The change is a response to the Trump administration’s decision last year to stop making new pennies, which will lead to their gradual disappearance from circulation.
The legislation calls for Georgia businesses to round down transactions that end in a 1, 2, 6, or 7. Prices that end in a 3, 4, 8, or 9 would be rounded up. And items with costs that end exactly in a 0 or 5 would stay the same.
The rounding requirement applies to in-person purchases made with cash. Transactions with credit cards wouldn’t need to be rounded.
The House voted 163-4 to approve House Bill 1112 on Thursday, sending it to Gov. Brian Kemp for his approval or veto.
ATLANTA — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Bankers Life Advisory Services and Bankers Life Securities have reached an agreement to repay nearly $6.7 million to some of the investors who lost money in the alleged First Liberty Building and Loan Ponzi scheme.
The deal will make 46 investors “whole,” his office said Wednesday, about a third of the known victims of the alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme.
Bankers Life did not know that former financial advisor Timothy Nathaniel Darnell had used his position to attract investors, Raffensperger’s office said, but the bank agreed to contribute money toward the repayment anyway.
Darnell and two others — Randy Hough and Brant Frost V, son of First Liberty founder Brant Frost IV — were the subject of emergency orders after the Secretary of State’s Securities Division opened an investigation into First Liberty in July. The orders can bring civil penalties of up to $500,000, Raffensperger’s office said.
Raffensperger publicly thanked Bankers Life for “acting with integrity,” and he urged other businesses to follow their example and enter negotiations to repay victims.
“Do the right thing. Let’s work together to get these hardworking Georgians their money back,” he said in a statement.
The Secretary of State’s Office urged investors who lost money investing in First Liberty to file a complaint if they have not already done so by contacting the Securities Division at registrations@sos.ga.gov.
ATLANTA — The Georgia House narrowly defeated a bill Tuesday that sought to protect Confederate monuments, a proposal that opponents said glorified the South’s defense of slavery in the Civil War.
The legislation would have allowed anyone to sue over the removal or damage of monuments, and groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans would have been able to continue publicly displaying monuments after local governments voted to relocate them.
Several Georgia cities have taken down Confederate monuments in recent years, often in response to repeated vandalism. Those monuments are then moved or put in storage.
Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, said legislators should be embarrassed for celebrating the history of slavery.
“We should all be saddened and ashamed of ourselves. We’re not talking about a war. We’re talking about centuries of mass murder,” Miller said. “We are still waging wars with the ghosts of the past and a war that was lost — lost for the purpose of treating men and women and babies as human beings.”
Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, said the bill was a way to remember soldiers who died in wars and are memorialized in stone.
“You can’t deny history. You need to know where your history is, so you’d never repeat the mistakes,” Powell said. “There’s nothing I know of that’s a greater sin than the institution of slavery. If you don’t want the monuments, here’s a pathway to move them.”
Critics of Senate Bill 175 objected to giving any individual or group the right to sue over monuments, potentially leading to costly court fights and delays while monuments remain on display. Local governments would have been liable for damages if they lost those lawsuits.
The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled last year that Gwinnett County had sovereign immunity against a lawsuit by the Sons of Confederate Veterans over the removal of a monument in downtown Lawrenceville.
The legislation also would have required local governments to give 90 days’ notice before they remove or relocate a monument. During that time, anyone could petition to take possession of the monument for public display.
Democrats universally opposed the bill, and it fell short because a handful of Republicans voted no or skipped the vote. SB 175 failed 89-73, two votes fewer than a majority needed for it to pass in the 180-seat House.
“These Confederate monuments are not objects of history. They are racist propaganda carved into stone,” said Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, D-Smyrna. “Working families of Georgia are not interested in statues of old racists and do not care about sanctifying national flags of the Confederacy. They want a government that works for them now, in today’s day and age.”
A state law passed in 2019 makes it difficult for local governments to relocate or remove monuments but allows “appropriate measures for the preservation, protection, and interpretation” of monuments.
Monuments can also be moved by judges when they become public nuisances or a threat to public safety.
ATLANTA — After watching high school graduation rates soar despite poor reading skills documented in tests, Georgia lawmakers have decided to send tens of millions of dollars to elementary schools to boost literacy rates.
The Georgia Early Literacy Act approved by the General Assembly Tuesday would hire more teachers and overhaul curricula and training, with a focus on the phonics-based teaching methods credited with accelerating reading apprehension in other Southern states.
“Our youngest students won today,” said Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, a former school superintendent who leads the House Education Committee and was a main author of House Bill 1193.
The measure passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday with amendments after it passed the House 170-2 in February.
