Georgia House OKs mid-year budget
The Georgia House of Representatives passed a mid-year budget Wednesday, Feb. 19, that would restore many of the spending cuts Gov. Brian Kemp proposed last month to help offset lower-thanexpected tax collections.
The $27.3 billion fiscal 2020 midyear budget, which passed 126-46 and now moves to the state Senate, covers state spending through the end of June. It reflects a lower revenue estimate the governor issued in January amid sluggish tax receipts going back to the middle of last year.
The mid-year budget includes $159 million in state funding reductions and eliminates or delays filling 1,255 vacant positions. But during days of hearings that prompted a break in this year’s General Assembly session, the House Appropriations Committee still managed to fully restore cuts the governor recommended to the state’s accountability courts and county health departments.
“We tried our best with this budget to address the needs of Georgians,” House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, told reporters after the vote.
For many budget line items, the House wasn’t able to fully restore planned cuts but acted to reduce the severity of the reductions. Lawmakers put back significant portions of cuts slated for mental health and child welfare services and restored all of a $164,800 reduction to the Georgia Memory Net program.
“If you haven’t dealt with dementia or Alzheimer’s yet, you will,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry
England, R-Auburn, told his House colleagues. “Get ready.”
The House also restored funds used to market the state’s farm products, as well as marketing money for the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce and Tourism divisions.
Lawmakers also rejected reducing spending on equipment and operations at state parks and historic sites.
England said they not only put money in the coffers of local governments in rural communities but provide Georgia families a place to get away and enjoy nature.
“It’s important that we continue to maintain these sites in a way that makes them attractive,” he said.
A tourist attraction operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources – the Historic SAM Shortline Excursion Train from Cordele to Plains – received $250,000 in one-time funds from the House.
House Minority Leader Bob Trammell praised members of the Appropriations Committee for working hard to limit the impact of the cuts in the mid-year budget.
But he said the culprit behind Georgia’s budget crunch is the income tax cut the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed two years ago, which cost the state $550 million a year in tax revenue.
“When unemployment is at a record low and the economy is doing very well, we are cutting Georgia’s budget,” said Trammell, D-Luthersville. “The choices we are making are choices we’re supposed to have to make when times are tough. … We’re having to cut when times are good.”
But Ralston said the economic damage Hurricane Michael wreaked on Georgia farms and forests in October 2018 is to blame for the downturn in tax collections.
“It was a crippling blow to our economy,” he said. “We’re still paying for that.”
Lawmakers will face steeper spending cuts when they tackle Kemp’s fiscal 2021 budget later in this year’s session.
But England said the mid-year budget has been more challenging because lawmakers will have more time and, thus, more flexibility, in dealing with next year’s spending.
Staff writer Beau Evans contributed to this report.