The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate backs $24.2B budget; final dear next
Plan includes $1B for construction, more for schools, health care.
The Georgia Senate on Tuesday backed its version of the state’s $27.2 billion spending plan for the com
ing fiscal year, which includes $1 billion worth of construction projects and more money for schools, health care and road building.
The 54-0 vote sets up negotiations with the House for a final deal before the General Assembly session is scheduled to end next week.
The measure, which would kick in July 1, broadly follows the proposals of Gov. Brian Kemp and the House by backfilling spending cuts that lawmakers made in 2020
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The General Assembly in June
cut the budget by 10% because it feared tax collections would plummet. That didn’t happen: Tax collections have improved with Georgia’s economy. The state is also receiving $4.7 billion from the latest federal COVID-19 relief plan, although how that money will be spent will be up to Kemp.
“We are in a better position than we thought we would be in last year,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery, R-vidalia, told colleagues Tuesday.
The House and Senate plans include pay raises in areas where there is high turnover in state govern- ment, such as for staffers in the Department of Driver Services and prison and juve- nile justice guards. It does not include a pay raise for rank-and-file employees or teachers.
The House and Senate backed plans to spend $40 million on a rural innova- tion fund and $10 million to extend high-speed inter- net in rural areas.
Lawmakers agreed to backfill 60% of the education spending reductions that lawmakers approved last year.
Tillery noted that Geor- gia schools will get $4.2 billion from the federal relief program, more than
e no u gh to make up for past state funding cuts. Including the federal relief money, Tillery said, schools will have far more money to spend next year than they did before the COVID19 spending cuts.
Under the fiscal 2022 bud- get, the state would borrow about $1 billion for construc- tion projects, much of it going for new schools, college buildings, roads and bridges, and a convention center in Savannah The plan also includes more money for nursing homes hit hard by COVID-19 and medical providers. Millions of extra dollars would be allocated for various mental health programs, some of which have been overwhelmed by the impact the pandemic has had on mental health and addiction problems.
The budget would add staff to a number of agencies, including the Department of Community Health, the state ethics commission, the Department of Revenue and the secretary of state’s office.