ATLANTA – Legislation reforming the salary structure for superior court and statewide judges in Georgia overwhelmingly cleared the state House of Representatives Thursday.
House Bill 85, which the House passed 163-7, is aimed at superior court judges, who currently are paid both a state salary and optional county subsidies.
Those local subsidies vary significantly, Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, the bill’s chief sponsor, told his House colleagues.
“That has led to a lot of disparities in pay throughout the state,” he said.
Leverett’s bill would cap local supplements paid to most superior court judges at 10% of their state salary or $20,106. The measure also includes provisions ensuring that no judge’s salary would be cut by the measure.
House Bill 86, another Leverette bill that passed 167-6, would reform the salary structure for statewide judges, including justices of the Georgia Supreme Court and state Court of Appeals as well as the judge who presides over the Statewide Business Court.
Under the bill, state Supreme Court justices would receive 100% of the salary paid to federal judges in the Northern District of Georgia. Judges on the Court of Appeals would get 99% of the federal judges’ salary, and the Statewide Business Court judge would be paid 95% of that salary.
The judge presiding over a new statewide tax court the General Assembly created last year also would get 95% of a federal judge’s salary in the Northern District.
ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Michael Boggs used his annual State of the Judiciary address to members of the General Assembly Tuesday to plug two bills raising the salaries of superior court and statewide judges.
“An independent judiciary must be able to attract and retain qualified jurists,” Boggs told a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate.
House Bill 85 and House Bill 86, which contain the proposed pay hikes, were due to get their first airing Tuesday afternoon in the House Judiciary Committee.
Boggs also praised lawmakers for passing a Senate bill last year aimed at improving security for judges by shielding their personal information such as addresses and phone numbers from the public. He cited a recent increase in threats to Georgia judges, including bomb threats last month that forced the closure and evacuation of the Muscogee County Courthouse.
“It is crucial that our courtrooms are secure and those who work within them can perform their duties without fear,” Boggs said. “This means not only upgrading our physical security measures but also implementing comprehensive training so that security situations can be handled effectively, or better yet, prevented altogether.”
Boggs gave a shout-out to Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua, who is chairing a committee that developed training sessions last year to help both judges and lawmakers understand how to better protect themselves and their families from security threats.
The chief justice also updated legislators on efforts to gauge the impact of artificial intelligence technology on the state’s legal system, allow trial judges to address a shortage of court reporters by using a digital recording system, and encourage more lawyers to practice in rural counties where legal help is scarce.
Boggs singled out Cobb County’s Veterans Accountability and Treatment Court program launched in 2014 to improve outcomes for veterans in Georgia’s criminal justice system.
And he asked lawmakers to support legislation to end partisan judicial elections in the few remaining probate and magistrate courts across the state that haven’t switched to nonpartisan elections.
“The moment judges stop interpreting and applying the law as it is written and start making decisions based on their own policy preferences – or when the public starts believing that’s what judges are doing or should be doing – our democratic system of government becomes irreparably damaged,” he said.
“Simply put, an independent judiciary with respect for the rule of law keeps us from becoming a society in which the guy with the biggest stick is in charge.”
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed a package of a dozen bills related to health care Tuesday, including legislation providing welfare benefits to pregnant women.
“We’re taking important steps to improve access to and quality of health care,” Kemp said during a signing ceremony inside the Georgia Capitol.
Federal law currently allows low-income pregnant women to receive cash aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, but Georgia law does not. The General Assembly overwhelmingly passed House Bill 129 to rectify that.
Kemp pledged in his State of the State address in January to push for legislation extending TANF benefits to pregnant women. The bill was introduced by freshman state Rep. Soo Hong, R-Lawrenceville, one of the governor’s floor leaders in the House.
The other health-care bills Kemp signed Tuesday include:
— House Bill 85, which requires insurance companies to cover biomarker testing if supported by medical and scientific evidence.
— House Bill 383, increasing penalties for assaulting a health-care worker.
— House Bill 295, beefing up consumer protections against surprise billing.
— Senate Bill 46, requiring testing of all pregnant women for HIV and syphilis.
— Senate Bill 106, creating a three-year pilot program providing coverage for remote maternal clinical health services.
— Senate Bill 223, requiring reimbursements of expenses incurred by patients participating in cancer clinical trials.
