by Dave Williams | Mar 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia House budget writers approved Gov. Brian Kemp’s $37.7 billion fiscal 2026 budget Monday, a spending plan that emphasizes the needs of the state prison system.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, builds on the mid-year budget the General Assembly adopted last week, which added $345 million in new spending on prisons. The fiscal ’26 spending plan antes up another $250 million for a prison system that was blasted in a federal audit last fall for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence.
“It (is) a historic infusion of cash, highlighting the sense of urgency,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told committee members before Monday’s vote.
The $250 million increase for prisons includes $125 million Kemp recommended to the legislature in January and $125 million added by the House. The money would go to hire more correctional officers to lower the ratio of inmates to staff, give those officers a pay raise, and provide temporary space for inmates inside new modular units to make way for repairs and renovations at existing prisons.
Education is another main driver in the fiscal ’26 budget, with the House adding $98 million to the governor’s spending recommendations. Of that total, $60 million would go toward student support services, including $20 million in grants to hire mental-health counselors for Georgia middle schools and $28 million to support students from low-income families.
Another $25 million would go toward school safety initiatives, which already received a major boost in the $40.5 billion mid-year budget. The House also earmarked $10 million to hire more literacy coaches.
Other big-ticket items include $32 million in increased reimbursement fees for health-care providers serving Medicaid patients and $8.3 million to bolster the state’s graduate medical education program.
The full House is expected to take up the budget later this week.
by Dave Williams | Mar 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Sports betting struck out again this year in the General Assembly.
The state House of Representatives passed 75 bills Thursday in the daylong flurry of activity known as Crossover Day, the annual deadline for legislation to clear either the House or Senate to remain alive for the year. But sports betting wasn’t among them.
Also left by the wayside when lawmakers gaveled out Crossover Day shortly before 11 p.m. was a Senate bid to deny state funding to Georgia K-12 public schools, colleges and universities that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), legislation in the House overhauling the process the state uses to compensate the wrongfully convicted, and a Senate bill exposing banking institutions to lawsuits if they deny services to customers because of the way they exercised their rights under the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Legislation to ban mining adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and require Georgia Power to pass along the costs of power-hungry data centers to operators of those facilities rather than residential and small business customers never made it out of House committees to reach the floor of the chamber.
This year’s push for online sports betting came in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment placing the issue on the statewide ballot next year and a separate “enabling” bill containing details on how the industry would operate in Georgia. Both made it through the House Rules Committee Thursday night, but Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, did not put them on the floor for a vote before Crossover Day came to an end.
“I’m disappointed,” Rep. Marcus Wiedower, R-Watkinsville, chief sponsor of both measures, said after the gavel fell. “A lot of work went into this. I thought it was a good measure.”
Supporters of legalizing sports betting have tried to get a statewide referendum through the General Assembly every year since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018 legalized gambling on sports in states other than New Jersey and Nevada. Opponents – spearheaded by religious groups – have argued sports betting would lead to an increase in crime and problem gambling.
The Senate spent much of the winter focused on controversial topics, including guns and race. DEI policies — a hot button for President Donald Trump — were also a vehicle for Republican outrage in Georgia, where the Senate’s Republican leadership had been pushing for a ban in schools and colleges.
Senate Bill 120, which was the subject of bitter hearings and press conferences in recent weeks, would have punished public educational institutions that had implemented DEI policies by withholding state funding.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Marty Harbin, R- Tyrone, called such policies an “erosion of meritocracy.” But the measure’s critics said DEI helps Black students and other historically marginalized people integrate and succeed.
“People died, people were lynched, all kinds of things happened in this country that caused people that were descendants of slaves to not have an equal opportunity,” said Roger Bruce, a former Democratic state representative who came to the Capitol for a protest.
SB 120 was scheduled as the final bill for debate in the Senate Thursday night, but the leadership ended the legislative day just before calling it up.
Another controversial culture war bill also failed to pass the Senate, although it did get a hearing and a vote on the floor.
