by Dave Williams | Aug 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state’s lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship program has been highly successful, covering most or all of college tuition for more than 2.2 million Georgians since its inception in 1993.
But Georgia lawmakers are considering expanding state aid to public college and university students beyond the merit-based HOPE program to a need-based scholarship initiative. The newly formed state Senate Study Committee on Higher Education Affordability will hold its first meeting on Monday at the state Capitol.
“In my conversations on both sides of the aisle, there’s been a recognition that getting more students into college is a must,” said Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, who will chair the committee. “[But] we have not turned our attention to need-based support.”
“I’m very concerned about the level of debt students come out of college with,” added Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee and a member of the new study panel. “The study committee is designed to explore as many avenues as we can to expand our graduation rates.”
The University System of Georgia’s six-year graduation rate has increased significantly during the last decade, surpassing 80% for the system as a whole and surging beyond 90% at the system’s research universities including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech.
The university system has taken various steps to boost graduation rates. The system has participated in the Complete College America program since 2011.
In 2022, the system launched the website Georgia Degrees Pay to show the value of a degree. The following year saw the start of GEORGIA MATCH, a direct admission program that involves sending letters to high school seniors listing the public universities, colleges and technical colleges they are academically eligible to attend and explaining how to claim a spot being held for them at the institution of their choice.
But Orrock said there remains room for improvement.
“Our workforce shortages are well documented,” she said. “More college graduates are a way for our state to attract businesses looking for the skill sets of college graduates.”
Georgia and New Hampshire are currently the only states that don’t offer a need-based scholarship program in their four-year public colleges and universities. But bringing need-based scholarships to Georgia will have to overcome an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue noted that the system’s Board of Regents has held the line on tuition for seven of the last 10 years.
Decisions by the General Assembly eliminating the special institutional fees the system began charging students during the Great Recession and restoring the funding cuts to HOPE made during the same economic downturn have helped keep tuition in check, he said.
“We welcome the discussion,” Perdue said of the upcoming study committee. “We’ve got a great story to tell.”
“We have some of the highest quality education at the lowest cost in the nation,” Burns added. “That’s a positive for Georgia.”
A key issue shaping the upcoming debate over higher education affordability will be whether the state should focus more on helping deserving high school students who can’t afford college gain access to postsecondary education or on students who are nearing a degree but struggling to pay for the final credits they need to graduate.
Orrock said high school counselors have told lawmakers that some high-achieving high school students are not enrolling in college because their families can’t afford it. While the GEORGIA MATCH program has helped, she said many students receiving letters informing them of university system institutions they are qualified to attend don’t end up enrolling.
Orrock said the late Hank Huckaby, who as a senior staff member helped then-Gov. Zell Miller launch HOPE and later served as university system chancellor, was a proponent of need-based scholarships.
“He said, ‘If you want the biggest game changer to make your workforce, economy, and families thrive, it’s need-based,’ ” she said.
But state Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, said giving a financial boost to college students nearing a degree is more important. Martin was the lead sponsor of legislation the General Assembly passed in 2022 offering students who have earned at least 80% of the credits required for their college degree grants of up to $2,500 to help pay their tuition.
“If you want to start a need-based scholarship, you start at the end,” he said. “At that point, students have proven they can do the work.”
Another factor lawmakers will have to consider is the cost to Georgia taxpayers of launching a need-based scholarship program.
The HOPE program is currently running a surplus of $1.6 billion, according to the resolution that created the study committee. But Martin said the legislature shouldn’t put those funds toward need-based scholarships without careful consideration.
“Just because there’s money doesn’t mean you spend it,” he said. “We shouldn’t put any new program in because we happen to have a surplus in the lottery or otherwise.”
While Martin and other conservative Republicans are wary of the potential fiscal impact of offering need-based scholarships, Orrock said there’s been GOP buy-in to at least giving the idea serious consideration.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the state Senate, got behind Orrock’s resolution to form the study committee and appointed the Democrat to chair the effort, a rare opportunity in the legislature for a member of the minority party.
