The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
$2.6 billion budget cut will hit schools, state workers hard
got a good look this past week at where the dents are in the state budget now that the coronavirus has driven the economy into a ditch.
K-12 schools would account for a big part of the damage — $1 billion worth — under the plan the Senate Appropriations Committee approved to cut $2.6 billion in spending.
State workers would also feel the pain through layoffs and furloughs, while cuts are also penciled in for dozens of programs such as road construction, and treatment for substance abuse and mental illness.
It’s all a long fall since midMarch, when the House approved a $28 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. That spending plan, now reduced to scrap paper, sought raises for more than 200,000 teachers and state workers while also mitigating the 6% spending reductions that Gov. Brian Kemp had ordered back then — before the virus blew a hole in state tax collections and set the new goal for cuts at 11%.
“Today, the headlines of January and February feel like distant history,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery, who wasn’t even the head of the panel back then.
It’s not as bad, however, as some agencies expected.
Officers in the State Patrol had been looking at the prospect of 24 furlough days in the coming year. But senators found savings in other areas to avoid sidelining troopers for nearly five weeks without pay.
Luck also fell on pre-kindergarten classes, which wouldn’t see any cuts under the plan. That’s mostly because they’re funded by lottery sales, which have remained strong during the recession.
Naturally, other workers were not so fortunate. For example, public health workers, often on the front lines in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, would have to take 12 furlough days next year.
Other programs taking hits include the Transportation Department, which would see more than $200 million in cuts for construction and maintenance programs; county health departments, which would see $14 million in grants dry up; and the GBI, where a hiring freeze would affect dozens of positions for investigators, scientists and lab technicians.
State lawmakers are also feeling the pinch, agreeing to an 11% pay cut in their own salaries of $17,000 to reduce staff furloughs in House and Senate offices. Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is shaving off 14% of his salary of about $90,000 a year.