indictment last summer charging former President Donald Trump and multiple co-defendants with taking part in a conspiracy to overturn Democrat Biden’s win in Georgia and award the state’s 16 electoral votes to Republican Trump.
“I’m happy to see this process move forward and look forward to the opportunity to get this charade behind me,” Jones said in a statement released Thursday.
“Fani Willis has made a mockery of this legal process, as she tends to do. I look forward to a quick resolution and moving forward with the business of the state of Georgia.”
Jones allegedly was among a group of Republican “fake” electors who met at the state Capitol in December 2020 to cast their ballots for Trump. As the meeting was taking place, the real electors – all Democrats – were meeting elsewhere in the building to certify that Biden had defeated Trump in Georgia.
Jones, serving as a state senator at the time, was elected lieutenant governor in 2022, defeating Democrat Charlie Bailey.
Meanwhile, Willis continues to move ahead in prosecuting Trump and the other co-defendants. The case hit a snag in January when a lawyer for one of the co-defendants filed a motion accusing Willis of having an improper relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to lead the case.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled last month that Willis could remain on the case only if Wade resigned, which he did several hours after the judge handed down the decision.
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has joined counterparts in six other Republican-led states in suing the Biden administration over its latest student loan plan.
President Joe Biden announced plans this week to deliver forgiveness of some or all of the debts of more than 30 million borrowers at a price tag of an estimated $475 billion.
“While a college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive,” Biden said during an event on a college campus in Wisconsin. “The ability for working- and middle-class folks to repay their student loans has become so burdensome that a lot can’t repay it for even decades after being in school.”
But Carr attacked the plan as an illegal waste of tax dollars in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that rejected an earlier student-loan forgiveness plan.
“Georgia taxpayers have made it clear that they know it’s wrong to be forced to pay off other people’s student loans, particularly those with the highest earning potential,” he said. “This is election-year politics and an egregious example of federal overreach.”
The Supreme Court struck down last year’s plan as unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision, ruling that Biden sought to carry it out without express authority from Congress.
However, the new plan is based on a different law. The Higher Education Act allows the secretary of education to “compromise, waive or release” federal student loans.
The 2023 plan was part of an economic stimulus package tied to the pandemic.
Besides Georgia, the other states involved in the lawsuit include Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
ATLANTA – A former city of Atlanta chief financial officer (CFO) has pleaded guilty to federal program theft and obstructing an IRS audit.
Jim Beard, 60, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., oversaw the city’s Department of Finance from 2011 until 2018. At least as early as 2015, he devised and executed a scheme to use his authority as CFO to obtain money and property from the city for his own use, including to pay for thousands of dollars in personal travel expenses for himself, his family, and his travel companions, and to buy and possess restricted machine guns.
According to court records, Beard also submitted a 2013 personal income tax return to the IRS in which he claimed he operated a personal business that incurred more than $33,500 in alleged losses in 2013.
In 2015, while being audited in relation to those purported losses, he provided to the IRS receipts for airfare and hotels that he falsely claimed were personal business expenses. The expenses were actually paid to Beard while working for the city and using a city-issued credit card.
Beard faces a maximum of 13 years in prison. A judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Monday’s announcement of Beard’s guilty plea came from Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia.
The FBI and the IRS investigated the case. Sentencing is set for July.
