ATLANTA – A nonprofit formed to help administer a new state tax credit to support foster children aging out of the system is working against a tight deadline.
Fostering Success Act Inc. has until Dec. 31 to process $20 million in annual tax credits the General Assembly authorized last year. As of the beginning of this month, $15 million still remained available, said Heidi Carr, the organization’s executive director.
“We’ve been reaching out to a lot of companies and individuals to get their applications in,” she said. “But time is running out.”
Under legislation Georgia lawmakers passed unanimously, individual taxpayers can receive dollar-for-dollar state income tax credits for up to $2,500 per year contributed to the program, while married couples filing jointly can receive up to $5,000. Corporate donations are limited to 10% of the company’s annual tax liability.
“They have to pay taxes anyway,” Carr said. “This is an opportunity to make a difference.”
About 700 young Georgians age out of the foster care system each year, most with no family to return to after they leave the system.
Carr cited statistics showing 97% of those youths end up living in chronic poverty, 71% of the girls get pregnant within a year of leaving foster care, and 81% of the boys encounter police.
“They don’t have anywhere to go back to, so they end up on the street,” she said.
Contributions to the tax credit program will be used for “wraparound” services – including housing, food, and transportation – to help support these young people while they attend a university or technical college. Former foster care youths ages 18 to 25 are eligible for the program.
“We want them to learn a trade or get a degree,” Carr said.
Fostering Success Act Inc. currently is distributing funds raised through the tax credit to 20 nonprofit organizations, with more in the pipeline for 2024. One of those is Alpharetta-based FaithBridge Foster Care, which has helped kids aging out of foster care enroll in colleges across the state, from Dalton State College in Northwest Georgia to the College of Coastal Georgia and Valdosta State University.
“Over 50% of foster kids sign out of foster care at 18,” said John Solberg, vice president of youth opportunities at FaithBridge. “They believe they can support themselves, but they can fall into homelessness and have other issues because they’re not mentally or emotionally prepared for the challenges of adulthood.”
Applications for the tax credit to the Georgia Department of Revenue are accepted on a first-come basis. Once approved, taxpayers have 60 days from the date of approval to send their contribution check or pay online.
Carr said she’s not surprised the program is getting off to slow start because the tax credit is new and a lot of taxpayers aren’t aware of it. Thus far, about 100 youths have contacted her organization for help, she said.
“We were able to help some start school in August, and we have more lined up for January,” she said. “This gives them hope. Hope is something they don’t have a lot of.”
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., vowed Thursday to help two federal agencies responsible for child welfare to develop the tools needed to protect foster children from abuse and neglect.
The Senate’s Human Rights Subcommittee, which Ossoff chairs, launched an investigation last February to assess the safety of children in foster care.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found in October that between 2018 and 2022, 1,790 children in the care of Georgia’s foster care system were reported missing. During a hearing of the subcommittee last month in Atlanta, witnesses testified that children missing from foster care are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking.
“What is happening to foster children across the United States is not acceptable,” Ossoff said Thursday during another hearing held by his subcommittee. “The number of children who are going missing from foster care is unacceptable.”
Ossoff and Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, criticized lax oversight by federal and state child welfare agencies when it comes to missing children.
Ossoff cited audits of multiple states that found 45% of missing child incidents were not reported to NCMEC and that most missing children were not screened for sex trafficking after they were recovered.
Blackburn said the federal government can’t find 85,000 missing migrant children.
“We’ve seen reports of these children working in factories (and) food processing plants,” she said. “We should not have to read more reports of children being used for child labor or sex trafficking rings.”
Jose Perez, deputy assistant director at the FBI, said one of law enforcement’s biggest challenges is end-to-end encryption, a technology that allows participants in organized criminal rings to communicate with each other without anyone else gaining access.
Perez said the FBI’s 56 field offices operate more than 85 task forces across the country. Investigators prioritize cases involving missing children ages 12 and under who have gone missing under suspicious circumstances, he said.
“If we believe it’s a kidnapping, that’s an all-hands-on-deck scenario,” he said.
Rebecca Jones Gaston, commissioner of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Children, Youth and Families, said her agency requires state child welfare departments to submit plans outlining their policies. Those that don’t meet federal requirements are offered technical assistance so they can improve, she said.
Ossoff said making sure states have adequate policies for dealing with foster children isn’t enough.
“Putting something in a policy manual is not always implementing that policy in practice,” he said.
Jones Gaston said ensuring polices are put into practice is up to state and local child welfare agencies. However, her agency can and does issue corrective action plans and assess penalties if those policies aren’t followed.
Ossoff said the full Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next month to hear from CEOs of tech companies on steps they’re taking to protect children from online predators.
ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-West Point, announced Thursday he will not seek reelection next year after serving four terms in Congress.
“Georgia is a special place, and it’s calling us home,” Ferguson said in a prepared statement. “Julie and I look forward to spending more time with our children and grandchildren while continuing to work to keep Georgia the best state in America to live and do business.”
Ferguson served as chief deputy whip for House Republicans from 2018 through last year. He is a member of the House Ways and Means and Budget committees.
“Serving on the Ways and Means Committee has allowed me to focus on tax, trade and health care – issues important to American competitiveness on the global stage,” he said.
Ferguson’s 3rd Congressional District is considered a safe seat for Republicans. It runs along the Alabama line from northern Muscogee County north through Haralson County, and stretches east through Spalding, Lamar, and Upson counties.
A native of West Point, Ferguson was elected the city’s mayor in 2008. A graduate of the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia, he established a dental practice in his hometown.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry
ATLANTA – Georgia will need to spend at least $81 billion on transportation improvements by 2050 to keep people and freight moving on highways that otherwise will becoming increasingly congested, state Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry warned Wednesday.
