Paid parental leave for state employees and teachers has been a priority of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston for the last two years. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – About 246,000 state employees and teachers in Georgia would be able to take up to three weeks of paid parental leave under legislation the state Senate passed unanimously Thursday.
The bill, which the Georgia House of Representatives approved overwhelmingly last month, would apply to parents following the birth of a child of their own, an adopted child or a foster-care placement.
Full-time employees would become eligible for paid parental leave after six months on the job.
The House passed the same bill last year, a priority of House Speaker David Ralston, shortly before the General Assembly was forced to take a three-month break because of the coronavirus pandemic.
When lawmakers returned to the Gold Dome in June, the Senate essentially gutted the measure and substituted a different bill reducing legislators’ salaries in an attempt to cut costs because of the pandemic. When the House refused to go along with the change, the bill died.
Because of changes the Senate Industry and Labor Committee made to the bill, it must return to the House before it can gain final passage.
An aerial view of Plant Scherer in Juliette. (File photo)
ATLANTA – A Georgia Senate committee put off voting Wednesday on a bill to tighten monitoring requirements for ash generated by coal-burning power plants.
With time running out on this year’s General Assembly session, the decision by the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee to table House Bill 647 puts the measure’s fate in doubt.
The bill, which the state House of Representatives passed overwhelmingly early this month, would require groundwater monitoring at ash ponds that have been closed to continue for 50 years after the closure is completed. A bill the House passed last year that didn’t make it through the Senate would have limited the monitoring to 30 years.
Coal ash contains contaminants including mercury, cadmium and arsenic that can pollute groundwater and drinking water. Long-term exposure has been linked to a variety of cancers.
Atlanta-based Georgia Power has been working since 2015 on a multi-year plan to close all 29 of its coal ash ponds at 11 power plants across Georgia to meet both state and federal regulations for handling coal ash. While the utility plans to excavate and remove the ash from 19 of those ponds, the other 10 are to be closed in place.
The bill got some pushback Wednesday from Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, who called it both costly and unnecessary. He said the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has the power to step in and order the cleanup of any groundwater contamination from a closed ash pond, with or without legislation from the General Assembly.
“Why are we trying to codify something EPD already has the power to do?” Ginn asked. “It’s not going to make it any safer.”
“I just feel like it’s a safety issue … looking to the safety in the future of our children and grandchildren,” answered state Rep. Vance Smith, R-Pine Mountain, the bill’s chief sponsor.
On the other hand, Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, suggested strengthening the bill by requiring holders of ash pond permits from the state to “control, minimize or eliminate” seepage from closed ponds into groundwater, storm water or the atmosphere.
Legislative Democrats have been pushing since last year to require Georgia Power to install liners for the 10 ponds that are being closed in place to prevent contamination of drinking water supplies serving communities near the plants.
The utility is being sued by residents of Juliette who claim coal ash stored in an unlined pond at nearby Plant Scherer has contaminated groundwater around the site.
“We want to make sure these containment systems protect from water seepage from the side and the bottom,” Jackson said.
Committee Chairman Tyler Harper, R-Ocilla, wouldn’t allow Jackson to propose her amendment because she had missed the 24-hour deadline under committee rules to present amendments to the chairman.
However, further changes are expected in the bill. Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, is preparing a Senate substitute to Smith’s House bill, the reason the legislation was tabled.
ATLANTA – Online sports betting in Georgia has come one step closer to landing on next year’s statewide ballot.
The state House of Representatives’ Economic Development & Tourism Committee voted 14-6 Tuesday in favor of a constitutional amendment asking Georgia voters whether to legalize sports betting.
The state Senate passed the measure earlier this month by a margin of 41-10, three votes more than the two-thirds majority needed for constitutional amendments.
Supporters of legalizing sports betting argue 2.3 million Georgians already are betting illegally on sports each year.
“We’re not creating something new,” Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, the House committee’s chairman, said following Tuesday’s vote. “If we make it legal, we’ll get revenue out of it.”
If the constitutional change passes the General Assembly and voters ratify it next year, 20% of the net proceeds from online sports betting would go to the state, up from 16% in the version of the legislation passed by the Senate.
Of that amount, 40.5% would go to Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs and 20.5% would be set aside for need-based scholarships. The Senate had added a need-based component to the mix to benefit low-income Georgians in order to gain votes from minority Democrats.
Another 12% of the proceeds would be used to expand broadband deployment in rural Georgia, 12% would be earmarked for rural health care and 12% would go toward mental health services. Three percent would go help attract major sporting events to the state.
Stephens said those percentages are locked into the constitutional amendment, so they could never be changed once voters approve it.
“That was important to the minority caucus,” he said.
Stephens said the committee also agreed to remove a provision in the legislation that would have allowed betting on college sports. The version the panel passed Tuesday would limit betting to pro teams.
The committee also agreed to scrap a proposal to establish kiosks at sports venues for betting and limit betting instead to online devices.
The panel also approved a separate “enabling” bill outlining how sports betting would operate in Georgia.
The bill would put sports betting under the jurisdiction of the Georgia Lottery Corp. Companies interested in running sportsbooks would pay a nonrefundable application fee, and those selected would pay annual license fees.
Both measures now head to the House Rules Committee, which could schedule floor votes as early as Thursday.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate unanimously passed Gov. Brian Kemp’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 budget Tuesday, setting the stage for negotiations with the state House of Representatives on a final version of the spending plan.
