The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate committee passes $36 billion budget for 2025
Proposal includes raises for many state workers.
Georgia Senate leaders on Thursday backed 4% raises for many state workers and more money for law enforcement, education and mental health programs.
The raises are included in the spending plan for fiscal 2025, which begins July 1.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed the $36 billion budget Thursday, and it now goes before the full chamber. Once it passes, differences between the House and Senate must be ironed out before lawmakers adjourn March 28.
State tax collections have been slow for the past year. But the state is sitting on $16 billion in “rainy day” and undesignated reserves, so Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers have backed higher spending since the session began in January.
The state spent about $26.6 billion — excluding federal funding — in fiscal 2020, the last budget plan approved before the COVID19 pandemic hit. Last year, it was more than $32 billion. The midyear plan Kemp signed earlier in the session boosted state spending to nearly $38 billion. Of that, $2 billion would come out of “undesignated” reserves.
Next year’s initial budget would be $36.1 billion, but that too may be increased during the 2025 session.
All that matters because the money the state collects in taxes helps pay for K-12 schools, colleges, public health care, prisons, policing, business regulation, roads and a host of other services.
Under the Kemp budget plan endorsed by House and Senate leaders, state law enforcement employees would receive $3,000 raises, on top of the $6,000 increases approved last session. Child protection and placement services caseworkers in the Division of Family and Children Services also would receive $3,000 raises. Other rank-and-file workers would receive 4% increases — up to about the first $70,000 in salary — and teachers would get $2,500 more.
More than $200 million extra would go to school districts to pay for transporting children to school, something local officials have requested for years, and more than $100 million would go to schools for security upgrades.
The chambers also backed hundreds of millions of dollars more for Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor and disabled, including big money to increase payments to nursing home operators and other providers.
Fulton County Animal Services could stop responding to calls from city of Atlanta residents April 3 unless the city government agrees to a new, higher payment for that service, county commissioners decided Wednesday.
Through a contract with nonprofit LifeLine Animal Services, the county provides animal control within all 15 cities in Fulton County through intergovernmental agreements with those cities. Though costs have risen, the charges to those cities hadn’t gone up in five or six years, County Manager Dick Anderson said.
But those intergovernmental agreements all expired Jan. 1, so last year the county sent new agreements to all cities, roughly doubling the amount each would have to pay.
All agreed — except for Atlanta, which accounts for 54% of all animal control calls.
Commissioners ultimately voted 4-0 to stop serving Atlanta as of April 3 if the city hasn’t signed the new agreement by then.
“We are looking forward to resolving our differences with
the county,” a spokesperson for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said when asked for a response after the vote.
All 14 other cities in Fulton County have agreed to the higher charges, but months of talks with Atlanta haven’t yielded agreement. As the source of most calls, Atlanta is asked for the most: $6.4 million a year, roughly twice the previous rate.
Since the old agreement expired, the county is now footing the bill for Atlanta’s service, Anderson said.
County Attorney Y. Soo Jo said that county animal control officers have no official jurisdiction in Atlanta without a signed deal, and that providing service could be a liability issue.
Neither the county nor LifeLine profits from animal con
trol, Anderson said. Nor is the new shelter’s cost included in the charge to cities. But the larger shelter does require more staff and many other costs have risen, he said.
Anderson said Atlanta wants to keep paying its former rate while negotiating, which is “untenable for any long period of time.”
Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman said that puts an unfair burden on county taxpayers.
“OK, I’ll tell you what: If the city of Atlanta don’t want to pay, then the city of Atlanta needs to take over their service,” she said. “I’ll tell you what, they can go to the old shelter, how about that?”
The county closed its rundown and overcrowded animal shelter last year, moving operations to a new, larger $40 million facility on Fulton Industrial Boulevard.
Commissioner Bob Ellis called Atlanta’s delay “unconscionable on so many different levels.” He urged cutting off services by March 27.
Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. wanted to delay the decision until the commission’s April 10 meeting. He noted that LifeLine also runs the DeKalb County animal shelter, but DeKalb “eats the entire cost” instead of passing it on to cities.
While LifeLine operates the DeKalb shelter, it does not provide animal control services there.
Arrington said he had received texts Wednesday morning from Dickens about the issue. He wanted to keep negotiating without a threat of service cutoff.
“What do we say to the other 14 cities that are paying?” Pitts asked. After the vote, he said he still would be available for further talks with city officials.