ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp announced a state of emergency for all Georgia counties Thursday ahead of a winter storm expected to dump snow and sleet onto the northern third of the state starting Saturday, potentially encasing the land in a layer of ice.
In an online briefing from Belgium Thursday, where he was traveling to promote trade, Kemp outlined state preparations for a wintry mix that could slicken roads and pull down power lines, darkening homes for days if temperatures remain as cold as predicted.
The governor said he had called up 500 National Guardsmen for deployment, if necessary. State agriculture and forestry crews are prepared with chainsaws to clear the way for power crews.
His main message: hunker down for the weekend.
“If you can just stay off the roads, that would be a big favor to us,” he said, noting that state police, utility crews and salt trucks need open roads to do their work.
The latter will begin brining roadways late Friday night or early Saturday morning. The governor placed the danger zone north of Interstate 20.
The National Weather Service has a winter storm watch in place in an east-west line just north of the Atlanta suburbs, dipping south as it moves to the east side of Georgia to take in Athens. The forecast calls for “heavy” mixed precipitation of up to two inches of snow and sleet, with ice accumulations of a quarter to three quarters of an inch.
Major potential impacts include travel disruptions and power outages as ice weighs down power lines and tree limbs that can break and fall on them.
Kemp said a drop in expected temperature of just a degree or two could push the danger line southward.
Josh Lamb, director of the state emergency management agency, advised filling cars with gas and emergency supplies, including snacks and blankets, and to drive cautiously on bridges and overpasses, which tend to ice up faster. But he also encouraged people to stay off the roads.
Lamb said Georgians should prepare their homes by covering pipes, cleaning gutters and stocking a three-day supply of food and water.
Prepare a way to keep cellphones charged while devising a communications backup plan for family members, he said. “Take precautions, don’t panic, and please stay informed and stay off the roads.”
ATLANTA — Former state Rep. Karen Bennett, D-Stone Mountain, pleaded guilty in federal court to making false statements to fraudulently obtain $13,940 in federal emergency relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
“Bennett was elected to represent her fellow citizens and took a solemn oath to promote the best interests and prosperity of the State of Georgia,” Theodore S. Hertzberg, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement. “Instead, she violated that oath and, during an unprecedented emergency, lied to line her own pockets with taxpayer money intended to help community members in need.”
Bennett submitted weekly certifications for benefits from March through August 2020, claiming she earned only $300 per week from the General Assembly and none from her employer, Metro Therapy Providers, Inc., asserting the company would not let her return to the office.
But prosecutors said she was sole owner of Metro Therapy, doing administrative work from home even before the pandemic and that the business continued to function and generate revenue for her when she was claiming the unemployment funds.
Bennett also concealed a $905 weekly paycheck from her employment at a church, Hertzberg’s office said.
Bennett, 70, resigned from her state House seat at the end of last year, several days before she was charged. Georgia election officials on Wednesday announced a March 10 special election to select a successor.
In another case, state Rep. Sharon Henderson, D-Covington, pleaded not guilty Dec. 8 to theft of government funds, also in connection with COVID-19 relief funding. She was also released on a $10,000 bond and remains in office as Gov. Brian Kemp convenes a panel to assess her fitness to serve.
ATLANTA — Georgians now have another way to give away money and get it all back when they support private school students in Georgia after Gov. Brian Kemp signed onto a federal tax credit program.
The credit, established under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, gives federal taxpayers up to $1,700 back for each dollar they give to authorized K-12 scholarship-granting organizations.
Kemp announced at the state Capitol Tuesday that he had signed the necessary IRS form to opt Georgia into the federal program.
“That’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been signing an IRS document,” he quipped.
His action means people and companies will “be able to donate more of their hard-earned dollars” toward private education in Georgia, said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican running for governor, who attended Kemp’s press conference.
Critics contend that such programs divert government funding available to support public education.
But House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, called Kemp’s decision a step towards “educational choice and freedom for students and families” and said “more resources will flow directly to students who need them the most.”
The federal program is limited to families earning under 300% of an area median income. The median income in metro Atlanta was about $82,000, according to U.S. Census data through 2023, which would have placed the qualifying threshold at under $246,000 in annual earnings.
The federal tax credits will augment a state tax credit program.
The Georgia Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit gives individuals up to $2,500 back on their state taxes for every dollar they contribute to an authorized student scholarship organization. The organizations then award scholarships to students.
Married couples can get up to $5,000 in state tax credits. Companies can contribute significantly more and get the money back in tax credits.
The total state credits are capped at $100 million per year. They cost the state $88.8 million in fiscal year 2025, according to a recent report by state auditors.
