ATLANTA – Jon Ossoff is holding a huge lead in Georgia’s U.S. Senate Democratic primary heading into Election Day next week, according to a poll conducted for WSB-TV by Landmark Communications.
Ossoff, an investigative journalist, was the choice of 41.9% of 400 likely Democratic voters surveyed earlier this week. Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson was running a distant second at 14.0%, followed by businesswoman Sarah Riggs Amico – the Democrats’ 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor – with 8.9%.
The other four candidates in this race polled only 7.2% combined, while 28.0% of the likely voters surveyed were undecided. The poll’s margin of error was 4.4%.
Ossoff, who lost a special election for a U.S. House seat to Republican Karen Handel three years ago, is the leading fund-raiser among the candidates looking challenge incumbent Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in November. The Democrat from Atlanta has undoubtedly benefited from the name recognition he received during the 2017 contest, the most expensive House race in history.
Ossoff would have to capture more than 50% of the vote next week to win the Democratic primary outright. If none of the candidates gets a majority of the vote, the nomination would be decided in a runoff Aug. 9.
Perdue is running unopposed in the June 9 Republican Senate primary.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley
ATLANTA – Students in the University System of Georgia didn’t miss a beat during the spring semester despite the disruption of converting to online instruction, according to a systemwide grading analysis released Wednesday.
The proportion of “A” grades awarded during the spring increased from 44.1% in the spring of last year to 52.4%, while the rate of students failing or withdrawing fell from 14.3% to 12.2%.
Citing the coronavirus pandemic, system Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced in mid-March that the system’s 26 colleges and universities would move to online instruction for the rest of the spring semester. The schools’ IT staffs responded by setting up an online system robust enough to meet the need, while faculty worked to convert their courses to online.
Students did their part by achieving academic progress across all subgroups of race and ethnicity as well as for both lower division and upper division undergraduate and graduate courses.
“Our students continue to show resilience and determination in pursuing their studies, and I am grateful for how often they have overcome the challenges thrown at them by COVID-19,” Wrigley said.
“Faculty and staff also worked hard to transition courses to an online format while maintaining their quality. I appreciate their flexibility and remain confident they will continue to do everything in their power to help every one of our students succeed.”
While remote instruction continues through summer semester, campuses across the university system are preparing for students to return for in-person classes during the fall semester.
ATLANTA – Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler asked state lawmakers Wednesday to spare an agency hit with an unprecedented wave of unemployment claims from budget cuts looming over the rest of state government.
Butler told members of a Georgia Senate budget subcommittee the labor department, which had been averaging about 20,000 unemployment claims per month, suddenly was hit with an influx of about 1 million claims when the coronavirus pandemic shut down Georgia’s economy, a number that quickly mounted to some 2 million.
Forced to cope with that soaring workload is an agency of about 1,000 employees, fewer than half as many as were on the payroll during the Great Recession a decade ago, Butler said.
“The good news is we’re getting the payments out,” he said. “We’ve found ways to be more efficient. But asking us to cut more now … I don’t think [would be] fair.”
Butler said the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program has been particularly difficult for labor department employees to handle because it provides unemployment benefits to people not ordinarily eligible for them, including the self-employed, gig workers, independent contractors, or employees of churches or other nonprofits. The agency had to train 500 to 600 employees on how to process PUA claims, he said.
“It has been a very heavy hit because we’ve never done that type of system before,” he said. “We had to build the applications from scratch.”
Despite those challenges, Georgia’s labor department has outperformed other state labor agencies by paying out about 87% of unemployment claims deemed valid totaling about $5.2 billion, Butler said.
The state Department of Revenue has collected more than $112 million in taxes from those benefits, he said.
Butler said the labor department was losing employees to other state agencies even before the coronavirus pandemic hit because off the low salaries it was forced to offer.
“We were in a bad position when [the pandemic] started,” he said. “We don’t want to get to a worse place.”
Sen. Burt Jones, vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Insurance & Labor Subcommittee, expressed sympathy for the labor department’s plight but made no promises on how the legislature will approach the agency’s budget.
“I know your people are working very hard, and they’re on the front lines,” said Jones, R-Jackson. “We appreciate your good work.”
ATLANTA – Citing “reassuring signs of fiscal resilience” in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday that cuts to next year’s state budget won’t be as deep as originally feared.
In a video message, Kemp notified state agency heads and legislative leaders he is preparing an updated revenue estimate that will call for 11% across-the-board spending reductions in the coming fiscal year rather than the 14% cuts originally anticipated.
The new revenue projections reflect expectations the coronavirus pandemic will have somewhat less of an economic impact on Georgia’s economy than had been predicted when the 14% cuts were ordered.
“Our state is positioned to weather this storm better than most,” Kemp said. “I’m hopeful our state will be able to avoid the draconian cuts and measures many others across the country will be forced to make.”
State senators holding budget hearings since last week have been confronted with the difficult choice between furloughing teachers and state employees or keeping them on the job at reduced pay.
Kemp said Wednesday the pandemic has highlighted the importance of teachers, health-care workers and others on the front line of fighting COVID-19. He pledged to make education, health care and public safety top priorities even as agency heads and lawmakers grapple with tough decisions on how to balance the state’s needs with declining tax revenues.
The General Assembly, which was suspended in mid-March by the coronavirus outbreak, will reconvene June 15, with passing the fiscal 2021 state budget as its top priority. Just 11 days remain in the 2020 legislative session.
ATLANTA – Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms asked Congress Friday for more aid to help local governments cope with the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bottoms told members of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that Atlanta received $89 million in direct assistance through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act Congress passed overwhelmingly in March, plus another $338.5 million that went to city-owned Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Still, Atlanta is facing a $35 million to $40 million budget shortfall because of the impact the business lockdown resulting from the pandemic has had on tax collections, Bottoms said.
“Cities can only do so much,” said Bottoms, part of a parade of U.S. mayors invited to testify at Friday’s subcommittee hearing. “We need additional assistance to bolster small businesses and people working paycheck to paycheck in jobs that have been endangered or put on hold.”
Bottoms and the other mayors endorsed the latest coronavirus relief bill before Congress, which includes $375 billion in direct aid to local governments. The Democratic-controlled House passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Solutions (HEROES) Act earlier this month, but it has gotten a cool reception from the U.S. Senate’s Republican majority.
Bottoms said Atlanta has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19 because it’s the mostly densely populated city in Georgia and due to its large population of African-Americans, who data shows are being affected disproportionately by the virus.
She said another factor increasing Atlanta’s exposure to coronavirus is that Georgia was among the first states to begin reopening businesses closed because of the pandemic.
The city itself is pursuing a “thoughtful and strategic reopening that is driven by data” and based on the recommendations of a 60-member committee of business, academic, faith-based and philanthropic leaders, Bottoms said.
“We are encouraged by the progress we’re making,” the mayor said. “But we are not out of the woods yet.”
