ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives Monday passed a bill that would limit the ability of local governments to impose lengthy moratoriums on the building of single-family houses.
The Housing Regulation Transparency Act, which passed 127-43, would prevent local governments from extending moratoriums that bar the building of single-family homes beyond 180 days.
“[The bill] allows them to declare a moratorium for any reason for 180 days, but they cannot continue to extend moratoriums over and over again,” said the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon.
“If a local community can just declare a moratorium and say, ‘We just don’t want anyone else coming,’ – well, then we’re allowing them to build economic walls around that county and city.”
The bill also allows local governments to waive impact fees for houses that are 2,500 square feet or less in order to incentivize more single-family construction, Washburn said. Local governments sometimes impose impact fees to cover the infrastructure costs of new housing developments.
The bill drew the support of a newly formed housing coalition made up of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Home Builders Association of Georgia, the Georgia Association of Realtors and Habitat for Humanity. The Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia do not oppose the bill, Washburn said.
A separate bill sponsored by Washburn that would have prevented counties or municipalities from regulating a long list of building design elements drew stringent opposition from local-control advocates and did not make it out of committee this session.
The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Students Hannah Lee and Cameron Hammett share their opposition to the voucher bill with Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan. (Photo courtesy Georgia Youth Justice Coalition)
ATLANTA – The state Senate Monday approved a bill that would provide Georgia students residing in low-performing school districts $6,000 to spend on private school tuition.
“This is a money-follows-the-child bill,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, who sponsored the “Georgia Promise Scholarship Act.” “[It] levels the playing field for parents who want to get their kids out of the lower 25% of all schools in the state.”
While the original bill would have applied to most students in Georgia, Dolezal added a last-minute amendment limiting the scholarship to just those residing in the attendance zones of the lowest-performing 25% schools in the state.
The bill essentially allows the redistribution of state funding from public to private schools, Dolezal said. Districts would be able to hold on to the local funding portion of each student’s education bill, which would, Dolezal said, increase the amount of funding available to local districts.
The bill would not apply to those who are already studying in private schools or being homeschooled.
Parents who wish to spend the money at private or virtual schools would be able to do so. They would also be able to spend the money on home-schooling and other expenses such as tutoring by a certified educator, curriculum purchase costs, and transportation to and from schools.
“The parent never has access to the money directly – it’s all administered by a third party,” said Dolezal. The $6,000 would not be considered taxable income and the funds would be limited to eligible educational expenses.
The bill passed on a 33-23 party line vote, drawing vehement criticism from Senate Democrats.
“Private school vouchers undermine public schools by diverting desperately needed resources away from the public school system, which serves all students, to fund the education of a few,” said Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson.
If just 2% of Georgia students – around 35,000 – use the scholarships, that would divert around $210 million from the public schools annually, Sims said.
“There is no fiscal note on this bill, something that should be required of any bill of this magnitude,” Sims added, referring to the financial analyses that are typically required for bills that impact state finances.
“The mean cost of annual private school tuition in Georgia is nearly $12,000 – this shatters any illusion that $6,000 would help low-income Georgians access private schools,” added Sims. She also said the bill would leave rural students out in the cold since such students may not have access to private schools.
“Everywhere it’s been tried, it’s worked,” said Cole Muzio, president of the Christian organization Frontline Policy Council. He said private schools offer scholarships that can help families make up the difference between $6,000 and the full tuition cost.
But some Georgia students disagree.
“Voucher bills … threaten to defund our public schools, sending public dollars to private schools which are unaccountable and inaccessible to most of Georgia’s students,” said Hannah Lee, a Coweta County student. “My school deserves equitable funding, and my classmates and I deserve the adequate education our legislators have promised us.”
The bill now moves to the House for consideration.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, chairs the state House of Representative’s public health committee, which unanimously approved a new mental health bill Tuesday. Cooper was joined by Kim Jones, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Georgia (left), and Jeff Breedlove, chief of policy and communications for the Georgia Council for Recovery (right), just after the committee approved the bill.(Photo credit: Rebecca Grapevine)
ATLANTA – The second chapter in Georgia’s mental health reform effort Tuesday gained the unanimous approval of the state House of Representatives’ Public Health Committee.
