by Dave Williams | Jul 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Cuts to Medicaid contained in President Donald Trump’s new budget bill put 37 Georgia nursing homes at risk of closing, according to a study released by Brown University’s School of Public Health.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the legislation, which the Republican-controlled Congress passed this month, will slash Medicaid by $1 trillion during the next 10 years.
The bill passed without a single Democratic vote in either the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate.
Seventy percent of Georgians living in nursing homes rely on Medicaid, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said Wednesday.
“This is a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of Georgia seniors,” he said. “Georgia nursing homes are already struggling. … This law is going to deepen those challenges.”
The study, requested by Senate Democrats, identified 579 nursing homes across the nation at risk of closing. It based those findings on nursing homes with 85% or more of their patients on Medicaid, those with occupancy rates of less than 80%, and those receiving poor-quality ratings from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Nursing homes in 30 Georgia counties appeared on the list. Seven counties have two nursing homes listed as at risk: Baldwin, Bibb, Fulton, Hancock, Muscogee, Tattnall, and Wilcox.
The federal reductions will force states to pick up the slack, the study concluded.
“Significant cuts in Medicaid will force states to make decisions about which ‘optional’ Medicaid services they will continue to fund and how stringent Medicaid eligibility standards are to be set,” according to the report. “Nursing home care is a mandatory benefit under Medicaid; therefore, all states would be required to continue offering it.”
Congressional Democrats and a smattering of Republicans have called for revisiting the budget bill later this year to reverse some of the more damaging cuts.
“(Republicans) need to work with us to save nursing homes and hospitals across the country … to undo the damage that’s already been done,” Ossoff said.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A two-year-old Georgia law requiring teachers to use the “science of reading” in their lessons has led to literacy gains in the state’s lowest performing schools, the Georgia Department of Education announced Wednesday.
House Bill 538, which passed unanimously in the state House of Representatives and with just one ‘no’ vote in the Senate, called on the state agency to overhaul teacher training and develop new literacy tests.
The education department responded last fall by sending literacy coaches to 60 schools that had been performing in the bottom 5%.
Scores on the new reading tests improved 15%, with the strongest gains in kindergarten, according to the agency.
The law, which took effect in July 2023, required all public schools and school systems to provide onsite teacher training, with model lessons for students and prompt instructional feedback. It also required all teachers in kindergarten through third grade to complete literacy training by the beginning of this month.
The education department coaches reached 1,000 teachers and affected 18,000 students, the agency said, noting that teachers reported improvements in their confidence, their instructional ability and their use of data.
“Targeting intensive supports where they’re most needed, by placing coaches directly in our most challenged schools, has shown immediate promise,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said, adding that the initiative laid “a strong foundation for lasting, statewide literacy success.”
by Dave Williams | Jul 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Atlanta businessman and Air Force veteran Kelvin King has entered the race for Georgia secretary of state.
King, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate three years ago, announced his candidacy for secretary of state Tuesday in an op-ed in James Magazine Online.
“I’ve spent my life serving this country through service and leadership, from working as an Air Force contracting officer to building a successful construction company that serves the public sector,” King wrote. “I am ready to do the work – for Georgia, for America, for our future.”
King, who is married to State Election Board member Janelle King, vowed to support a hybrid form of voting that would include hand counting ballots to confirm votes and to bring “new leadership” to cleaning up Georgia’s voter rolls. He also promised to overhaul the state’s business licensing and registration systems, which are overseen by the secretary of state.
State Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, also is running for the Republican nomination for secretary of state.
Incumbent GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger hasn’t indicated whether he will seek a third term. He was reelected overwhelmingly in 2022 despite running afoul of Republican base voters by refusing to go along with Donald Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Raffensperger has reportedly been considering mounting a bid for governor or the Senate next year.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Georgia Republican Party has returned money contributed by a family associated with a financial institution that the federal government alleged was a Ponzi scheme.
Saying he was not obliged to return the money but felt it was a “moral duty,” state GOP Chairman Josh McKoon announced Tuesday that the party had delivered $36,844 to the court-appointed receiver for First Liberty Building & Loan.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in federal court two weeks ago that the Georgia company had bilked investors and that its owner and president, Brant Frost IV, had paid himself and his family $5 million while making $570,000 in political contributions.
Last week, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, called on politicians to return any money received from First Liberty or Frost and his family.
McKoon said he followed the court receiver’s suggestion to return all such contributions that the party had received since the beginning of 2021.
Frost and his family are well-known in GOP circles. His son, Brant Frost V, is chairman of the Coweta County Republican Party.
“I am profoundly saddened that members of our conservative movement, along with many others, were misled by false promises of safe investments,” McKoon said. “This has left countless Georgians facing uncertain futures and financial distress.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Five years after COVID-19 caused many Georgia kids to start skipping school, absenteeism rates remain stubbornly high, with students scoring worse in core subjects like math and reading.
A special committee of the state House of Representatives is studying the issue ahead of next year’s legislative session with the goal of producing laws that can reverse the trend. The first presentations at the Georgia Capitol Tuesday indicated that many of the likely causes relate to poverty, although mental health also plays a role.
More than one in five students missed more than 15 days of school in 2024, nearly double the rate in 2019. The rate missing six to 15 days climbed to 42%, six points higher than in 2019.
“A crisis is building,” said Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, a member of the committee.
Wade and fellow lawmakers heard that reasons as obvious as uncorrected vision and illness are driving absenteeism.
“Asthma is the leading cause,” said Garry McGiboney, a former state Department of Education official, the first expert to testify. He said diabetes is also a big driver.
“If you look deeper into that, one of the reasons why is because it’s difficult for school systems to implement an asthma or diabetes management plan, especially if they don’t have a school nurse.”
McGiboney led a volunteer panel that studied absenteeism for the group Get Georgia Reading. Their resulting report published in June said children with asthma were twice as likely to miss school and cited an American Lung Association report that children with asthma missed 8.3 million school days nationwide.
Justin Hill, a deputy state school superintendent, said illness is a top driver of absenteeism but that weather, family emergencies and vacations also contribute. High school students who skip school often cite fatigue, he said.
Carol Lewis, president and CEO of the group Communities in Schools, a non-profit with the mission of keeping kids in school, said many high school students are tired because they are helping to care for siblings or holding down jobs to help pay family bills.
She said lack of mental health services is a barrier, noting that many chronically absent students lost family members during the pandemic. Basic needs are a problem too, she added, such as clean clothes, feminine hygiene products, food, housing and internet service.
McGiboney recommended that the state enforce a law requiring the chief superior court judge in each county to form a multi-agency student attendance committee. Those committees can be effective, but not all counties have one, he said.
Wade, Gov. Brian Kemp’s House floor leader, said some schools don’t have a nurse and asked if getting one into every school would help. McGiboney responded that it would be one of the most important things the state could do.
The committee will meet two more times, with the next hearing scheduled for Sept. 22 at the Capitol.
