ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has been busy exercising his veto pen.
The Republican governor has vetoed 14 bills the General Assembly passed during this year’s legislative session, not including nine vetoes of line items in the $32.4 billion fiscal 2024 state budget he signed late last week.
The 14 vetoes were highlighted by legislation sponsored by several GOP legislative leaders to establish a needs-based program of tuition grants for Georgia college students.
Legislative Democrats have long argued the state should feature needs-based scholarships along with the popular HOPE program, which awards scholarships based on merit. But in his veto message, Kemp wrote that the legislature didn’t put up the money in House Bill 249 to fund the program.
“The proposals in this bill are subject to appropriations and the General Assembly failed to fully fund these educational incentives,” the governor wrote.
Other bills Kemp vetoed include:
— House Bill 193 increasing the value of local government public works contracts subject to competitive bidding requirements from $100,000 to $250,000. Kemp argued state contracts worth more than $100,000 must be competitively bid, and he saw no reason to be more lenient with local contracts.
— House Bill 541 expanding Georgia’s “move over” law to apply to any stationary vehicle displaying flashing hazard lights. Kemp argued applying the requirement to such a broad group of emergency vehicles would pose a safety and enforcement hazard.
— Senate Bill 199 allowing the Employee Benefit Plan Council to offer health savings accounts to all eligible state employees to be funded through automatic salary deductions. Kemp wrote the fiscal ramifications of such a step have not been fully explored.
The nine budget line-item vetoes include several projects on Georgia’s public university and technical college campuses to be financed through bonds. In each case, Kemp wrote the projects had not been requested by the University System of Georgia or the Technical College System of Georgia.
The projects include:
— $6 million for a dental school building at Georgia Southern University.
— $6 million to expand a medical building at Southeastern Technical College in Vidalia.
— $4 million for land acquisition for Georgia Piedmont Technical College in DeKalb County.
— $2 million to build a new student services and academic support center at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville.
Kemp also vetoed $4 million in bond funding to expand the medical examiner’s office in Bibb County, arguing the project already has received funding.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has signed two transportation bills that will allow heavier trucks to ply Georgia highways and pave the way for the widespread introduction of electric vehicles.
House Bill 189 will let commercial trucks exceed the current legal weight limit of 80,000 pounds by 10% on roads other than federal highways, which are subject to federal limits.
Commercial trucks had been hauling loads weighing up to 95,000 pounds since the pandemic struck Georgia more than three years ago, but an executive order Kemp issued in March 2020 to allow the heavier weights expired in March.
The 10% exemption letting trucks run with up to 88,000 pounds of cargo applies only to trucks hauling agricultural products – including livestock – and logs. During the pandemic, the farming, livestock and timber industries came to rely financially on the ability to transport heavier loads to reduce the number of trips.
The bill’s opponents warned that allowing heavier trucks permanently will pose a safety hazard and tear up the roads.
The legislation also allows the higher weight limits to apply only within a 150-mile radius of the farm or other point of origin of the cargo and prohibits heavier trucks from running inside metro Atlanta.
The bill sets penalties for violations that increase in several stages depending on how much a truck is exceeding the new legal weight limit.
While House Bill 189 takes effect immediately, the impact of the electric vehicles legislation won’t be felt for some time.
Senate Bill 146 changes the way motorists charging their EVs will pay for the electricity they buy from the current system, which is based on the length of time a customer uses an EV charger. Instead, they will pay by the kilowatt hour, a federal requirement Georgia must meet to be eligible for $135 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress to build a network of charging stations across the state.
The new law will continue imposing the flat annual registration fee of $216 EV owners have been paying, while adding an excise tax of 2.84 cents per kilowatt hour.
Those double taxes prompted complaints from the bill’s opponents that Georgians will be paying the highest taxes on EVs in the nation. Supporters argued the excise tax is necessary to capture tax revenue from out-of-state motorists traveling through Georgia.