Cosponsored by Reps. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, and Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Atlanta, the lengthy new bill aims to increase the size of the mental-health workforce in Georgia and make it easier for people who cycle between the streets, emergency rooms and jails to get the help they need.
“What we’ve seen is a commitment by the House in a bipartisan way to continue to save lives by advancing policy to transform the broken system into the system that serves Georgia families,” Jeff Breedlove, chief of policy and communications for the Georgia Council for Recovery, told Capitol Beat just after the committee vote.
To address Georgia’s workforce shortage, the bill would create a loan repayment program for people who are already in practice providing mental-health services and agree to provide care in underserved communities. That would build on last year’s measure that created a similar loan forgiveness program for students. This year’s proposal focuses on encouraging those who are already in practice to serve those in need as soon as possible.
The bill also would create a task force to look at what the state can do to streamline mental-health licensing procedures, including creating a way for people who are already licensed in foreign countries to get licenses in Georgia.
It would reform some disciplinary measures for nurses and other professionals facing behavioral health or substance abuse problems to bring them in line with current procedures for doctors.
Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, who is a doctor herself, was able to get a last-minute amendment that would require a workforce study commission to examine cultural competence and language so as to better understand how the state can meet the needs of Georgia’s diverse population.
“That’s a pro-business amendment,” Breedlove said. “I think it’s so important as Georgia touts itself as the number one state to do business that we pay attention to the changing demographics of the state.”
The bill would also commission a “bed study” that would examine how the state’s inpatient psychiatric treatment beds are allocated. Oliver has expressed concern that children from out of state are being treated in Georgia’s facilities in part because they’re less expensive.
“Do we not have enough beds or are we are not using them correctly?” Oliver said.
To address the problem of “familiar faces” – people who require many health-care, criminal-justice and homeless-related resources due to severe mental illnesses – the bill requires the state Department of Community Affairs to undertake a study about how the Peach State could provide better housing for people with serious mental illness.
Two “peer support specialists” would be added to the state’s Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission, which is tasked with studying Georgia’s mental-health system and recommending policy reforms. Peer support specialists are people who have lived through mental-health or substance-abuse challenges and use that experience, coupled with specialized training, to help others with similar problems.
“It’s important for peers to be on there because they are the ones … who have been through this system and know what works and what doesn’t work,” said Kim Jones, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Georgia.
The bill now moves to the full state House of Representatives for consideration, where it must receive approval by next Monday’s “Crossover Day” deadline.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, speaks in favor of the Safe Schools Act on Monday.
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives handily passed a bill Monday aimed at bolstering school safety in Georgia.
The “Safe Schools Act,” which has the strong support of Gov. Brian Kemp, passed on a 148-20 vote.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, one of Kemp’s floor leaders in the House, would require schools to conduct an intruder or active-shooter drill by Oct. 1 each year.
It would also require public schools to submit school safety plans to the Georgia Emergency Management Association as well as local emergency management and law enforcement agencies.
The legislation would create a mechanism for school employees to earn a “school safety and anti-gang endorsement” after completing a special training program. And it encourages colleges and universities to include training for future teachers in best practices for safe schools and deterring gangs.
Though the bill breezed through the House, it drew criticism from some Democratic lawmakers.
“Unfortunately, there is no evidence to indicate this bill is going to make our schools safer,” said freshman Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook, D-Savannah. “It’s just one more burden this body is putting on teachers and students in Georgia’s public schools.”
Westbrook cited a study conducted by researchers at Georgia Tech showing increases in anxiety and depression among students for 90 days after active-shooter drills.
“If we want to truly increase school safety, there are some proactive measures we could consider,” she said.
Westbrook urged her House colleagues to pass bills that would increase punishments for allowing children access to guns or not adequately securing guns.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, voted for the bill but also urged lawmakers to consider passing gun-control measures.
“We have so many options at our disposal to not make this a reality for our babies and their teachers,” Evans said.
Evans criticized Republican leaders for not giving gun-control bills hearings in committee this session.