ATLANTA – Letting first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) collect workers’ compensation to pay for their treatment would ensure mental illness is treated the same as physical injury, supporters told Georgia lawmakers Wednesday.
But the fate of House Bill 855 remained uncertain after Rep. Bill Werkheiser, R-Glennville, chairman of the House Industry & Labor Committee, announced he would refer it for vetting to a 110-member council that advises the State Board of Workers’ Compensation.
The committee discussed the legislation for more than 90 minutes without voting on it, hearing emotional testimony from first responders who have suffered PTSD.
Sponsored by Rep. Gregg Kennard, D-Lawrenceville, the bill was inspired by Ashley Wilson, a Gwinnett County police officer struck by PTSD after her partner was shot multiple times and died in her arms.
“I went from being a triathlete to someone who struggled to get off the couch and brush my teeth,” she told the committee.
Wilson ended up spending more than $20,000 and using up hours of leave time to get treatment.
But other supporters of Kennard’s bill said many first responders with PTSD don’t get help because Georgia’s workers’ comp law doesn’t cover PTSD unless accompanied by a physical injury, and they can’t afford the cost of treatment.
In the most extreme cases, those who don’t get help turn to suicide. The bill’s supporters cited statistics showing more police officers are dying by their own hands than in the line of duty.
“This has become an epidemic just like COVID,” said Chad Black, chairman of the Georgia EMS Association. “Something has to be done.”
The bill enjoys several advantages that appear to give it a good shot at passing. It has bipartisan sponsorship in the House, and Speaker David Ralston has made improving access to mental health services in Georgia a top priority for the 2022 legislative session.
Supporters who testified in favor of the measure Wednesday included Will Warihay, a workers’ comp lawyer.
He said Georgia’s workers’ comp system works well enough that he trusts it to sniff out false PTSD claims.
But Dan Kniffen, another lawyer who represents Georgia cities and counties in workers’ comp cases, warned that covering first responders’ PTSD claims through workers’ comp would touch off a wave of costly litigation.
“We’re not here to say these situations don’t happen or that these people don’t need help,” he said. “The question is whether the benefit should be under workers’ comp.”
Rep. Jodi Lott, R-Evans, suggested the state Office of Public Safety Support, which the General Assembly created in 2018, is currently an underused resource that operates a peer support program that could help traumatized first responders.
But Kennard argued peer support might not be enough for those suffering the most severe cases of PTSD.
“If a police officer gets shot, they would need a lot more than peer support,” he said.
Cosponsors of Kennard’s bill include Reps. Bill Hitchens, R-Rincon, a former director of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, and Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, a former minority whip in the House.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The state tax credits that have spurred the exponential growth of Georgia’s film industry will get added scrutiny under legislation Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Tuesday.
House Bill 1037, which the General Assembly passed during the last week of this year’s session, will require all film productions located in Georgia to undergo mandatory audits by the Georgia Department of Revenue or third-party auditors selected by the state agency.
It also tightens rules governing how film companies transfer or sell unused tax credits to other businesses, a common practice for production groups that conduct part of their movie-making work outside Georgia.
The economic impact of film and TV production in Georgia has soared from $93 million in direct spending in fiscal 2007, the year before lawmakers adopted the film tax credit, to a peak of $2.9 billion in fiscal 2019 before dipping to $2.2 billion when the coronavirus pandemic ground production to a halt during the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year.
However, two critical audits released in January put the tax credit’s supporters on the defensive, spurring efforts to bring the program under tighter control. The reports found the program has been poorly managed and called into question the accuracy of the fiscal impact estimates.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Matt Dollar, R-Marietta, passed both the Georgia House and Senate overwhelmingly.
Dollar’s legislation was among a flurry of bills Kemp signed Tuesday as he neared the deadline for signing the measures lawmakers passed during the General Assembly session that ended in June. The governor has until Wednesday – 40 calendar days after the session’s conclusion – to sign or veto bills.
Also on Tuesday, Kemp signed legislation banning utilities from burning wooden railroad ties treated in creosote to produce electricity. House Bill 857, sponsored by Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, was sparked by complaints from residents in two Northeast Georgia counties who have been pestered over the past year by foul smells and water pollution emanating from two new biomass plants.