Senators supported the budget’s emphasis on education and health care.
With state tax revenues coming in stronger than expected despite the pandemic, the budget would restore 60% of the “austerity” cuts to Georgia public schools the legislature made at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak last year.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Congress passed earlier this month, Georgia schools soon will receive $4.2 billion in federal funds, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery told his Senate colleagues.
“That more than wipes out any reductions we’ve made during the pandemic,” said Tillery, R-Vidalia. “Our school systems are going to more than adequately be made whole.”
The Senate also supported the House in adding about $40 million to Kemp’s original budget plan for mental health services.
The Senate budget also includes pay raises to help retain employees in state agencies that have been hit with a lot of turnover, including the departments of Agriculture, Banking and Finance, Driver Services, Corrections and Juvenile Justice.
Senators agreed with the governor’s recommendation for $39.5 million for a new Rural Innovation Fund to help local elected officials and economic development leaders create jobs.
“It would help spread jobs in rural communities,” Tillery said.
But Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, objected to putting such a large allocation under the governor’s control without input from the General Assembly.
“It has been referred to as the ‘governor’s slush fund,’ ” she said. “There are no parameters on how that money can be spent.”
Tillery responded that how the fund is allocated would be determined by a governing board that includes legislative leaders.
Jordan also complained that Kemp and legislative leaders are not willing to take up the federal government’s offer through the American Rescue Plan to fund Medicaid expansion in Georgia.
Expanding Medicaid coverage in Georgia has been a sore spot between Republicans and Democrats since Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Democrats say the state is missing a chance to provide health coverage to an additional 500,000 uninsured Georgians, while Republicans say it would cost the state too much.
In a new wrinkle to the debate, the American Rescue Plan offers to increase the federal match to the 12 states yet to expand Medicaid from 57% to 72% for the next two years.
“What an opportunity!” Jordan declared from the Senate floor. “That’s what we should be doing, not allocating $40 million for a slush fund for the governor.”
The Senate budget acknowledges that the state government will receive nearly $4.7 billion from the American Rescue Plan.
Language senators added to the budget indicates the state should spend that money to respond to the health and economic crises sparked by the pandemic, provide pay raises to essential workers, backfill revenue reductions and invest in water, sewer and broadband projects.
A joint House-Senate conference committee will work out the two chambers’ differences on the budget and hammer out a final spending plan to present next week during the last days of this year’s legislative session.
ATLANTA – Georgia Senate budget writers put their stamp Monday on Gov. Brian Kemp’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state spending plan.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously to send the proposed budget to the floor, where it is expected to get a vote on Tuesday.
As was the case when the state House of Representatives approved the budget early this month, the Senate panel heavily tilted spending toward education and health care.
The budget would restore $567.5 million in “austerity” cuts to Georgia public schools lawmakers imposed last year when the state’s economy was being hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our state finances have out-performed what we expected them to be,” Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the committee’s chairman, explained.
The Senate also supported the House in adding $1 million in grants to charter schools and kicked in another $1 million on its own for grants for computer science instruction.
Like the House, the Senate put special emphasis on mental health, adding about $40 million more for the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities than Kemp recommended in January.
Both the House and Senate want $12.3 million to fund a 5% increase to providers of services to Georgians with intellectual and developmental disabilities and $7 million for a behavioral crisis center.
The Senate version of the budget would fund pay raises for a number of “critical positions” in state agencies , including the departments of Banking and Finance, Driver Services, Corrections and Juvenile Justice.
The committee also supported Kemp’s recommendations for $10 million to expand the deployment of rural broadband. Another $20 million for that initiative is included in the fiscal 2021 mid-year budget the governor signed last month.
The Senate budget ups the ante on a controversial proposal to hire a “chief labor officer” to help the Georgia Department of Labor catch up with a backlog of unemployment claims arising from the pandemic. The committee is recommending $198,916 for the position, up from $99,458 in the House budget.
Senate budget writers added a number of new spending items, including $1.5 million to pay for additional ballot security measures required in legislation the Senate passed two weeks ago.
The committee also added $1 million to pay for consultants working with the Georgia Commission on Freight and Logistics, and put in $700,000 for the Georgia Research Alliance, one of several proposals from Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan aimed at boosting Georgia’s bid to become the technology leader of the East Coast.
The Senate also is looking to a nearly $1 billion bond package to fund building projects requested by senators. The committee increased funding for the planned Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center at Georgia Southern University – named for the late senator and his wife – from the $32.2 million the House recommended to $36.7 million.
Senate budget writers put in $1 million in bonds to design an academic building on the Cumming campus of the University of North Georgia and recommended funding to build commercial truck driving facilities at Atlanta Technical College, Georgia Piedmont Technical College in Lithonia and Wiregrass Technical College in Douglas. Commercial truck driving is among occupations that have been identified as in short supply in Georgia.
The Senate committee’s budget acknowledges the influx of federal funds heading Georgia’s way following congressional passage of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan economic stimulus bill earlier this month.
But Tillery cautioned those will be one-time funds. He said Georgia’s revenue situation still remains precarious, as the state Department of Revenue prepares for what promises to be a huge flurry of income tax refunds it will have to issue to unemployed Georgians whose benefits were taxed.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty on the horizon,” he said.