Senate Bill 57 would have punished banks that decide not to do business with companies due to disagreement about social issues, a custom that critics call “debanking.”
An example offered in a legislative hearing last month was Daniel Defense. The Georgia-based firearms manufacturer became a target of criticism after one of its rifles was used in the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The founder and chairman, Marty Daniel, testified that two banks dropped his company in quick succession, costing him $1 million each on lawyers and fees.
The bill triggered a heated debate on the Senate floor Thursday. Democrats were opposed and so were a critical mass of Republicans who worried about the potential impact on local banks. The bill got just 13 votes in favor, all Republicans, with a bipartisan opposition of 43 votes.
The House passed resolutions Thursday night to compensate five Georgians who spent years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of crimes. However, the House did not take up a separate bill to remove the General Assembly from the process of compensating wrongfully convicted Georgians. Instead, claims for compensation would be heard by administrative law judges, who would make a recommendation to the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
Sports betting wasn’t the only cause supporters have pushed for years in the General Assembly that fizzled again in 2025. Two bills that called for either placing a five-year moratorium on mining near the Okefenokee Swamp or banning mining altogether didn’t get out of the House Natural Resources & Environment Committee.
Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals is seeking state permits to open a titanium dioxide mine along Trail Ridge on the southeastern edge of the Okefenokee. Supporters say mining would draw down water levels in the swamp, threatening the largest blackwater swamp in North America and the tourist dollars it brings to the region.
“When you lose the peat from the dried-up ground, we’re going to have terrible fires like they did in Southern California,” Rep. Darlene Taylor, R-Thomasville, the bills’ chief sponsor, said during a hearing last week.
Opponents said the mine would bring much-needed jobs and boost the local tax digest in an economically distressed part of the state.
Like sports betting and protecting the Okefenokee, the fight over the data centers bill also was left over from last year.
While the rapid growth of data centers in Georgia unquestionably represents a boost to the state’s economy, environmental and consumer advocacy groups have warned the vast amounts of electricity they consume threaten to further drive up electric rates. They cited a series of Georgia Power rate increases during the last couple of years to cover rising fuel costs and the completion of two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.
Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed a bill the General Assembly passed last year that would have temporarily suspended a state sales tax exemption aimed at attracting data centers to Georgia after business interests objected to the measure. Opponents to this year’s version of the bill in the Senate Regulated Industries Committee argued that the state Public Service Commission (PSC) should oversee data centers rather than the legislature.
The PSC voted in January to prohibit the Atlanta-based utility from passing on the costs of serving new large-load customers including data centers to residential customers. But supporters of the data center bill called the commission’s new rule worthless because it’s full of loopholes.
While the data centers bill never got out of the committee, the Regulated Industries Committee did approve a second energy measure bringing back the Georgia Consumer Utility Counsel, a watchdog agency that was disbanded in 2008 amid budget cuts brought on by the Great Recession. However, the full Senate didn’t take up the measure on Crossover Day.
by Dave Williams | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives passed two tax relief bills Thursday, one unanimously and another that proved controversial.
House Bill 112, which cleared the chamber 175-0, would provide $1 billion in one-time income tax rebates to Georgia taxpayers.
Single filers would get a rebate of $250, while heads of households would receive $375 and married couples filing jointly would get $500.
House Bill 111, on the other hand, drew substantial opposition from Democrats before passing 110-60. The legislation calls for reducing Georgia’s income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19% retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.
Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, said she supported a similar tax cut the General Assembly passed last year because it was tied to certain financial benchmarks that would only allow it to take effect if the state’s finances were strong.
“I was good with that approach because it was thoughtful and conservative,” she said.
Draper said she opposed HB111 because Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative Republicans are going ahead with additional tax cuts even though the state’s revenue estimate for this year is lower than last year.
Other House Democrats complained the tax cut would benefit primarily the wealthy while the state is failing to adequately essential services including health care and education adequately.
