by Ty Tagami | Sep 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Health-care advocates warned Thursday that Georgia residents who have to find their own insurance in the government marketplace should expect significant rate increases next year.
Insurance companies are filing rate increase requests with regulators, arguing that federal budget cuts and the end of COVID-19 tax credits are the main drivers, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA.
“These are individual workers and working families who simply don’t get coverage on the job or through public programs like Medicaid or Medicare,” Wright said.
Wright said affected workers include retail and restaurant employees, ride-hail and food-delivery drivers, beauticians, barbers, plumbers and other self-employed workers.
Georgia’s government marketplace is called Georgia Access. The state also offers Pathways to Coverage for those nearer the poverty level.
The group KFF calculates that a half million Georgians could lose coverage. Another group, Georgians for a Healthy Future (GHF), puts that number at 340,000, estimating an average rate increase of 75%. (The smaller figure is attributed to the expiration of the tax credits alone. The larger figure includes tax credits and budget cuts.)
“If costs soar and coverage slips away, the consequences will ripple through every part of our state at almost every income level,” said Whitney Griggs, health policy director for GHF.
Georgia’s Office of Insurance was not immediately available to clarify the numbers, but it will not be long before insurance shoppers see the result, with enrollment for 2026 likely to start around November.
by Dave Williams | Sep 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Valdosta State University President Richard Carvajal is stepping down to take a position as president of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
Carvajal will remain at VSU through the end of the current semester before taking up his new job on Jan. 20, the university announced Wednesday.
Carvajal brought stability to Valdosta State when he took the reins there in 2017 as the university’s seventh president in eight years.
“Dr. Carvajal has led Valdosta State with a focus on student success and strengthening the university’s ties to the community,” University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. “His steady leadership and deep commitment to South Georgia have made a difference, and I’m grateful for his service as we wish him and his family our best.”
“This decision has not been easy,” Carvajal added. “VSU has been my home for almost a decade. Serving alongside our incredible students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners has been among the greatest honors of my life. … While I now feel called to return to my first home in northern California, Valdosta State will always remain a part of me.”
Carvajal presided over a series of campus renovations during his tenure at VSU, while construction of a new $39 million performing arts center is well underway. Valdosta State also surpassed 3,000 in graduate student enrollment for the first time.
Before coming to Valdosta, Carvajal served as president of Bainbridge State College and co-led the consolidation of Darton State College and Albany State University.
“I have always believed that leaders should have the goal of leaving places better than they found them,” he said. “Working together with so many, we have most definitely made VSU and South Georgia better, and I know that the best is yet to come.”
by Dave Williams | Sep 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The impact of International Paper’s decision to close two pulp and paper mills in Coastal Georgia at the end of this month will spread far beyond those workers directly affected, state Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said Wednesday.
“This is more than 1,100 jobs,” Harper told members of the Georgia House Rural Development Committee meeting on the campus of South Georgia State College in Douglas. “This is tire shops, truck dealerships, mom-and-pop restaurants.”
But most affected by the impending shutdown of mills in Savannah and Riceboro will be Georgia’s timber industry, still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Helene nearly a year ago and a longer-term drop in demand for wood due to foreign competition, increased use of recycled wood, and technological innovations that have led to lighter wood products.
“Four and a half million tons of Georgia-grown timber lost a home with these announcements,” said Devon Dartnell, forest utilization chief for the Georgia Forestry Commission. “That equates to about 70 logging crews in Georgia that don’t have a place to take wood. They probably won’t make payroll next month.”
International Paper announced the mill closures on Aug. 21, just weeks after Georgia-Pacific shut down its containerboard mill in the Southwest Georgia community of Cedar Springs. The closures are reducing the state’s supply of paper mills from 11 – down from a peak of 18 in 1977 – to eight.
Harper said state officials were caught off-guard by the news that International Paper, a giant factor in the coastal economy for decades, was pulling up stakes.
“As good as the state of Georgia has been to these companies, to close their doors in such a way … was a disservice to the industry, a disservice to the communities it impacts, and a disservice to those employees,” he said.
