ATLANTA – Georgia House budget writers approved Gov. Brian Kemp’s $37.7 billion fiscal 2026 budget Monday, a spending plan that emphasizes the needs of the state prison system.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, builds on the mid-year budget the General Assembly adopted last week, which added $345 million in new spending on prisons. The fiscal ’26 spending plan antes up another $250 million for a prison system that was blasted in a federal audit last fall for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence.
“It (is) a historic infusion of cash, highlighting the sense of urgency,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told committee members before Monday’s vote.
The $250 million increase for prisons includes $125 million Kemp recommended to the legislature in January and $125 million added by the House. The money would go to hire more correctional officers to lower the ratio of inmates to staff, give those officers a pay raise, and provide temporary space for inmates inside new modular units to make way for repairs and renovations at existing prisons.
Education is another main driver in the fiscal ’26 budget, with the House adding $98 million to the governor’s spending recommendations. Of that total, $60 million would go toward student support services, including $20 million in grants to hire mental-health counselors for Georgia middle schools and $28 million to support students from low-income families.
Another $25 million would go toward school safety initiatives, which already received a major boost in the $40.5 billion mid-year budget. The House also earmarked $10 million to hire more literacy coaches.
Other big-ticket items include $32 million in increased reimbursement fees for health-care providers serving Medicaid patients and $8.3 million to bolster the state’s graduate medical education program.
The full House is expected to take up the budget later this week.