ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives unanimously passed an election-year tax relief package Thursday.
A measure introduced on behalf of Gov. Brian Kemp would accelerate a state income tax cut that took effect this year, rolling back the income tax rate from 5.49% to 5.39%. House Bill 1015 would save Georgia taxpayers about $1.1 billion this year, Rep. Lauren McDonald, R-Cumming, said on the House floor before Thursday’s vote.
Another bill in the package calls for doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption from $2,000 to $4,000. The exemption has remained unchanged since 1978, when the average home in Georgia cost $55,000, said Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, House Bill 1019’s chief sponsor.
“This gives good tax relief at a time it’s needed,” he said.
The third bill in the package – House Bill 1021 – would increase Georgia’s child-tax deduction from $3,000 to $4,000.
ATLANTA – Legislation introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday would place new limits on the state’s popular film tax credit and suspend the tax exemption aimed at encouraging the construction of high-tech data centers.
The bill is the product of the Joint Tax Credit Review Panel, a committee of state lawmakers formed last year to examine the various tax incentives Georgia offers and determine whether the state is getting a healthy return on the lost revenue.
“We believe these measures meet an accepted level of fiscal responsibility while at the same time preserving a very business-friendly, job-creating environment,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, the bill’s chief sponsor, said Wednesday during a news conference at the Capitol.
The generous film tax credit the General Assembly passed in 2008 is widely credited with making Georgia one of the top movie and television production states in the nation. The tax credit generated $8.55 billion in economic impact in fiscal 2022, according to a study released late last year.
But the credit accounts for about $1 billion in lost state tax revenue each year, making it by far the most expensive on the books in Georgia.
Blackmon’s bill would add nine criteria production companies would have to meet to qualify for an additional 10% tax credit on top of the 20% base credit, raise the minimum companies would have to spend to earn the credit, and put new limits on the selling of credits.
“We want to make sure we streamline our tax credit to make sure we continue to get the absolute best return on that investment,” said House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington.
Suspending the tax exemption for data centers was prompted by their huge demand for electricity, which has escalated to the point that Georgia Power Co. has a request before the state Public Service Commission to increase the utility’s electrical generating capacity by about 6,600 megawatts.
“These data centers continue to use a disproportionate amount of our state’s energy,” Burns said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said the Senate stands ready to take up the legislation after it gets through the House. By law, all legislation related to state tax revenue must originate in the lower chamber.
“This is all about using the taxpayers’ dollars in the most effective and efficient manner,” Hufstetler said.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly adopted a $37.5 billon fiscal 2024 midyear budget Wednesday with a surplus-fueled $5 billion in new spending.
The midyear spending plan passed 161-2 and now moves to the state Senate.
Of the $5 billion spending increase, $2 billion would come directly from the unprecedented $16 billion in reserves the state has built up during the last several years.
“There’s much to be proud of in this budget,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told his House colleagues before Wednesday’s vote. “Much good can be done with it.”
Among the big-ticket spending items is $1.5 billion for transportation improvements, including $659 million for projects in the existing pipeline, $509 million for projects aimed at more efficient movement of freight, $200 million for improvements to local roads, $100 million for resurfacing projects, and $53 million in airport aid.
For the first time in memory, the proposed spending spree would let the state pay for major capital projects with cash instead of bond financing. The midyear budget allocates $450 million for a new state prison in Washington County, $178 million for a new dental school at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus in Savannah, and $50 million for a new medical school at the University of Georgia in Athens.
State employees and teachers will get one-time pay supplements of $1,000, an initiative Gov. Brian Kemp announced in December to help reduce turnover in public schools and state agencies.
All of those spending increases were in the mid-year budget recommendations Kemp presented to the General Assembly last month.
But the House made some additions on its own. Hatchett said the midyear budget seeks to restore some of the spending items the governor ordered state agencies to disregard last spring when he signed the fiscal 2024 budget.
“We are the appropriators,” Hatchett declared. “We absolutely have the authority to set policy in this state.”
The House version of the midyear budget would raise per-diem reimbursement to counties housing state prison inmates from $22 per day to $24.
House budget writers also added $60 million for infrastructure improvements at the state’s psychiatric hospitals and put $10.4 million toward a new child and adolescent crisis center to be built in Savannah.
