ATLANTA – The state Senate passed a $37.5 billion midyear budget Thursday that increases spending by $5 billion, including $2 billion from an unprecedented $16 billion surplus.
The legislation, which sailed through the Senate 54-1, represents a 9.4% increase over the fiscal 2024 budget the General Assembly passed last spring.
The Senate agreed with 95% of the spending recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp made when he presented the midyear budget last month, including $1,000 one-time pay supplements for public school teachers and state and University System of Georgia employees.
More than 58% of the funding goes to education and more than 22% to health care, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery told his Senate colleagues before Thursday’s vote.
Despite the massive budget reserves, the governor and legislature remain committed to a conservative approach to spending, said Tillery, R-Vidalia.
“We can’t invest in every good idea that approaches our desks,” he said. “We have not started new positions. We’ve also tried not to start new programs.”
However, the surplus will allow the state to fund capital projects from cash this year rather than the usual practice of borrowing the money. Tillery said that approach will save Georgia taxpayers.
“We’re using our savings to avoid the record-high inflation we see in the bond market,” Tillery said.
The list of building projects in the midyear budget includes $450 million for a new state prison in Washington County, $178 million for a new dental school at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus in Savannah, and $50 million for a new medical school at the University of Georgia in Athens.
After the Senate passed the midyear budget, the House disagreed with the Senate version of the spending plan, and the two chambers appointed members of a joint conference committee that will work out the two legislative chambers’ differences.
After the General Assembly approves the midyear budget, which covers state spending through June 30, lawmakers will begin work on Kemp’s fiscal 2025 budget proposals.
ATLANTA – Legislation that would create a state council to set standards for books that could be banned from public school libraries as obscene cleared a Georgia Senate committee late Wednesday.
“This bill is about making sure our public school libraries are not places for kids to be exposed to sexually explicit materials,” Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee and the bill’s chief sponsor, said before the vote.
Senate Bill 394 would create the Georgia Council of Library Materials Standards, whose members would be appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the House, House minority leader, and Senate minority leader. The council would create a grading system that would be used to decide which books fit the legal definition of “harmful to minors” or “sexually explicit” and therefore should be banned.
Schools that fail to comply with the standards the council sets forth would not be subject to criminal charges. However, they would be subject to complaints from parents that potentially could lead to lawsuits.
Spokesman for several faith-based organizations spoke out in support of the bill Wednesday.
Taylor Hawkins of FrontLine Policy Council said the measure simply requires keeping the same material out of the hands of children in the public schools that is already prohibited on the streets of Georgia.
“It’s a common-sense bill,” he said.
But several civil rights advocates and educators complained he bill could be used to target books about homosexuality.
Tracey Nance, Georgia’s 2020-21 Teacher of the Year, said about 10% of the state’s population identifies as LGBTQ.
“This bill is not what Georgians want and, more importantly, it’s not who Georgians are,” she said.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, who voted against the legislation, said gay Americans enjoy full legal rights now that the U.S. Supreme Court has legalized gay marriage.
“There are going to be children in schools whose parents are gay,” she said. “(This bill) is an attempt to indoctrinate values.”
But Republicans on the committee said the legislation is not an effort to marginalize any groups of Georgians.
“We’re not singling out any specific act of sexuality,” said Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth. “It’s not attempting to indoctrinate students.”
The legislation now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
ATLANTA – Legislation putting guardrails around Georgia’s popular film tax credit cleared a state House subcommittee Tuesday.
House Bill 1180, which a House Ways and Means subcommittee approved unanimously, would require film production companies to meet at least four of 10 criteria to qualify for an additional 10% income tax credit on top of the 20% base credit the General Assembly enacted in 2008.
The film tax credit generated $8.55 billion in economic impact in fiscal 2022, according to a study released late last year. At the same time, the credit costs Georgia taxpayers about $1 billion a year in lost tax revenue, making it the most expensive tax incentive on the books in the Peach State.
As introduced earlier this month, the bill listed nine criteria to qualify for the higher tax credit, including requirements that at least half of the crew and vendors working on a film in Georgia be Georgia residents.