“The credit merely shifted education expenditures from public to private schools, with no impact on the state economy,” the auditors said in a summary.
The state and federal tax credit programs are not the only government-backed support for students who want to attend a Georgia private school.
State lawmakers established a direct taxpayer funded program called the Georgia Promise Scholarship in 2024, and students first started receiving money last fall.
Enrollment was far below anticipation, with about 7,700 students participating, Christopher Green, president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, said at a budget hearing Tuesday.
His agency, which oversees the state tax credit program, traditionally referred to as a voucher, is slashing the budget request for the scholarships in the amended fiscal year 2026 budget.
Last year, the General Assembly and Kemp earmarked $141 million for the vouchers in the fiscal year 2026 budget, but Kemp now wants to return $86 million of that allocation to the general fund because demand amounted to only $55 million.
ATLANTA — Financially strapped college students in Georgia often must drop out for want of money for food and shelter, but their prospects could improve under a new initiative from Gov. Brian Kemp.
The Republican governor, nearing the end of his second and final term amid an uproar over rising costs, wants to put $325 million of taxpayer funds into a scholarship program for students with limited means.
Georgia’s HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships are generous but require students to earn high grades. Georgia is one of just two states that do not offer scholarships solely for financial need.
If the General Assembly adopts Kemp’s proposal, then New Hampshire will stand alone as the only state that does not offer need-based funding.
“I’m really excited about it,” said Sam Aleinikoff, a former math teacher who created and runs College AIM, an organization that helps metro Atlanta students access higher education. “I think it’s a huge step in the right direction.”
Kemp’s gesture comes after a Senate study committee recommended that Georgia spend $126 million a year on need-based financial aid for 98,000 students, potentially pulling money from the same source that funds the HOPE and Zell scholarships and pre-kindergarten. The committee noted that the funding source, the Georgia Lottery Corporation, had nearly $2 billion in reserves.
Students and other advocates who testified to the committee described the plight of poor students who had to hold jobs to pay their bills. The time away from studies undermined their grades, eventually making them ineligible for the HOPE money that got them to college. That loss led to even longer hours at work and an academic downward spiral until they dropped out.
“By the end of their freshman year, 40% of those young people are no longer qualified to get that HOPE scholarship,” said Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, who led the study committee. “In many cases that is tied to the fact that they are out working one or two — in some cases we had students testify that they had three jobs,” she said. “Surprise, surprise they are challenged on keeping their grades up.”
Meanwhile, other states have been attracting Georgia students with larger financial aid packages.
Georgia has the lowest home state college attendance in the region, according to testimony before the committee, with 78% of high school graduates staying here versus the 91% who stay in Mississippi, 86% in Florida and 85% in South Carolina.
The committee cited a 2019 report by the Selig Center for Economic Growth, a business think tank at the University of Georgia, that said Georgia could eventually suffer a shortage of skilled labor if it did not create a need-based financial aid program. Without one, “Georgia is leaving potential economic growth on the table and shortchanging its citizens,” the report said.
Orrock’s study committee was authorized by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican running for governor. The committee’s recommendations passed unanimously, with bipartisan support.
Orrock speculated that her Republican colleagues were compelled by the facts unearthed by her committee and by the upcoming elections “where voters are saying affordability is the issue of the day.”
Kemp’s proposal would pour money into the DREAMS Scholarship Program, which was founded recently by the University System of Georgia Foundation under the leadership of Chancellor Sonny Perdue.
It had $4 million in need-based scholarship funding to distribute last fall. Kemp’s proposal would expand that significantly, offering $25 million in scholarships initially. The remaining $300 million would be used as seed money to attract private donations.
While advocates are excited about the promise of the program, they have questions about some of its stipulations. The DREAMS (Dedicating Resources to Educationally Advance More Students) website says students must work part time to earn a scholarship.
That requirement could undermine the very purpose of helping them maintain high academic achievement, said Ashley Young, an analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which promotes equitable access to higher education.
“We feel this eligibility factor could be more of a barrier than an access point for students who actually need the money the most,” she said. She and other advocates are also concerned by vague language about the distribution of the funding. The website says DREAMS money will be distributed to more than two dozen schools and that the amounts will “vary by institution.”
It does not say how.
Young and other advocates suggested that the money be allocated based on eligibility for federal Pell grants, which are income-based. Otherwise, students at highly ranked schools, such as Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, which already have a healthy alumni donor base, could wind up with more support than students at lower ranked colleges and universities that contend with a higher ratio of low-income students.
Some also said students attending private colleges and universities should be eligible.
However, the biggest concern initially is the funding.
