Georgia House signs off on fiscal 2021 state budget
Chairman Terry England told lawmakers before Tuesday’s vote.
To achieve the budget savings needed to restore the spending cuts, the House among other things cut in half the teacher pay raise the governor recommended, from $2,000 per teacher to $1,000. But House lawmakers still found enough money in the budget for 2% merit pay raises for all state employees and targeted increases of 2%, 4% and 5% for workers in state agencies suffering high turnover rates.
However, the House was only able to restore 236 of 1,212 vacant positions in state government the governor proposed eliminating.
“State employees are being asked to carry more of the load,” said England, R-Auburn. “There should be some financial recognition of that.”
Key additions the House made to the budget include $19.7 million to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income mothers for up to six months after the birth of their babies, a proposal prompted by Georgia’s high maternal mortality rate.
“This is a major step in taking care of our Medicaid mothers,” said Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
The House also put money back into the budget to help the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reduce a rape test kit backlog that has long plagued the agency, funding for local accountability courts aimed at reducing the state’s prison population, funding for grants to county boards of health and money to hire two environmental engineers to monitor the disposal of coal ash at Georgia landfills.
Besides the teacher pay raise, the House budget adds 1,000 slots for children to attend prekindergarten and funds counselors in Georgia schools to the full allotment of one counselor for every 450 students.
The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities would receive an influx of funds for “personal services” to help families caring for disabled relatives lead more normal lives.
“Many of these services allow parents and caretakers to go out and work a job,” England said. “It gives them a respite as well.”
But the budget’s Democratic opponents argued Republicans didn’t restore enough of the governor’s spending cuts in areas including personal services, criminal justice reform, veterans services and maternal mortality. A legislative study committee recommended late last year expanding Medicaid coverage for new mothers for a full year.
Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta, blamed the income tax cut then-Gov. Nathan Deal pushed through the General Assembly two years ago for the revenue crunch that prompted the spending cuts.
“We have made a policy decision with this budget that we would rather cut taxes than adequately serve many of our Georgia residents,” he said.
But Rep. David Knight, RGriffin, who chairs one of the appropriations subcommittees, said House Republicans did the best they could with the hand they were dealt.
“We came in here with reduced revenues, faced with cuts,” he said. “We rolled up our sleeves and went to work to figure out how to allocate the resources we had.”