Later Tuesday, the House approved the Senate changes, sending the bill to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, speaks about the adoption of House Bill 1193 at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 31, as his wife Dayle (on his left), a retired educator who urged him to tackle literacy, watches, with Lt. Gov Burt Jones by her side. The trio are flanked by Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer (left) and Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro (right). (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
The main pillar, employing a literacy coach in every K-3 school, remained in the bill after the Senate’s amendments. But the funding method changed.
Instead of using the state’s education funding formula to reimburse school districts for employing 1,313 literacy coaches, the Senate elected to pay for them with a $70 million grant.
Rather than recurring automatically like money in the funding formula, the Legislature would have to appropriate money each year for future grants.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said there was no doubt that would happen. Lawmakers may move the funding into the Quality Basic Education funding formula in the future, he said.
“But I can assure you,” he said, “with the support we’ve received, this bill has received, the literacy initiative has received in the Senate and the House, there will be a continued investment in the young people and the children of our state.”
The coaches — teachers with enhanced literacy training — would work in classrooms alongside teachers.
Also, school districts would have to use curricula vetted by the state, and the state would help cover the schools’ costs for acquiring it.
A literacy task force would be empaneled to oversee the process. It would collaborate with the Georgia Department of Education and the state Board of Education to guide the initiative.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said literacy rates in the lower grades had been far lower than high school graduation rates. That could only mean that Georgia schools had been handing diplomas to students who could not read well, said Hickman, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“Now we know the graduation rates were not reflective of the true answer,” said Hickman, who collaborated with Erwin on the bill. “The true answer was our children could not read.”
Hickman, Erwin and other Georgia lawmakers have gradually steered schools toward the teaching of literacy using mainly phonics, part of a broader approach dubbed the “science of reading.”
The best methods for teaching literacy have been subject to debate in academia for decades, but successes with the science approach in other Southern states, including Alabama and Mississippi, led Georgia to follow their lead, first with small steps and, should Kemp sign HB 1193 into law, a big step.
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate overhauled one of the state House’s top priorities for the year, passing an amended version of the Georgia Early Literacy Act Tuesday.
But the measure that the Senate approved unanimously maintains nearly all the core elements that were in House Bill 1193 when it passed the House 170-2 in February.
The main pillar, employing a literacy coach in every K-3 school, remains in the bill, but the funding method changed.
Instead of using the state’s education funding formula to reimburse school districts for employing 1,313 literacy coaches, the Senate would pay for it with a $70 million grant, with new money to be appropriated each year.
Also, school districts would have to use curricula vetted by the state, and the state would help cover the schools’ costs for acquiring it.
A literacy task force would be empaneled to oversee the process and collaborate with the state education board.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said literacy rates in the lower grades have been far lower than high school graduation rates. That could only mean that Georgia schools have been giving diplomas to students who cannot read well, said Hickman, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“Now we know the graduation rates were not reflective of the true answer,” said Hickman, an architect of the state’s approach to literacy over the past few years. “The true answer was our children could not read.”
Georgia lawmakers have gradually steered schools toward teaching literacy using mainly phonics, part of a broader approach dubbed the “science of reading.”
The best methods for teaching literacy have been subject to debate in academia for decades, but successes in other Southern states, including Alabama and Mississippi, led Georgia to adopt their approach, first with small steps and, should HB 1193 become law, a major step.
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate passed a measure Tuesday that would reduce homeowner property taxes by creating a new sales tax in exchange.
House Bill 1116 came from the House as a cap on property tax valuation increases.
The Senate’s amended version would create new special taxing districts overlayed on county lines, and those districts could implement a 1% sales tax. The revenue would go toward reduction of homeowner property taxes.
The bill would also generally prohibit revenue increases from property taxes of more than 3% or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
Homeowners would benefit most from the combined effect of the cap and the sales tax, said Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, who presented the bill on the Senate floor. But he said properties without a homestead exemption would benefit too.
“Just about every city and county would eliminate their homeowner property taxes. … And the rest of city and county taxes would be eliminated in some counties and reduced in other counties.”
Hufstetler said property taxes have been rising at an unsustainable rate.
“Our citizens who have to live within their means are frustrated,” he said.
Democrats criticized the measure, saying sales taxes consume a larger portion of the household budgets of lower-income people. They also said renters would not enjoy the same benefit from the property tax rollbacks as would homeowners.
“We are choosing to say that the people who own homes really are more important,” said Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta.
The Senate’s amended version of HB 1116 passed in a party-line 31-19 vote.
The bill returns to the House. The version that chamber passed in early March sought to restrain property value increases for taxation purposes at 3% a year or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
