Chris Clark, president and CEO, Georgia Chamber of Commerce
The coronavirus pandemic represents an economic development opportunity for rural Georgia, local business and government leaders said Wednesday during a conference sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
The highly contagious invisible virus has made Americans wary of living in close proximity to each other in urban settings, Larry Hanson, executive director of the Georgia Municipal Association, told in-person and online audiences at the chamber’s fourth annual Rural Prosperity Summit in Tifton.
“Density is what the coronavirus loves,” Hanson said.
“People are wanting to leave metro areas,” added Bill Gross, owner and president of W.H. Gross Construction Co. in Kingsland. “Rural Georgia is in a phenomenal spot right now.”
But rural communities won’t be able to take advantage of their coronavirus-driven attractiveness unless policy makers address systemic challenges that have long plagued rural Georgia, including access to health care, said Chris Clark, the chamber’s president and CEO.
Nine Georgia counties lack a single physician, 64 counties have no pediatrician and 79 have no ob-gyn, Clark said.
“If you don’t have quality health care in your community, it’s awful hard to bring economic development,” he said.
Likewise, rural Georgia faces disparities in academic achievement and a digital divide that leaves rural businesses and school systems with inadequate internet connectivity.
Scott Steiner, president and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, said rural South Georgia has been unable to lure enough health-care professionals from outside of the region to deal with a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses.
“If we really want more doctors and nurses, we’ve got to grow them ourselves,” he said.
Steiner said Phoebe Putney has been in discussions with officials from local schools and colleges to explore ways to stimulate more interest in the health-care profession among students.
An important step toward addressing the problem came last year when the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine opened the first medical school in South Georgia in Moultrie.
Several rural school superintendents said their districts are finding it difficult to provide students with the online instruction COVID-19 has forced on school systems because of the lack of high-speed internet connectivity in rural communities.
Schools are being forced to install WiFi antennas outside their buildings and set up internet hot spots in school buses in parking lots adjacent to libraries and other buildings with good internet connectivity.
“The big need in our community is broadband,” said Kermit Gilliard, superintendent of the Grady County School System. “It’s important that we partner with businesses to extend broadband in our communities.”
“It’s a great way of life,” state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson, said of rural living. “But you still have to have the necessities you find in more urban parts of the state.”
ATLANTA – There’s good news and bad news in the monthly state revenues report.
The Georgia Department of Revenue collected $2.16 billion in taxes last month, a decrease of $81.3 million – or 3.6% from September of last year.
However, the first-quarter numbers tell a different story. The state brought in nearly $6.2 billion in net tax revenue during July, August and September, the first quarter of fiscal 2021, a 6.3% increase over the first quarter of the last fiscal year.
Coupled with two straight months of positive revenue numbers reported in July and August, the overall first-quarter results show Georgia’s economy is recovering after three straight months of revenue losses at the height of the coronavirus pandemic-driven business lockdown.
The main driver behind September’s revenue decrease was a loss in net sales tax collections, which fell 37.3% compared to September of last year.
Individual incomes taxes, on the other hand, were up 11.2%, resulting from a combination of an increase in payments and a decrease in refunds.
Corporate income tax collections rose 4% in September compared to the same month in 2019.
Motor fuel taxes fell slightly, 0.7%, with Georgians still driving less during the pandemic.
ATLANTA – Significant construction activity is completed or well underway at 19 of Georgia Power’s 29 coal ash ponds across the state slated for permanent closure, the Atlanta-based utility announced Tuesday.
The other 10 ash ponds are being closed in place under a plan Georgia Power first unveiled in 2015.
The company plans to spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion to close all of its ash ponds at 11 coal-fired power plants to meet federal regulations for handling coal ash as well as a stricter state rule.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clamped down on pollution from ash ponds in response to a 2008 spill of 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash at a plant near Kingston, Tenn., that smothered about 300 acres of land.
Milestones Georgia Power cited Tuesday include dewatering of ash ponds, now in progress at six sites: Plant Bowen near Cartersville, Plant McDonough in Smyrna, Plant McManus near Brunswick, Plant McIntosh in Rincon, Plant Branch in Milledgeville and Plant Yates near Newnan, with state-approved plans for Plant Mitchell in Camilla and Plant Hammond near Rome.
The company also has installed more than 550 monitoring wells around its ash ponds and on-site landfills to measure groundwater quality.