Most of the bill’s provisions won’t take effect until the beginning of 2025 to give the state agriculture and revenue departments time to prepare. The agriculture department will handle the inspection and permitting of the new public EV charging stations, while the revenue agency will collect the taxes on EVs.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed a $32.4 billion fiscal 2024 state budget Friday that provides pay raises of $4,000 to $6,000 for law enforcement officers and $2,000 increases for other state workers, teachers, and university system employees.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, increases state spending by $2.2 billion, or 7.4%, over the budget the General Assembly adopted last spring.
The spending plan fully funds Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) k-12 student funding formula with a record $13.1 billion in state dollars and covers 100% of tuition for Georgia’s HOPE scholars for the first time since 2011.
“This budget improves the quality of and access to education all across the board,” Kemp said during a signing ceremony held at the massive construction site of a Hyundai Motor Group electric vehicles manufacturing plant near Savannah.
Wearing an orange safety vest and white hard hat, Kemp used the construction backdrop to highlight Georgia’s economic development progress, including announcements of the four largest projects in state history in just the past year, including the Hyundai plant.
As the budget went through the General Assembly, lawmakers added $47 million to the governor’s request for mental health services, bringing the total to $117 million.
The spending plan also includes $52 million to launch Georgia Pathways, Kemp’s limited Medicaid expansion that – unlike the federal version – includes a work requirement for enrollees.
The budget also funds construction, planning and/or design of 24 buildings, primarily projects on university and technical college campuses.
Also during Friday’s ceremony, Kemp signed legislation extending through 2026 a state sales tax exemption for “competitive projects of regional significance,” including the Hyundai plant. Kemp said most of those large economic development projects are located outside of metro Atlanta.
Separate from the signing ceremony, Kemp signed a bill Friday creating an oversight board, the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PAQC) to investigate complaints lodged against Georgia prosecutors and hold hearings. Senate Bill 92 passed the Republican-controlled General Assembly along party lines.
During the legislative debate on the bill, GOP lawmakers complained that district attorneys in some parts of the state have been soft on crime.
“As hardworking law enforcement officers routinely put their lives on the line to investigate, confront, and arrest criminal offenders, I won’t stand idly by as they’re met with resistance from rogue or incompetent prosecutors who refuse to uphold the law,” Kemp said Friday. “The creation of the PACQ will help hold prosecutors driven [more] by out-of-touch politics than commitment to their responsibilities accountable and make our communities safer.”
A coalition of criminal justice reform and voting rights advocates opposed the bill as a blow to democracy.
“This anti-democratic legislation creates a state commission with powers to investigate, sanction, and remove duly elected local prosecutors,” the group Progress Georgia wrote in a statement issued Friday. “This legislation is part of a coordinated anti-democratic power grab and attempts to undo the will of voters.
ATLANTA – America’s three-year experiment with an approximation of European-style universal health care will come to an end May 11 when the federal public health emergency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic expires.
A series of health-care and insurance-coverage provisions that were put in place to deal with the pandemic are about to go away, which experts in the field say will make it just as hard to access care for many as it was before coronavirus struck Georgia and the nation.
“As we transition into the new normal, we are returning mostly to our fragmented health system as we knew it,” said Jen Kates, director of global health at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
One casualty of that “new normal” will be an immediate end to free at-home COVID tests for most Georgians. Those enrolled in Medicaid will continue to get free tests but only until September. The good news on that front is that COVID vaccines will continue to be free for Medicaid enrollees and the uninsured under a $1 billion Biden administration program.
Continuing to offer free vaccines to that group makes sense because low-income Georgians on Medicaid or without insurance coverage of any sort tend to work in jobs where the risk of exposure to COVID is greater than to others who can work from home, said Leah Chan, senior health policy analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, an Atlanta-based nonprofit.
“It’s important keeping it in place for a longer period of time,” she said.
Telehealth services took off during the pandemic, as patients and physicians sought to reduce their exposure to COVID-19. Health-care providers stepped up their offerings of telehealth, and insurance companies proved more willing to cover those services.
While the end of the public health emergency will limit coverage of some telehealth services, Chan said states are being given flexibility to continue some telehealth services for Medicaid enrollees. For example, Georgia plans to launch a pilot project involving remote fetal monitoring, she said.
