ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp’s $30.2 billion fiscal 2023 state budget is another step closer to passage.
The Georgia Senate Appropriations Committee approved the spending plan Wednesday, sending it to the Senate floor for action as soon as Friday.
The budget raises state spending for the fiscal year starting July 1 by 10.8% over the budget the General Assembly adopted last spring. It annualizes $5,000 raises most state employees received in the fiscal 2022 mid-year budget Kemp signed last week and gives teachers a $2,000 raise to go with the $3,000 increase they received three years ago.
Unexpectedly healthy state tax collections despite the coronavirus pandemic made the spending boom possible, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery said Wednesday.
“[Taxpayers’] continued resilience through the pandemic has put us in a position to fund these things,” Tillery, R-Vidalia, told committee members.
Tillery highlighted a series of budget line items where the Senate increased spending above what the state House of Representatives approved two weeks ago. The committee added $28 million to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement to reward elementary schools that report positive results in third-grade reading proficiency, $2.8 million to establish a new Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner’s office in Macon and $2.5 million for a pilot summer program offering tours of college campuses to teenage foster children.
The Senate also added $2.5 million in bond financing to design a building for the new medical examiner’s office and slightly raised the next installment of state bond funding for the Savannah Convention Center expansion from $80 million to $83 million.
The committee also supported a House proposal to eliminate the institutional fee on University System of Georgia students a cash-strapped Board of Regents approved during the pandemic.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia senators are digging in their heels when it comes to how the state’s medical marijuana program should be operated.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee Tuesday essentially scrapped legislation the Georgia House of Representatives passed last week aimed at breaking a logjam that has sidetracked the program. Instead, the panel approved the same version the full Senate passed last week.
Both bills would throw out the selection process a state commission created to oversee the program used to tentatively award licenses last summer to six companies to grow marijuana and convert the leafy crop to low-THC cannabis oil. The process left 16 losing bidders disgruntled and threatening to tie up the process in litigation.
The House version would require the Georgia Department of Administrative Services (DOAS) to issue a new request for bids by the end of this year that would be scored by an independent consultant. The Senate bill would envision a shorter timetable, requiring a do-over from the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission by the end of May without the involvement of the DOAS.
“We want the commission to do their danged job by May 31,” said Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, the Senate committee’s chairman. “That’s the message we’re sending.”
With about 20,000 eligible Georgia patients signed up on a state registry to receive cannabis oil, lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are anxious for the licensing process to move forward. While the House bill doesn’t envision licenses to be awarded until next year, it also includes a provision requiring the commission to “immediately take all necessary steps to purchase or obtain” enough cannabis oil to meet the state’s needs by Aug. 1.
The General Assembly created the commission back in 2019. At first, it couldn’t get off the ground because it took four months for its members to be appointed. Then, another year went by before the commission released a request for proposals from interested companies.
The full Senate could re-adopt its version of the legislation by the end of this week. However, the differences between the House and Senate bills could land the measure in a joint conference committee during the final days of this year’s legislative session to see if an agreement can be reached.
This story isavailable through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled Georgia House of Representatives gave final passage Tuesday to legislation prohibiting local governments from regulating the hours or schedules of employees in private businesses.
The bill passed 99-67 largely along party lines and now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
House Democrats criticized the measure as as attempt by the state to usurp local control.
“We already tell [local] governments, ‘You can’t set minimum wages,’ ” said Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta. “All local governments are trying to do is give predictability to workers in their areas.”
Rep. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton, who carried Senate Bill 331 in the House, dismissed arguments by Democrats that the measure is a “preemptive” bill that takes authority away from local governments.
“This is a preventive bill that allows free markets to continue,” she said.
Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, said the legislation provides a practical benefit to businesses by allowing them to operate across city and county lines without being subject to local regulations governing employee hours or schedules that could be different.
The Senate passed the bill 31-21 last month.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at protecting Georgia farmers from nuisance lawsuits drew support Monday from representatives of agribusiness and opposition from environmental advocates.
The Freedom to Farm Act would replace a law the General Assembly passed in 1989.
Under House Bill 1150, which the Georgia House passed early this month, neighbors bothered by bad smells, dust or noise emanating from a farm would have one year to file a nuisance suit. After that, any farm operating legally would be protected.
Opponents told members of the Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee the bill isn’t necessary because the current law is working.
“In 32 years of application, not a single nuisance lawsuit has been lodged successfully against an agricultural operation in this state,” said Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.
But the bill’s supporter said they’re concerned about the potential for future nuisance suits as urban encroachment into farmland spreads across the state.
“If we are to encourage future farmers to move back to their hometowns and take up a significant investment, they ought to have protection [from lawsuits],” said Alex Bradford, director of public policy for the Georgia Farm Bureau.
Opponents also maintained the one-year statute of limitations is not enough to protect current farmers from large agricultural operations moving next to them and interfering with their legal right to enjoy their property.
“A nuisance takes time to develop,” said April Lipscomb, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “They don’t typically occur overnight.”
Bryan Tolar, a lobbyist representing the Georgia Urban Agriculture Council – which includes the landscaping, gardening and turf industries – suggested the bill should specify that smoke, dust and noise are not to be considered nuisances under the law. As written, the measure doesn’t include those words, he said.
“All agriculture is going to generate some smoke, some dust and some noise,” Tolar said.
The committee did not vote on the legislation Monday. To reach the Senate floor during the final two weeks of this year’s session, the bill must pass both the Agriculture and Rules committees.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Friday temporarily suspending Georgia’s sales tax on gasoline.
The state House and Senate passed House Bill 304 unanimously during the last week.
Gasoline prices have skyrocketed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than three weeks ago and the subsequent ban on U.S. imports of Russian oil President Joe Biden imposed last week.
The state has suspended the gasoline tax in the past when fuel supplies were disrupted, most recently when the Colonial Pipeline shut down last May following a ransomware attack.
The governor is legally allowed to suspend the tax by executive order when the General Assembly is not meeting. In this case, with lawmakers in session, Kemp waited until the bill he proposed made its way through the House and Senate.
The suspension is due to expire May 31 unless the governor decides pump prices are still high enough to warrant continuing it.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
