Man in prison hands of behind hold Steel cage jail bars. offender criminal locked in jail.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Corrections and the FBI have broken up a multi-state criminal operation involving the use of drones to smuggle contraband into state prisons.
“Operation Skyhawk” has led to the arrest of 150 suspects, including eight prison employees who were immediately fired. Those arrested – including civilians, inmates, and prison staff – face more than 1,000 charges stemming from contraband introduction, drug trafficking, and possession of firearms, as well as racketeering.
“The success of ‘Operation Skyhawk’ should be a reminder to anyone – inside or outside our prisons – that we have zero tolerance and will take swift action against those who threaten the safe operations of our facilities and the safety of the public,” Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver said Thursday. “I am immensely proud of our agents for their commitment to seeing that these individuals are brought to justice.”
Confiscated contraband thus far during the operation includes 87 drones, 22 weapons, 273 cellphones found inside state prisons, 180 civilian cellphones, 185 pounds of tobacco, 67 pounds in marijuana, 51 pounds of the drug Ecstasy, 12 pounds of methamphetamines, and 10 grams of cocaine. Altogether, the items have a combined street value of $7 million.
The General Assembly passed the fiscal 2025 state budget Thursday night. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – The General Assembly gave final passage to a $36.1 billion fiscal 2025 state budget Thursday night, including raises for state employees and public school teachers as well as an 11th-hour influx of funding for Georgia’s Pre-Kindergarten program.
The spending plan, which passed the state House 175-1 and the Senate 54-1 in the final hours of this year’s legislative session, represents an increase of $3.7 billion over the fiscal 2024 budget lawmakers adopted last spring.
It includes 4% cost-of-living raises for most state and university system workers, with an additional $3,000 for employees in state agencies suffering large turnover rates, including law enforcement officers and welfare workers. Teachers would get increases of $2,500.
The budget also contains substantial increases in funding for various education initiatives, including $243 million to account for student enrollment growth, $200 million to buy more school buses, and $108 million in school safety grants to upgrade security on public school campuses. Every public school in Georgia will get grants of $45,000.
A late-arriving increase of $48.4 million would go to Georgia’s lottery-funded pre-kindergarten program, thanks to brisk lottery ticket sales. Gov. Brian Kemp announced late Wednesday he would revise his revenue estimate upward to make room for the additional funds.
“Ensuring Georgia’s children have the strongest possible start in their educational career continues to be a priority for my administration,” the governor wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees. “I am increasing my revenue estimate … to further address class size, teacher pay, and capital and operational needs critical to the continued success of our nationally recognized Pre-Kindergarten program.”
“We made progress for the first time in 30 years on pre-k,” added House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton, who chaired the Working Group on Early Childhood Education, which released a report in January blaming declining pre-k enrollment on an inability to find teachers willing to work at state-funded salaries and inadequate state funding for opening and operating classrooms.
The ’25 budget also includes $10.7 million for a technology upgrade inside state prisons to head off a flood of cellphones being smuggled in to inmates. Another $18.6 million will boost reimbursement rates to health-care providers.
Lawmakers approved $6.3 million for free breakfasts and lunches for 64,000 children from low-income families.
In a departure from the usual policy of borrowing the funds for building projects, the state’s $16 billion budget surplus allowed the legislature to load up the spending plan with $1.2 billion in cash for a variety of projects. Of that amount, $866 million would go toward buildings at public schools, colleges and universities, and at state agencies.
The budget now heads to Kemp’s desk. Governors typically sign annual budgets in early May.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power and state energy regulators have agreed on a plan to increase the Atlanta-based utility’s electrical generating capacity including the construction of three new gas combustion turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan.
The revenue that new capacity would produce for the company would more than offset the costs to generate the additional power, Aaron Abramovitz, Georgia Power’s chief financial officer and treasurer, told members of the state Public Service Commission (PSC) Wednesday. The resulting savings would save the average residential customer $2.89 a month from 2026 through 2028, he said.
“At Georgia Power, our customers are at the center of everything we do, and we are unwavering in our commitment to provide them with clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy,” Abramovitz testified.
“The stipulated agreement benefits all customers, and approval of this agreement will preserve and protect the reliability and quality of electric service our customers expect and support the continued economic development of our state … all while placing downward pressure on rates for all customers.”
Georgia Power submitted a request to the PSC last October for additional capacity to handle a growing demand for electricity.
Abramovitz said Wednesday the company has received commitments for an additional 2,600 megawatts of power from 11 large-load customers. A megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 homes. The Georgia Association of Manufacturers is a party to the agreement, along with Georgia Power and the PSC’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff.
“This clearly indicates that these customers are coming, that significant load will materialize, and that the need to serve that load will occur sooner rather than later,” Abramovitz testified.
Besides the new gas turbines, Georgia Power’s plan to add generating capacity also includes power purchasing agreements with Mississippi Power – a sister company of Georgia Power – and Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC, all involving natural gas.
Georgia Power also is proposing an expansion of its battery energy storage capacity and new and expanded distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar, and demand response initiatives in which customers voluntarily agree to reduce energy use during periods of peak demand.
While the utility requested to develop, own, and operate 1,000 megawatts of battery energy storage, the agreement reduced that amount to 500 megawatts, including projects at Robins Air Force Base near Warner Robins and Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta.
Georgia Power agreed to issue a request for proposals on an expedited schedule to obtain the other 500 megawatts of battery energy storage.
The proposed agreement got pushback Wednesday from the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC).