ATLANTA – Backlogs of pending court cases that built up during the pandemic are on the decline, Georgia Chief Justice Michael Boggs said Wednesday.
But shortages of prosecutors, public defenders, court reporters, and other court staff continue to plague the court system, Boggs told a joint session of the General Assembly during the annual State of the Judiciary address.
“Judges alone cannot move criminal cases without prosecutors,” he said. “Nothing can be done without court reporters.”
Boggs said an influx of federal funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 has helped judicial circuits hire more staff and upgrade technology. Forty-six of the state’s 50 judicial circuits have taken advantage of ARPA funding, he said.
As a result, the backlog of cases has declined by 11% on average statewide, Boggs said.
With Georgia also suffering from a shortage of judges, Boggs urged lawmakers to pass House Bill 947, which would overhaul the system for paying superior court judges, justices of the Georgia Supreme Court, justices of the state Court of Appeals, and the judge of the Georgia State-wide Business Court.
Boggs also supported proposed legislation to require that personal information on judges, such as their addresses, be kept confidential to help protect them from growing threats to judges across the nation.
“These attacks and threats are meant to intimidate,” he said. “Georgia judges will not be threatened or intimidated into abandoning their constitutional duties.”
The chief justice also cited a revision of rules the state Supreme Court approved last fall aimed at increasing the availability of lawyers in rural communities. Under the revision, spouses of active-duty service members who are lawyers will be able to obtain provisional law licenses without taking the bar exam.
ATLANTA – Two Georgia brothers have been arrested for assaulting law enforcement office during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Cepane Sarty, 38, of Marietta, and Seth Sarty, 45, of Rockmart, are charged with the felony offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers during the attack, which disrupted a joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.
In addition, the men faced misdemeanor charges of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing inside the Capitol.
According to court documents, the brothers entered the Capitol building via the Senate Wing Door at about 2:20 p.m., less than 10 minutes after the initial breach in the area. They then made their way to the Crypt and toward the Memorial Door, joining a group of rioters confronting a police line.
By 2:32 p.m., the group had broken through the police line and gained access to the House side of the building.
The men then entered the office suite of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Next, they entered the Capitol Rotunda briefly before exiting the building, only to return shortly after 3 p.m. At that point, they encountered a police line attempting to clear the area.
Body-worn camera and closed-circuit television footage showed the brothers shoving police officers and temporarily driving them back. Police then deployed a chemical riot control agent at the men, causing them to leave the Capitol through the Rotunda doors at 3:13 p.m.
The Sarty brothers were arrested on Monday in Georgia.
Since the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, more than 1,300 people have been charged in nearly all 50 states in connection with the incident. More than 450 have been charged with the felony of assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives gave final passage Tuesday to legislation adding a long list of offenses ineligible for no-cash bail.
The Republican controlled House voted 97-69 along party lines to adopt a conference committee report on Senate Bill 63 worked out by House and Senate negotiators.
The ban on no-cash bail applies to both violent and non-violent crimes, from murder and rape to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and white-collar crimes including forgery and financial transaction card fraud.
The Senate passed the conference committee report last week in a 30-17 vote, also along party lines. Most of the work on the bill was done last year, but the conference committee formed at the end of the 2023 legislative session couldn’t reach an agreement before lawmakers adjourned for the year.
“This legislation will make it clear that Georgia is not going to go down the path of other states that have (allowed) no-cash bail,” Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, who carried the bill in the House, said Tuesday.
Gaines said statistics show that criminal suspects who are granted no-cash bail fail to appear in court at much higher rates than those forced to post bail.
House Democrats argued the legislation punishes people who have yet to be convicted of a crime simply for being poor. In many cases, those denied no-cash bail have been charged with low-level offenses that don’t even carry a jail sentence if they’re convicted, said Rep. Gregg Kennard, D-Lawrenceville.
Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, accused Republican lawmakers of undermining criminal justice reforms then-GOP Gov. Nathan Deal championed during the last decade. Miller said forcing criminal suspects to remain in jail before their court date is counterproductive.
“The more time they spend in pre-trial detention increases the probability of re-arrest,” she said.
The bill’s opponents also complained about a provision in the bill that limits charitable organizations that raise money for bail from posting more than three cash bonds per year.
“We can possibly criminalize churches that raise money to get their member out of jail,” said Rep. Derrick Jackson, D-Tyrone.
Senate Bill 63 now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