Annual allocations must grow fivefold from that initial round of $25 million to meet the study committee’s $126 million goal. Yet Aleinikoff, the former teacher turned advocate, said the larger figure was offered as a “paired down” and more affordable target.
“The need far exceeds even that $126 million number,” he said. “The need is expansive.”
To produce $126 million a year using investment income, the endowment would have to grow to around $1.8 billion, estimated Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania. As a member of Orrock’s study committee, he advocated for the endowment idea.
Georgia’s lottery program has about that much in reserves, and the committee suggested tapping that fund for DREAMS. But that would be a non-starter for Burns, who as chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, was a key voice in Republican support for the study committee’s recommendations.
HOPE is a sacrosanct national model, Burns said, and the reserves are needed to keep it funded through economic rough patches.
Burns, who said he worked his way through college, rising to become president of Gordon State College in Barnesville until 2017, agrees with the work requirement so long as it is limited. He cited statistics that say students lose half a letter grade for each 15 hours per week of employment during college.
He also praised Kemp for the downpayment to the program and Perdue for setting it up in the first place. He said businesses and “community partners” need to donate to the fund, and he said he is confident that will happen since they stand to benefit from an educated workforce.
“This initiative will support thousands of Georgians — thousands of Georgians — in perpetuity if we do it correctly,” he said.
Gov. Brian Kemp greets Georgia lawmakers before giving his last state of the state address in the Georgia House of Representatives on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp’s last budget proposal would stockpile billions for any rough economy one of his successors might encounter while also asking lawmakers to return over $1 billion to taxpayers.
In his eighth and final state of the state address Thursday, Kemp said his budget proposal to the Georgia General Assembly will give average rebates of $250 per individual taxpayer plus a fifth of a percentage point reduction to the state income tax rate, lowering it to 4.99%.
Like perhaps every other politician, Kemp nodded to what is shaping up to be a dominant issue in the upcoming elections: affordability.
“The reality is too many of our citizens are still struggling to make ends meet each and every day because costs are still too high,” he said, speaking from the well of the Georgia House. “Groceries, rent, insurance, clothes for the kids, it all adds up to more than it used to.”
He said if lawmakers approve his rebate his administration will have returned over $7.5 billion in surplus funds over the past four years. Yet, the state would retain $10 billion in reserves, enough to run government for three months.
Kemp’s budget proposal spends money, too, on roads, on pay supplements, on retirement benefits and, for the first time in state history, on needs-based scholarships for higher education.
But there were no big gestures about the rising cost of health care at a time when many in the state are poised to lose their insurance as federal premium tax credits expire for policies under the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.
“We have been talking about expanding Medicaid year after year. And we know that the ACA subsidies have expired,” Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, said after Kemp’s speech. “There are cuts to Medicaid coming down to us from the federal government. That’s a real challenge, and I’m surprised that it was not mentioned.”
Hugley, who is the House minority leader, also said Kemp’s rebates would do little to help struggling families.
“They’re thinking about child care. They’re thinking about paying rent,” she said. “But a one-time 250 or a one-time 500, what is that really going to do?”
But even she had praise for Kemp’s proposal to infuse a needs-based scholarship fund called Georgia DREAMS with a one-time $325 million grant to serve as an endowment, something Democrats have been requesting for years.
On the House floor, after Kemp left, Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, praised the governor for removing an abiding stigma around college funding for students from low-income families.
“This is the first governor since 1992 who has used the words ‘needs based,'” he said. “Thank you.”
The idea has also been floated in the Senate, where a bipartisan study committee recommended late last year that the state provide need based financial aid like 48 other states.
Kemp is proposing billions in other new spending, in addition to the nearly $1.2 billion rebate and the ongoing annualized $750 million cost of the income tax cut.
He didn’t mention it Thursday, but in a speech the day before at a state Chamber of Commerce event he revealed $2 billion in his budget request to relieve congestion on I-75 south of Atlanta and on Georga 316 from Atlanta to Athens. His budget also includes $350 million for local road and bridge improvements.
And Kemp would help state employees with their living costs by giving a $2,000 pay supplement to all of them, including educators and state public safety officers.
It will cost over $600 million.
State law enforcement would also get a retirement boost that would add about $5 million a year to annual budgets. The proposal would accelerate the annual increases in the percentage state match for each officer’s contribution to their 401(k) plan and lift the cap to 15% of salary from 9%.
Near the end of his speech, Kemp acknowledged that governors lose clout as they near their final hour, but he also noted the substantial power that Georgia governors wield through the line-item budget veto.
“For those of you who may think I’m a lame duck,” he said, “just remember I have a big red pen.”
It was a joke, and the lawmakers laughed and applauded. But it was also true. Lawmakers have nearly always given Kemp what he asked for.