The rural development committee spent much of Wednesday’s daylong hearing talking about short- and long-term approaches economic development officials and industry leaders can take to mitigate the impacts of losing the mills.
The most immediate response is coming in Savannah and Riceboro. International Paper was sponsoring a jobs fair for laid off workers in the smaller Liberty County community on Wednesday, to be followed by a jobs fair in Savannah set for Thursday and Friday.
“This is a skilled workforce that is valuable,” said Bert Brantley, president and CEO of the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce. “These folks will be in high demand.”
Along similar lines, the Georgia Association of Manufacturing is launching a website to help those out of work interact directly with employers via social media.
Stephanie Scearce, vice president of workforce innovation for the trade association, compared the platform to LinkedIn, but just for manufacturers.
“This is the missing piece bridging the gap between our manufacturers, education partners, and the general public,” she said.
Over a longer term, several speakers called for a more aggressive effort by the state and the timber industry to push converting wood into biomass. There’s a huge demand for wood pellets in Europe, which are burned to generate electricity there, while researchers are developing alternative fuels from biomass for use in aircraft and ships.
“We’ve got to deal with this stigma about biomass,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the state Public Service Commission. “It’s not carbon-free … but it’s a whole lot cleaner than a lot of things that have powered this country.”
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns cautioned committee members that any solutions they might come up with must be both economically and politically possible. But Burns, R-Newington, injected a note of optimism to the work ahead.
“The solutions we craft are about our future,” he said. “We can make an impact on this industry.”
by Ty Tagami | Sep 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia Democrats are losing a member of the state Senate as he gears up his campaign for next year’s Democratic primary for governor.
Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta, said Wednesday that he is resigning from the Senate “because the best way I can serve the people of Georgia is by putting my whole heart into this campaign.”
The former Atlanta school board member is contesting two prominent Democrats for the party nomination.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is running, as is former Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, a former state lawmaker who served as the appointed school superintendent for DeKalb County in the 2010s and then as the elected CEO of DeKalb.
Senate Democrats issued a statement praising Esteves’ efforts during three legislative sessions, saying he worked to expand access to health care, invest in public schools, and reduce the cost of housing for seniors.
Esteves’ campaign touted his involvement in legislation that will save Atlanta seniors $1,000 on their annual taxes, in passage of a constitutional amendment to cap increases in home values and in the defeat of the Buckhead City movement.
Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican nomination.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is campaigning in the GOP primary against state Attorney General Chris Carr.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A former Democrat who switched to Republican in the Georgia House of Representatives is challenging longtime State School Superintendent Richard Woods for next year’s GOP nomination.
Mesha Mainor, who clashed with Democrats over her support for private school vouchers, joins several Republicans who want to prevent Woods from winning a fourth term as the state’s education leader.
In July, Fred “Bubba” Longgrear, superintendent of the Candler County School District, said he would challenge Woods in the primary. Randell E. Trammel, who lives in Cartersville and is CEO of the Center for Civic Engagement, announced his candidacy in June, nearly a year after Nelva M. Lee. She is a Locust Grove entrepreneur Gov. Brian Kemp had appointed to a two-year term on the state Board of Community Health in 2021.
Mainor cast herself as an independent voice, saying she switched from Democrat to Republican because they represented “authoritarianism.”
“I left the Democratic Party because I refused to follow the political agenda of radical Democrats and the American Federation of Teachers that puts government authoritarianism over parents and children,” Mainor said Wednesday.
The former state representative from west Atlanta switched parties in 2023 after Democrats and some Republicans united to stop legislation to create a school voucher program. Mainor voted with the Republican majority to pass the voucher bill when it returned in early 2024.
But her district provided a deep well of votes for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and she lost her seat to a Democrat in the November 2024 general election.
The state school superintendent leads the state Department of Education and is responsible for distributing state and federal funds to Georgia’s 180 school districts. The superintendent must ensure those funds are used appropriately and must make sure schools follow the law and state Board of Education rules. The superintendent can also make recommendations to the state board.