“As Georgia Power continues to make significant progress on our plans to safely close all of our ash ponds, our focus remains on protecting the environment and our surrounding communities,” said Mark Berry, vice president of Environmental and Natural Resources for Georgia Power.
Georgia Power also is investing heavily in recycling stored coal ash. Earlier this year, the company announced plans at its retired Plant Mitchell site to remove stored coal ash for beneficial reuse.
During the next several years, about two million tons of ash are to be removed from the onsite ash ponds to help create Portland cement, which is used to make concrete. Through July, approximately 11,100 tons of ash had been removed at Plant Mitchell for reuse.
Georgia Power is also requesting proposals for the beneficial reuse of coal ash stored at active and retired coal-fired power plants across the state.
Environmental group are opposed to Georgia Power’s plan to close in place 10 of its 29 coal ash ponds and have pushed instead for the ash to be stored in lined landfills away from waterways.
But Georgia Power officials say the ponds are being closed in place using proven engineering methods and closure technologies.
ATLANTA – Georgians overwhelmingly support increased state funding of education and health care, according to a new poll.
The survey of 1,071 registered voters in Georgia conducted Aug. 26-31 found strong backing for “people-first” public policies advocated by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI), which commissioned the poll, Caitlin Highland, the Atlanta non-profit’s communications director, said Tuesday.
“Our economy is not inclusive of every person in our state,” she said. “We need to invest in every person and make sure no one is left out.”
The poll, conducted by the School of Public and International Affairs Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia, found the highest support – 86.8% – was for more funding for Georgia’s pre-kindergarten program to increase the number of available slots.
Nearly three of four Georgians surveyed also supported the state providing tuition-free technical college, while just more than three-quarters supported funding a need-based college scholarship program the state created two years ago but has yet to fund.
In health care, 77.5% of respondents supported steering more state funding toward public health programs.
Just more than 70% endorsed establishing a state version of the earned-income tax credit provided to low- and middle-income taxpayers at the federal level.
The poll found only slightly less support for revenue-raising ideas the GBPI has backed in recent years. A proposal to establish a formal process for evaluating the state’s return on investment on tax exemptions to businesses drew support from 68.7% of respondents.
Almost 66% favored increasing Georgia’s tobacco tax from 37 cents per pack of cigarettes – second lowest in the nation – to the national average of $1.81 a pack.
Caitlin highlighted some GBPI priorities the General Assembly passed into law this year, notably an extension of Medicaid coverage for new mothers to six months. The Medicaid extension was a major 2020 priority of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.
“These priorities have momentum,” Highland said. “People are hungry to see these solutions.”
The survey results were weighted to ensure it was representative of Georgians by race, sex, age and education.
ATLANTA – A proposed commercial spaceport on the Georgia coast could attract 4,000 to 5,000 tourists with each satellite launch, according to a new study.
Spaceport Camden also would support 38 to 45 permanent tourism industry jobs, the Center for Business Analytics and Economic Research at Georgia Southern University found in a study conducted in partnership with Camden County.
“Building Spaceport Camden could bolster additional spending in the area’s hospitality industry throughout Camden County and the southeast Georgia region,” said Benjamin McKay, the center’s assistant director. “The potential per-launch benefit to total employee compensation could reach $1.1 million, with sizeable increases in the total goods and services used in the region and total business sales.”
Supporters of the controversial project, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia’s congressional delegation, say a commercial spaceport would represent a huge economic boost for southeastern Georgia and attract aerospace engineering graduates from Georgia Tech who otherwise likely would take their skills and earning power out of state.
Environmental groups allied with property owners downrange from the launch site oppose the spaceport as a threat to public safety. The project also has raised concerns from officials at Cumberland Island National Seashore and the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced last May it was delaying its review of the project after Camden County officials submitted a revised application that calls for launching only small rockets from the site rather than the medium-to-large rockets envisioned in the original plan. A decision isn’t expected until next October.
Georgia Southern previously estimated that Spaceport Camden would generate more than $22 million in annual economic activity in addition to more than $9 million in economic activity that would result from the project’s construction phase.
“Small-lift launch vehicle launches mean big business for our hotels and restaurants,” said Camden County Administrator Steve Howard, who also is serving as Spaceport Camden project lead.
“Many hospitality businesses have been suffering as a result of COVID-19,” Howard added. “This report shows that a launch from Spaceport Camden can revitalize Camden’s tourism industry and ignite our recovery.”