Freshman Rep. Leesa Hagan, R-Lyons, a former teacher, spoke out in favor of the bill.
“It gives our children a tool so that if an unfortunately horrible act were to happen at their school, they know what they do,” Hagan said. “They shouldn’t have to do these drills, but the sad fact is these things do happen.”
The bill will now move to the Georgia Senate for consideration.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Republicans in the General Assembly are making a renewed push for “mandatory minimum” sentences this year in the hopes of reducing crimes in Georgia.
Such laws require judges to impose minimum sentences and often prohibit probation or other commutation of criminal sentences in an effort to deter criminal activity.
But Democratic lawmakers and independent experts question whether the mandatory-minimum approach will solve the crime problem.
The debate centers on whether tougher punishments truly deter criminal activity and, if they do not, what does.
So far this session, the state Senate has passed three bills imposing mandatory minimum sentences.
One proposal, supported by Gov. Brian Kemp and carried by his floor leader Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, requires judges to impose prison sentences of at least five years for those convicted of gang-recruiting activities and 10 years for those convicted of recruiting people under 17 years old.
A second bill, sponsored by Roswell Republican Sen. John Albers, imposes a minimum five-year sentence for possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a domestic violence felony.
A third, sponsored by former law-enforcement officer and Cataula Republican Sen. Randy Robertson, makes pimping and pandering (purchasing sex) a felony and requires a mandatory minimum sentence of at least one year in most cases.
Robertson acknowledged that such “tough on crime” approaches have fallen out of favor while speaking about his bill on the Senate floor this month.
“There are extreme examples of tougher sentences for all offenses throughout the country, and we have gone back and corrected that … and I would certainly hope our country has learned from that,” Robertson said. But he contended that for pimping and purchasing sex, in particular, tougher sentences will deter crime.
“We have seen a rise in crime like we have not seen in generations, and it’s time to turn the tide,” Albers said in support of Robertson’s measure. “You vote ‘no’ on this bill, you’re saying, ‘I support the criminals.’ ”
Democrats, however, mostly oppose such measures.
Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, a former solicitor general in Richmond County, argued the bill aimed at gang recruiting could have the unintended consequence of reducing sentences for those guilty of serious crimes and putting tough penalties on those convicted of relatively minor crimes.
A low-level gang member is unlikely to have useful information that would lead to the identification or conviction of a senior gang member, Jones said during a Senate floor debate.
“The person who doesn’t know anything … they go to jail five years [because] they can’t tell on anybody. … They have nothing to offer,” he said.
Criminal defense attorneys, as well, oppose the measures as the wrong solution to the problem.
“People in reality don’t look to see what the criminal code says to find the mandatory penalty and become discouraged by that penalty to pursue whatever behavior they’re going to pursue,” said Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, during a committee hearing.
Independent experts agree that such measures are unlikely to work.
“It’s one of the things where it sounds good in theory, but there’s very little consistent evidence to suggest that there’s that beneficial effect,” said Daniel Mears, a distinguished research professor in criminology at Florida State University.
“It’s not a good betting option, and it’s certainly not one that you would pursue if you’re pursuing evidence-based policy.”
Mears said mandatory minimum laws could have a host of unwanted consequences. They take away power from judges who are supposed to be the impartial arbiters of criminal cases. The measures can also bolster the power of gangs inside prisons, which can then filter back into life “on the outside.”
“After a certain amount of a penalty … there’s no deterrent effect,” agreed Charles Katz, director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University.
“If you commit a gun-related crime, you deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. But adding lengthier sentences after a certain point – you’re not getting anything more out of it.”
Katz said politicians pursue such tough-on-crime policies because they “tug on people’s emotions” despite the lack of evidence to support the measures.
Katz pointed to an approach called “pulling levers,” or focused deterrence, as having strong evidence behind it.
In that approach, police engage with a target population, usually chronic offenders, explain how the criminal justice system will respond to their crimes and offer resources such as housing or employment to help address the causes of crime.
The pulling levers approach is rated as promising by the federal government’s National Institute of Justice. The approach has worked in many communities, Katz said, and even wealthy Republican activist brothers Charles and David Koch put their money behind the approach.
