State Senate OKs $32.4 billion fiscal 2024 state budget

The Georgia Senate overwhelmingly passed a $32.4 billion fiscal 2024 state budget Thursday, March 23, that includes $2,000 pay raises for teachers and most state employees and $6,000 increases for state law enforcement officers.

The Senate spending plan, which passed 51-1, leans more heavily toward the budget recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp submitted to the General Assembly in January than the version of the budget the Georgia House of Representatives passed recently.

Senators restored a $106 million cut the House had made to Georgia’s Medicaid program with funds taken from the University System of Georgia.

The Senate is requesting the system’s Board of Regents to replace that money with carry-over funds from previous budgets. The university system has $504 million in carry-over funds, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, citing a financial report released last fall.

The Senate also reverted to Kemp’s proposal to fully fund Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships program for the first time since the Great Recession. The House budget calls for funding 95% of tuition coverage for most HOPE scholars, reserving 100% only for students with high school grade-point averages of 3.5 or higher.

Tillery said the money for the $6,000 raises would come by reducing funding of state trooper schools.

“There is a learning curve as people exit training school,” he said. “If we can hang on and keep our already trained staff, there’s a savings long term.”

The Senate budget adds $40 million to the governor’s budget plan to address mental health staffing and facility needs.

Senators agreed with the House version of the budget to fund a onetime benefit of $500 for state retirees at a cost of $26.7 million.

As is customary, senators added some capital projects to the budget’s $600 million bond package. The list includes $7 million for construction of a military science building on the Dahlonega campus of the University of North Georgia; $6 million to design and construct a dental school building at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro; $6 million to expand the Hugh M. Gillis Medical Building at Southeastern Technical College in Vidalia; and $4 million to renovate and expand the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s medical examiner office in Bibb County.

House and Senate negotiators next will form a joint conference committee to negotiate a final version of the budget before lawmakers adjourn the 2023 session on Wednesday, March 29.