But House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, said reducing taxes would help all Georgia taxpayers. Under the bill, a family of four wouldn’t pay any taxes on its first $32,000 of income, he said.
“This measure allows Georgians to keep more of their money – not the government’s – and reduces the tax burden for every family that pays taxes,” Blackmon said.
Both bills now head to the state Senate.
by Dave Williams | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed a record $40.5 billion mid-year budget Thursday that prioritizes hurricane relief and invests heavily in school safety and Georgia’s prison system while providing relief to the state’s taxpayers.
The spending plan, which the General Assembly passed earlier this week, includes $867 million in response and recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene, which devastated large swaths of South Georgia and the eastern half of the state last September.
Another $434 million will go toward a pay raise for state prison guards and additional correctional officers for a prison system that came under fire in a federal audit released last fall for failing to protect inmates from violence. The prisons also will receive funding to repair deteriorating infrastructure inside the lockups and give guards more tasers and drone detection equipment to combat the smuggling of cellphones and other contraband.
The mid-year budget, which covers state spending through June 30, also includes an additional $50 million in school-safety grants to all public schools.
The state is putting $501 million into improving water infrastructure in Coastal Georgia to serve the huge electric-vehicles plant under construction west of Savannah and the residents who will work there, as well as $266 million for water and sewer projects across the state.
Another $500 million will go toward highway improvements aimed at accelerating the movement of freight throughout Georgia, while $28 million will be used for workforce housing in rural areas and $20 million will boost economic development in rural communities.
“All of this investment is designed to benefit our local communities,” Kemp said during a bill-signing ceremony at the state Capitol. “But it’s also going to keep Georgians working in all parts of our state during these uncertain economic times.”
The mid-year budget also takes advantage of a $16 billion state surplus to return $1 billion to taxpayers in the form of a one-time rebate. The Georgia House approved the rebate later Thursday as well as a separate bill reducing the state income tax rate.
“We’ll be able to keep more of Georgians’ money in their pockets,” the governor said. “They know how to spend it better than the government does.”
With work completed on the mid-year budget, the state House of Representatives is expected to take up Kemp’s $37.7 billion fiscal 2026 spending plan next week.
by Dave Williams | Mar 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation asking Georgia voters whether to legalize online sports betting in Georgia cleared a committee in the state House of Representatives Wednesday.
Because it’s a constitutional amendment, House Resolution 450 would require a two-thirds majority to pass the full House if it reaches the floor. The House Higher Education Committee approved the measure Wednesday on a voice vote.
Under the proposed constitutional change, 15% of the first $150 million in annual proceeds from sports betting would go toward programs and services aimed at preventing Georgians from becoming addicted to betting and treating those who do fall victim to problem gambling. The rest would be used to administer sports betting and to support Georgia’s pre-kindergarten program.
Legalized gambling legislation has been introduced in the General Assembly repeatedly in recent years but failed to win passage. If sports betting makes it through the legislature this year, Georgia voters would decide the question on the November 2026 statewide ballot.
The committee also passed an enabling bill designed to spell out details of how sports betting would be operated in Georgia.
House Bill 686 calls for the Georgia Lottery Corp. to administer sports betting. It would award 16 licenses to applicants interested in operating sportsbooks, including some of the state’s professional sports teams that have expressed interest in obtaining a license.
House Minority Whip Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, amended the bill Wednesday to increase the tax rate on proceeds from sports betting from 20% to 24%. Doing so would raise an additional $40 million a year for the pre-kindergarten program, he said.
After the committee passed Park’s amendment unanimously, the underlying enabling bill – sponsored by Rep. Marcus Wiedower, R-Watkinsville – was approved on a voice vote.
Both the constitutional amendment and enabling bill move to the House Rules Committee to schedule votes of the full House. The measures will be competing for attention Thursday on a busy Crossover Day, the deadline for bills to pass either the House or Senate to stay alive for the year.