“There’s interest in it by leadership,” Orrock said. “If we can put together a good-faith grant program, it will be win-win for Georgia and a win-win for bipartisanship.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Power has received delivery of the first of three new gas turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan, the Atlanta-based utility announced Friday.
The turbine was assembled by Mitsubishi Power in Savannah and transported to Plant Yates by truck and rail.
The new gas units are the first to be added to Georgia Power’s electrical generation fleet in a decade. When all three are in service, they will provide 1,300 megawatts of generating capacity.
“The new natural gas unit at Plant Yates will be a great addition to our fleet, using existing property and infrastructure to deliver the best overall value for customers and providing exciting new investment at a plant that has been an economic driver in Coweta County for decades,” said Rick Anderson, senior vice president and senior production officer for Georgia Power.
The state-of-the-art gas turbines will provide higher output and greater efficiency than previous generations of the technology. They also feature built-in flexibility to run on oil if natural gas becomes unavailable.
Environmental groups and consumer advocates have raised concerns that adding new gas-fired units to Georgia Power’s fleet will extend the company’s reliance on carbon emitting fossil fuels. They also argue natural gas prices are highly volatile.
The Georgia Public Service Commission has approved construction of the new units as part of a broader request for additional generating capacity to meet growing customer demand for electricity, primarily for large-load customers including data centers.
In addition to the new turbines at Plant Yates, Georgia Power also is planning to construct new gas units at Plant Bowen near Cartersville, Plant Wansley near Carrollton, and Plant McIntosh near Rincon.
Building the three new turbines at Plant Yates will generate about 600 construction jobs and add 15 permanent jobs to the plant’s current workforce of 60. The units are expected to be online by the end of 2027.
by Dave Williams | Aug 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Southwest Georgia man was convicted in federal court this week of wire fraud resulting from a pandemic fraud scheme involving family members.
Tyreek Brown, 28, of Pelham faces a maximum of 30 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release and a $1 million fine. He will be sentenced at a later date.
Two codefendants in the case – Sherronica Jackson, 38, and Alan Brown, 52, also from Pelham – previously pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on Nov. 12.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Jackson received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan for $20,207 through the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in March 2021. As part of the application process, she claimed a gross income for 2019 of $97,000, which she did not earn.
Jackson also helped her stepfather, Alan Brown, and her stepbrother, Tyreek Brown, obtain fraudulent PPP loans totaling $20,833. Alan Brown falsely claimed loans for a non-existent contracting business, while Tyreek Brown applied for two loans as sole proprietor of another business that didn’t exist.
After receiving the two loans, he sent Jackson money from a joint account he shared with Alan Brown amounting to $3,000.
Tyreek Brown was found guilty on one count of wire fraud and not guilty on a second count.
“Our office will pursue justice for these types of criminal schemes that deliberately defraud taxpayers,” said William R. “Will” Keyes, U.S. attorney for the Macon-based Middle District of Georgia. “I thank our law enforcement and prosecutorial team for holding those responsible accountable.”
The case was investigated by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General as part of its Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Taskforce.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
MADISON — A judge in Morgan County could set a precedent by forcing Georgia property owners who sued to halt development of a massive state-backed auto factory near their properties to pay for the other side’s legal costs.
The case involves the proposed Rivian electric automobile plant on a rural stretch near Social Circle off Interstate 20. Lawyers for Georgia and for a related quasi-governmental entity made their half-million-dollar demand in the local superior court Wednesday.
A half dozen local landowners sued the county in a bid to force compliance with local zoning.
They have been fighting a losing battle, in no small part due to the state’s unparalleled power as an entity that enjoys “sovereign immunity” from local ordinances, including zoning requirements.
The state bypassed the agricultural zoning for the 2,000-acre property by purchasing it, then leasing it to the Joint Development Authority for Morgan and nearby counties, which in turn leased it to Rivian.
Opponents of the plant say the state and authority are trying to silence dissent by going after the landowners’ pocketbooks for $344,000 in legal costs. Plant proponents say the state and the authority are trying to protect taxpayer dollars from frivolous lawsuits.
