ATLANTA – The state Senate is upping the ante on funding to help victims of Hurricane Helene recover from the massive storm that marched through South Georgia and east Georgia from Valdosta to Augusta last September.
The Senate Appropriations Committee signed off Monday on a $40.5 billion mid-year budget that would add $125 million to the $812 million Gov. Brian Kemp and the state House of Representatives already have earmarked for residents, business owners, farmers, and timber producers who suffered losses from Helene. Kemp’s original mid-budget requested $615 million, and the House kicked in another $197 million.
Of the $125 million the Senate added, $25 million would go to Georgians who are neither farmers nor timber producers, committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said before Monday’s vote.
“They, through no fault of their own, are awaiting insurance claims, or maybe they were denied coverage and are still sleeping with the only thing between their beds and the outside elements being a thin blue tarp they were given some 149 days ago,” he said. “I believe we owe them the same duty we do our farming and forest industries.”
Tillery said the committee reduced funding across the mid-year budget, which covers state spending through June 30, and rolled the resulting savings into disaster relief. Many of those cuts were made possible by delays in filling budgeted positions or holding off on building projects that have been funded but haven’t begun construction.
The Senate committee supported Kemp’s request for $501 million to increase surface water supplies in Coastal Georgia to supply the huge Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant now under construction west of Savannah.
The panel also backed the governor’s recommendation to hire more than 400 additional correctional officers to staff a state prison system criticized last fall in a federal audit for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence. In fact, the committee added another $20 million to help fund a proposed pay raise for correctional officers.
The Senate mid-year budget also calls for three modular prison units the state Department of Corrections is planning to construct to house inmates temporarily while making room for projects fixing crumbling infrastructure in existing prisons. The governor had asked for four modulars, which the House reduced to two.
The mid-year budget is expected to reach the Senate floor for a vote later this week.