“The pandemic was an experiment in how [telehealth] works and a lesson going forward,” she said.
Georgia hospitals received an influx of emergency federal funding during the pandemic. At the same time, the federal government stopped the periodic checking of the Medicaid rolls to determine which enrollees were still eligible for coverage.
With the so-called “unwinding” process that began last month separately from the end of the public health emergency, the feds are resuming those eligibility checks. As a result, an estimated 545,000 Georgians will lose Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids coverage, according to the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts.
“[Hospitals] are facing not only the end of COVID-related funds but also the Medicaid unwinding, which will increase the level of uncompensated care,” Chan said.
Georgia hospitals are getting some help to offset those funding losses through a little-known federal program launched in 2016 that provides “directed payments” to states that hire private managed-care companies to deliver health care to Medicaid enrollees.
Public hospitals in Georgia received $188.3 million during the last fiscal year through the directed payment program, according to the state Department of Community Health.
But Chan said the ultimate solution lies in Georgia expanding Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act to cover those with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Forty states have taken that step, but Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and GOP legislative leaders oppose it, citing the cost.
Chan said the federal government would cover 90 cents for every $1 spent to expand Medicaid. Also, the feds are offering a bonus payment to states that decide to expand coverage, she said.
“It makes good economic sense to take advantage of the federal dollars being offered,” she said.
Kemp is taking a different approach. The governor’s more limited expansion of Medicaid, the Georgia Pathways program, is due to launch July 1.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s 2024 presidential primaries will place next March 12, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Thursday.
“Georgia is a bellwether state,” Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol, acknowledging the Peach State’s relatively new status as one of a handful of swing states in national politics. “If you can win in Georgia, you will win nationally.”
In announcing the mid-March date, Raffensperger – a Republican – rejected a recommendation by the Democratic National Committee late last year that Georgia’s presidential primaries be moved up to February, which would have made Georgia the fourth state to vote.
Democrats argued an early primary date in Georgia would have added to the diversity of the electorate during the early primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire, currently the first states to hold party caucuses or primaries, are majority white.
Emory University finance professor Thomas More Smith released a study in February that showed early primaries in Georgia could generate nearly $220 million in economic impact.
“An earlier primary would give Georgia voters and national candidates the opportunity to interact sooner – making our state the proving ground for candidates of either party – and put Georgia voters and leaders in a position to drive the national discussion on issues and industries important to our state,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia.
But Raffensperger said holding the Georgia primaries in mid-March, a week after multiple states vote on Super Tuesday – would work to Georgia’s advantage both politically and economically.
“We believe a March 12 date maximizes Georgia’s influence and has the greatest economic impact,” he said.
Two weeks of early voting will take place prior to the primaries.
Democrat Joe Biden easily won the party’s Georgia primary in 2020 with 75% of the vote, building on momentum from his first primary win in South Carolina. Biden then went on to become the first Democrat to carry Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 when he narrowly defeated Republican President Donald Trump to win the state’s 16 electoral votes.
As an incumbent, Trump was unopposed in the 2020 Georgia GOP primary.
ATLANTA – Who knew a kid in Georgia is supposed to have a permit to set up a lemonade stand at the end of their driveway?
That won’t be the case come July 1, however, thanks to the General Assembly.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 55 on Wednesday, a bipartisan measure that will allow Georgians under age 18 to sell non-consumable goods, pre-packaged food items and non-alcoholic beverages on private property without requiring a permit or license or paying a tax. The one caveat is the business must earn no more than $5,000 in a calendar year.
“The Lemonade Stand Act represents a bipartisan effort to support youth education, empowerment and entrepreneurship,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, the bill’s chief sponsor.
“Further, the Lemonade Stand Act supports parents by ensuring they are not in a position of having to choose between the hassle and cost of permits, licenses and taxes, looking the other way, or just denying their children the opportunity to engage in this long-standing American tradition.”
An often divided General Assembly overwhelmingly approved such a feel-good measure. The bill’s cosponsors included Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, and Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain.