A 10th criterion added to the list would allow filmmakers to qualify for the tax credit if they use Georgia-based music productions in their films.
“It’s important to show our support for Georgia musicians and hopefully get them into films … on a more regular basis,” said Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, the bill’s chief sponsor.
Jill Helton of Pigmental Studios, which has a 117-acre film studio under development in St. Marys, said a provision in the bill capping the total amount of sales or transfers of credits within a calendar year at 2.5% of the governor’s revenue estimate for that year would make it nearly impossible for the growing number of independent filmmakers to operate in Georgia.
“Independent filmmakers will simply leave and conduct their business in other states,” she said.
But Carpenter said a change in the original version of the bill that would restore the amount a production company would have to spend on a single production to qualify for the tax credit to $500,000 would benefit smaller film productions, including independent films. The original measure had proposed doubling that threshold to $1 million.
“It’s not going to kill independent films,” Carpenter said.
Subcommittee Chairman Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, said the impact of the proposed changes to the film tax credit wouldn’t affect film producers immediately because the legislation wouldn’t take effect until 2026.
The bill now moves to the full House Ways and Means Committee.
ATLANTA – Longtime state Rep. Penny Houston announced Tuesday that she will not seek reelection this year.
Houston, R-Nashville, has served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 26 years under seven House speakers. She told her House colleagues she wants to spend more time with her family.
“I hope I’ve been a voice for the people of rural Georgia and a voice for people who don’t have a voice,” Houston said.
Houston chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Economic Development, which oversees funds for eight state agencies. She also serves on the House Ways & Means, Banks & Banking, Economic Development & Tourism, Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight, Appropriations committees, as well as the House Rural Development Council.
Houston said she plans to contribute to her community in different ways now that she’s leaving the General Assembly. Specifically, she said she will advocate for improved dental care in rural Georgia.
Houston’s House District 170 includes Berrien County and portions of Cook and Tift counties.
ATLANTA – The state Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $37.5 billion midyear budget Tuesday that includes $1,000 one-time pay supplements for Georgia teachers, state workers and University System of Georgia employees.
The spending plan, which the full Senate is expected to take up later this week, contains $5 billion in new spending, $2 billion of which would come out of an unprecedented $16 billion budget surplus.
Georgia’s public school teachers are making $65,000 to $69,000 a year on average, committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, told committee members before Tuesday’s unanimous vote. That’s among the highest in the South.
But more than 29,000 of the 55,000 state employees earn less than $40,000 annually, he said.
Besides the pay supplements, the midyear budget also takes advantage of the healthy surplus by funding more than $1.1 billion in capital projects for the first time in memory with cash rather than bonds. Tillery said the pay-as-you-go approach will represent a huge savings for Georgia taxpayers.
“It will save our children and grandchildren millions and is a smart move given our current economy, he said.
The capital projects list includes $450 million for a new state prison in Washington County, $178 million for a new dental school at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus in Savannah, and $50 million for a new medical school at the University of Georgia in Athens. Gov. Brian Kemp recommended all three projects in the midyear budget he presented to the General Assembly last month.
The Senate committee allocated $40 million to renovate the Atlanta Farmers Market in Forest Park, less than the $50 million the governor requested but more than the $35 million in the version of the midyear budget already passed by the state House of Representatives.
Among the items the Senate added is $3.1 million to design a new medical examiner’s office in Macon.
The committee signed off on the House’s recommendation for $110,000 to add visible watermarks to paper ballots but only gave tentative approval to $5 million for new paper ballots that no longer rely on QR codes. The latter item will have to be worked out by negotiators appointed to the joint House-Senate conference committee that will craft the final version of the midyear budget.
While the capital projects funded with cash in the midyear budget are usually found in the “big” budget for the full fiscal year, the midyear spending plan typically includes the annual adjustment to the state’s K-12 per-pupil funding formula to account for enrollment growth. In this case, the Senate committee added $100.7 million to the formula.
