Gov. Kemp signs $26.5B mid-year state budget
♦ The measure restores $2.2 billion from spending cuts on state agencies imposed last June.
ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp signed a $26.5 billion mid-year budget Monday that restores $2.2 billion in spending cuts the General Assembly imposed on state agencies last June due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
During a brief signing ceremony, Kemp noted the early reopening of Georgia businesses forced to shut down by the virus allowed the legislature to adopt the fiscal 2021 mid-year spending plan last week with no new cuts and no furloughs or layoffs of state employees.
“Thanks to our measured reopening and strong fiscal management, Georgia weathered the storm,” he said. “This balanced budget sets our state on a clear path to recovery in the coming months.”
The governor’s original mid-year budget plan called for $1,000 bonuses to Georgia teachers and other school workers saddled with the responsibilities of delivering online instruction to students stuck at home during the pandemic.
Later, as the spending plan went through the General Assembly, lawmakers ordered up the same bonuses for about 57,000 state workers earning less than $80,000 per year, and the University System of Georgia extended the bonuses to income-eligible employees of the state’s public colleges and universities.
The mid-year budget also includes $20 million to extend broadband connectivity in rural Georgia, $1 million in marketing funds to help bring back a state tourism industry rocked by COVID-19 and $289,000 to help the Grady Regional Coordinating Center continue its vital mission of coordinating emergency room use during the pandemic.
The General Assembly moved quick
ly to complete work on the mid-year budget in order to have state spending commitments through June 30 in place in case the virus forced a temporary shutdown in the legislative session, as happened for three
months last year.
With the mid-year budget delivered and signed, lawmakers will focus next on the $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state budget, now before the Georgia House of Representatives.
Major League Baseball announced its new Professional Development League alignment Friday, as the Rome Braves officially accepted their invitation as the Atlanta Braves’ High-A affiliate, which will extend their contract with the MLB franchise through the 2030 season.
“This is an incredibly exciting day for the Rome Braves,” said Vice President and Rome Braves’ General Manager David Cross in a statement. “We are very proud to have been promoted to HighA and to be a part of the Atlanta Braves system for the next 10 years. We look forward to continuing what we do best for the Rome community – creating a best-in-class fan experience, developing big league ballplayers, growing our business and supporting our community.”
Rome will participate in the new High-A East League, which is comprised of five opponents from the former South Atlantic League and six different opponents from new affiliates. The Braves’ new HighA affiliate will continue to battle Asheville, Greensboro, Greenville, Hickory and Jersey Shore, but league competition will now include Aberdeen, Brooklyn, Hudson Valley, Wilmington, Bowling
Green and Winston-Salem.
In a release, Rome said it will be releasing a 2021 schedule along with promotional dates in the coming weeks.
Weekly promotions and giveaways will return this season, including fan-favorite Thirsty Thursday promotion, Brian McCann
bobblehead, Charlie Culberson bobblehead and specialty jersey nights.
The Rome Braves will also showcase improvements made at the ballpark, including a new videoboard, newly expanded space at the Tradin’ Post store and new LED field lights.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brad Keselowski stomped through the smoke-filled haze and eyed the destruction from another disastrous Daytona 500. His car had been sheared when it pinballed into the wall and then back into traffic after a go-for-broke run for the win that ended with Keselowski pacing in anger.
Keselowski took two steps and heaved his helmet at the carcass of his race car.
“My body is fine but my heart is broken,” Keselowski wrote on social media. He noted that “months of studying, months of tremendous car prep” and positioning himself to make a last-lap pass was still not enough to win his first Daytona 500.
This is NASCAR’s crown jewel event, the race that pays the most money and carries the most prestige. But after another fireball finish endangered drivers and ruined millions of dollars in race cars, it’s hard not to wonder if the carnage is worth all this effort.
It certainly was for journeyman Michael McDowell, a 100-1 underdog who slipped through the chaos for the first victory of his 13year career. McDowell led for only a quarter of a lap at Daytona International Speedway and snapped a 357-race losing streak.
For his team, tiny Front Row Motorsports, it was just the third victory in 17 seasons.
So yes, victory validated McDowell, a well-respected racer who always may wonder what his career might have been if he’d had a shot driving top-notch equipment. But it won’t change the raceto-race fortunes for Front Row, which plods along each season knowing it can’t routinely slug it out with NASCAR’s elite.
NASCAR drivers are taught to believe the Daytona 500 is the most important race in their world, but it’s hard to find a recent scenario in which “The Great American Race” was a make or break for anyone.
The 500, of course, matters to Denny Hamlin, who has won it three times but has never captured a Cup Series championship. But did the 500 do much for Trevor Bayne? He was the last driver to pull off an upset, back in 2011, and he ran just three full Cup seasons after the Daytona 500 win.
Bayne now owns and operates a pair of coffee shops in Tennessee; he ran eight Truck Series races last season.
Tony Stewart never won a Daytona 500 yet still ended his career a three-time Cup champion and first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee. Richard Childress Racing didn’t become an overnight powerhouse after Austin Dillon’s win in 2018, and Ward Burton had just two more full seasons following his 2002 victory.
So much time and energy dedicated to one single event
— it is just one race out of 36 each year! The racing is completely different at almost every other track on the schedule! — and so little to show at the end.
NASCAR made it only 14 laps into the 63rd running of the race before early aggression wiped out 16 cars. The rain started minutes later and anyone who waited through a nearly six-hour delay was rewarded with mostly followthe-leader racing until the early Monday finish.
Superspeedway strategy is one of survival. The goal is simply to be running still on the final lap, when everyone shows their cards and makes a play for the win.
Keselowski leapfrogged from 14th place to second over the closing 25 laps, then readied himself for the winning move. He stalked teammate Joey Logano down the backstretch and with a huge push from McDowell — his peers agree that McDowell was the strongest pusher at Daytona — Keselowski ducked underneath Logano while pulling all of McDowell’s momentum with him.
Logano threw a block — some argue the defensive move was too late — and it wrecked both Team Penske cars. McDowell was able to charge through the crash
scene, but eight other drivers could not.
The Daytona 500 then ended under caution because of a 10-car pileup.
Only 11 of the 40 cars made it across the finish line, yet the crowd still roared following a spectacular finish. It didn’t seem to matter that drivers admitted they weren’t truly racing for 400-plus miles.
“It’s hard to be that guy to stick your neck out,” Dillon said.
Cup champion Chase Elliott added: “Everybody was content to ride around the top until the very last second, and that’s what you saw.”
Wrecks aren’t required to ensure an entertaining race, but they are very much inevitable at superspeedways. It has made multi-car accidents expected, maybe even embraced since the imagery almost always finds its way into promotional material.
There’s a bloodthirst for this kind of racing that can’t really be denied because if demolition derbies weren’t accepted, something would change. Be it the rules or the engine packages or even the mentality of the actual drivers, something would be adjusted if this wasn’t status quo.