“This is a fossil fuel bonanza,” said Jennifer Whitfield, a senior attorney with the group. “Not only is expanding dirty and unpredictably priced fossil fuels on the table. This agreement would allow Georgia Power to bypass important steps to protect its customers from rising energy bills.”
The SELC disputed Georgia Power’s assertion that the agreement will reduce customer bills, citing its own analysis predicting bills would go up by $44 per month during a two-year period when combined with a series of other rate hikes. The group also maintained the additional demand for energy could be met with renewable options including solar power and battery storage.
The commission is scheduled to vote on the agreement on April 16.
ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at reforming Georgia’s coin-operated amusement machines (COAM) industry is headed to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk after squeaking through the state Senate.
Senators passed House Bill 353 Tuesday night 29-24, the minimum number of votes needed to pass legislation in the 56-member chamber. The House followed suit later by a much larger margin of 148-18.
The bill would award non-cash redemption gift cards to winners that could be redeemed anywhere in Georgia for any legal product. Current law allows COAM winners to redeem their prizes only for merchandise sold in the store where the machine they played is located.
Supporters have argued gift cards would take away the temptation to illegally pay out cash prizes, contributing to a crime problem long associated with the COAM industry.
Senators amended the bill Tuesday night to increase the state’s share of the revenue generated from COAM proceeds from 10% to 13%. The additional 3% would produce an estimated $40 million a year for Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs, said Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, who carried the bill in the Senate.
The bill drew significant opposition from senators opposed both to the concept of the COAM games and to the percentage of the revenue the state gets to keep.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said the COAM industry preys upon poor people who are tricked into believing they have a chance to hit it big.
“The machines are programmed to where you can’t win,” he said.
“We are slowly eroding what Georgia is about,” added Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula. “We are sacrificing our very soul.”
Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said COAMs will hurt the Georgia Lottery program because the 13% return amended into the COAM bill gives the state a far lower share of the take than the lottery, which typically contributes about 25% of the proceeds to HOPE and pre-k.
But Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, said the COAM machines provide a form of entertainment to people without the means to travel to Las Vegas.
“What we’re trying to do is legislate morality,” he said.
Senators defeated an amendment proposed by Cowsert to significantly increase the state’s share of the revenue from COAM machines. Dixon argued such a move would kill the industry.
ATLANTA – Legislation guaranteeing Georgians the right to hunt and fish in the state’s navigable rivers and streams is on its way to Gov. Brian Kemp.
The state Senate gave final passage to House Bill 1172 Tuesday night 34-18, with a sizable contingent of opponents arguing it doesn’t go far enough to protect public access.
The General Assembly hurriedly passed a bill on the final day of last year’s legislative session guaranteeing public fishing and hunting rights after a property owner along the Upper Flint River had won a lawsuit seeking to ban public fishing along his stretch of the river.
After the legislation took effect last July, some waterfront property owners raised concerns over a provision that declared Georgia citizens’ right to use the state’s waterways under the “public trust doctrine.”
House Bill 1172 addressed property owners’ fears by removing that provision. But the legislation still retains its underlying purpose of ensuring Georgians’ right to hunt and fish in navigable waterways, Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie, who carried the bill in the Senate, told his colleagues before the vote.
“We’re trying to tread the needle here to continue to allow passage, hunting, and fishing,” he said.
But Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said taking away the public trust doctrine means Georgians will not be guaranteed the right to swim or wade in the state’s rivers and streams, including the right to stand on a riverbank and cast a fishing line. Waterfront property owners also will be able to prohibit scientific research in the state’s waterways.
“It’s very nearly impossible to do these activities without touching the stream bed,” she said.
Parent said the Georgia Wildlife Federation and the University of Georgia’s River Basin Center sent letters opposing the bill.
Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, said the Metro Atlanta Chamber and multiple agribusiness organizations expressed support for the measure.
Senators defeated two amendments introduced Tuesday night, including one by Parent that would have restored the public trust doctrine to the legislation, drawing a charge from Kennedy that she was trying to gut the bill.
A House study committee held several hearings on the issue around the state last October that pit the interests of recreational fishers, fishing guides, and paddlers against those of farmers and waterfront property owners.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate passed legislation Tuesday crammed with multiple “culture wars” provisions affecting Georgia schools.
House Bill 1104, which the Senate’s Republican majority passed 33-21 along party lines, originated in the House as a measure addressing mental-health risks for student athletes. But Senate Republicans added a host of controversial provisions aimed at sex education, transgender students, and library books.
As reconstituted, the bill would prohibit sex education in Georgia schools before the sixth grade and require schools to notify parents of which books their children are checking out from school libraries.
It also would require students to use bathrooms that match the gender identify on their birth certificates and prohibit transgender male students from participating in girls’ sports.
“It protects children and empowers parents,” Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, who carried the bill in the Senate, told his colleagues before Tuesday’s vote.
Dixon said the few years of innocence children enjoy while in elementary school should be protected from sex education instruction. He also argued female athletes should have a right to participate in school sports without having to compete against faster, stronger transgender males.
Democrats complained not only about the provisions themselves but the process Republicans used to load them into a single bill.
“This Frankenstein bill cobbled together some of most draconian and backwards thinking,” said Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth.
Parkes said bills targeting LGBTQ students in other states have led to an increase in hate crimes.
“It’s targeting a handful of kids in this entire state because they’re different than us,” added Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, referring to the transgender sports provision.
Because of the changes made by the Senate, the bill must now return to the House before it can gain final passage.