“There’s a lot to be done,” McMurry told members of the State Transportation Board toward the end of a presentation heavy with positive yet alarming statistics.
Manufacturing, agricultural production, and warehouse distribution are all expected to grow exponentially in Georgia by 2050, resulting in a doubling of freight tonnage from 2015, the last time Georgia lawmakers passed major transportation funding legislation.
The increased traffic that growth will bring will cause the costs businesses will be forced to absorb to rise from $14.4 million in 2015 to $33.3 million by 2015, a 131% increase, McMurry said.
The state embarked on a major transportation improvement program in 2016 that includes significant upgrades to interstate highway interchanges, widening of interstate highways, construction of commercial vehicle lanes, and last-mile road improvements near the Port of Savannah.
Work also is underway to widen roads and build new interchanges surrounding two major electric-vehicle plants east of Atlanta and west of Savannah.
But of the $81 billion in work McMurry outlined on Wednesday, only $26 billion is in the state’s pipeline. McMurry said planning for the projects not drawn up as yet must begin soon.
“The projects we build and develop take a long time,” he said. “It’s easily a decade to do big things,”
McMurry said other states in the Southeast that are spending more per capita on transportation projects than Georgia are getting the money to pay for those improvements from budget surpluses.
Georgia is sitting on an unprecedented $16 billion surplus, including $11 billion in undesignated funds.
Georgia businesses could join forces with the state Department of Transportation in pushing for major new funding commitments for highway improvements.
McMurry said he already has given the presentation he made Wednesday to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
ATLANTA – The release of fatal liquid nitrogen at a poultry processing plant in Gainesville nearly three years ago was “completely preventable,” according to a newly released federal report.
Six workers died at the Foundation Food Group (FFG) plant in January 2021 when a liquid nitrogen control system in a freezer room failed due to a bent tube that allowed the room to be filled with a deadly cloud, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) found.
The severity of the incident was worsened by FFG’s inadequate emergency preparedness, including a failure to install air monitoring and alarm devices. As a result, at least 14 workers entered the freezer room or the surrounding area to investigate the incident or try to rescue coworkers, with three of those workers and a firefighter suffering serious injuries from asphyxiation.
“Workers were not aware of the deadly consequences of a liquid nitrogen release,” said Drew Sahli, the CSB investigator in charge. “Ultimately trying to save their colleagues led to them sacrificing their own lives. This is a known hazard, and better training and communication could have prevented such a tragedy.”
After the incident, FFG sold the plant to Gold Creek Foods, which is its current owner. Gold Creek does not have liquid nitrogen freezing processes in the building where the incident occurred.
The CSB report made 12 safety recommendations, including calling on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish a national standard addressing hazards arising from the storage, use, and/or handling of cryogenic asphyxiants.
The agency also suggested that the Compressed Gas Association and the National Fire Prevention Association improve their guidance on the safe use of cryogenic asphyxiants, including liquid nitrogen,
“The CSB’s recommendations are important for preventing incidents involving liquid nitrogen and lessening their severity if they do occur,” CSB Chairman Steve Owens said. “The hazards of liquid nitrogen must be clearly communicated to workers, and the safety management systems for operations that use liquid nitrogen must be improved.”
The Chattahoochee River (photo: Rebecca Grapevine)
ATLANTA – The states of Georgia and Alabama have reached an agreement expected to end a long-running legal dispute over water allocation from the Chattahoochee River Basin.
Under the agreement, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will consider a first-of-its-kind proposal to operate its dams and reservoirs to achieve minimum water-flow objectives at Columbus, Ga., and Columbia, Ala., on the Chattahoochee along the states’ border.
In addition, the Corps agrees to maintain the necessary minimum elevation at Lake Seminole, a Corps-managed reservoir about 20 miles southwest of Bainbridge.
If the Corps adopts the agreement following a public-comment period, Alabama will drop a lawsuit it brought in 2017 challenging the federal agency’s operations in the region, including the Corps’ policy allowing Georgia to make water-supply withdrawals near Atlanta.
While this specific lawsuit is only six years old. the so-called tri-state “water wars” between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida date back to 1990.
“This agreement is a win-win for our states, with neither side sacrificing what is important to them,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. “The Chattahoochee River is the lifeblood of Southwest Georgia, and this proposal would give citizens and businesses certainty about the flow of water they need for business and leisure alike.
“Just as significant, adoption of this proposal would end the current issues related to water supply for metro Atlanta at Lake Lanier, which is crucial to the future of our state.”
“Alabama and Georgia have a lot in common,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey added. “But we have spent a lot of time – and a lot of money on attorney fees – fighting in court over water. This proposal is a big deal for Alabama as the Corps has never before set minimum water-flow objectives in the parts of the Chattahoochee that affect us.
“It would provide Alabama with long-term assurances that, in times of drought, our citizens will be protected, and our stakeholders will know how much water is coming their way.”
The agreement announced Tuesday is the most significant since September of last year, when representatives of water supply systems in Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall counties finalized an agreement with the state of Georgia guaranteeing them water from Lake Lanier through 2050.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Georgia in a lawsuit brought by Florida over water allocation from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) Basin. Steps water planners in the Atlanta region have taken during the last two decades to reduce water consumption figured into that ruling.
“As leaders in water stewardship, we are gratified the parties have come together on an agreement that both protects metro Atlanta’s water supply and provides the downstream flows Alabama requested,” said Katherine Zitsch, senior water policy advisor at the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Tuesday’s agreement is not the end of water wars litigation. Alabama is continuing to pursue a legal challenge to the Corps’ 2021 decision to meet metro Atlanta’s water-supply needs from Allatoona Lake, part of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basin.