Near the end of the three-hour hearing, Morgan Superior Court Judge Stephen Bradley could not say when he would rule, let alone how. But he was sure of one thing: a ruling against the defendants would set a precedent in Georgia.
“I found no cases in which the state, as sovereign, obtained payment from citizens” for opposing a state action, he said.
Georgia law allows defendants, in this case the state and the authority, to recover legal fees from plaintiffs who file frivolous lawsuits. This suit was clearly frivolous because the state is not subject to local zoning and the plaintiffs knew that all along, said Charles E. Peeler, a lawyer contracted to represent the state.
“The motive is to delay, harass and stop the project,” he said.
Judge Bradley issued an initial ruling against the landowners several years ago, declining their request for a temporary restraining order on development of the Rivian project because, in his view, they had low odds of winning. The state Court of Appeals did not overrule him on that, and the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
But John A. Christy, who is representing the landowners in their lawsuit, said it remains an open question whether sovereign immunity applies when the state leases land to a developer. He told the judge that he had ruled that there was a “low probability of success,” not “no probability.”
Christy said the state was trying to “weaponize” the law that allows defendants to recoup attorney fees in frivolous cases, and he said a ruling against his clients would have “a chilling effect” on others considering a court fight against the state.
Bradley must rule not only on whether the plaintiffs must pay but also on how much.
The hearing featured attorneys for the state and for the authority taking the witness stand to explain their fees.
Peeler said his firm offered the state a “significant discount” by charging $625 an hour, which is nearly half his own hourly rate and well below the $1,400 an hour billed by another member of his firm who once served on the Georgia Supreme Court.
The state also got a good deal from recent hires at his firm, he said. A 2024 University of Georgia law school graduate and a 2023 Emory law grad both bill at more than $625 an hour, he said, eliciting a gasp from a woman seated near the front of the courtroom. “Lord have mercy,” she said.
Although Bradley did not indicate how he would rule, he did push back against an attorney for the authority, who had said the case was obviously frivolous from the start.
“I don’t know if I completely agree with you,” Bradley said, observing that the authority joined the lawsuit as a defendant for a reason. “If the result was so obvious, why did the JDA bother to intervene?”
Blake McCormack, chairman of the Morgan County Commission, said after the hearing that it would be a “travesty” if the judge made the plaintiffs pay; it would mean the “state used their tax dollars to fight against them,” he said.
He was shocked by the attorneys’ hourly fees.
“I’m not sure there are rocket scientists that deserve $1,400 per hour,” McCormack said. “That is crazy.”
An agent for the authority shared a statement by its board that ran in a local newspaper. “Citizens have the right to voice concerns,” the opinion piece said, “but when the legal system is weaponized to block a perfectly legal project, that is not a legitimate exercise of that right.”
Meanwhile, the Rivian project has been delayed.
The company paused development last year, then in January announced it had secured a $6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. Rivian said construction will begin in 2026, with its R2 and R3 models rolling out of the plant in 2028.
by Dave Williams | Aug 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.4% last month, down from 3.5% in June, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Georgia joblessness was eight-tenths of a point lower than the national unemployment rate of 4.2%.
“More Georgians are stepping into the workforce and securing jobs – a trend that’s held strong for two consecutive months,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Barbara Rivera Holmes said. “These gains reflect the power of putting workers first and building strong partnerships across Georgia.”
Despite the decline in unemployment, the number of jobs in Georgia decreased by 500 last month to just short of 5 million.
Job sectors posting the largest gains during the month were health care and social assistance, which added 2,800 jobs; durable goods manufacturing, which gained 2,700 jobs; and construction, with a gain of 2,100.
The sectors with the biggest job losses were accommodation and food services, which declined by 4,500 jobs; and transportation, warehousing and utilities, which posted a loss of 1,400.
Georgia’s labor force rose by 732 in July to nearly 5.4 million. The number of employed Georgians increased by 1,702 to nearly 5.2 million, while the ranks of the unemployed fell by 970 to 185,351.
Initial jobless claims increased by 5,073 during the month to 24,730.
