The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Each chamber approves a rebate, one for income taxes, the other for property levy
Plans to inject about $500 into the household budgets for many Georgians cleared a big hurdle this past week with the Senate’s passage of its midyear spending plan.
A key part of the Senate’s $32.5 billion plan is Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposal for a one-time property tax cut of about $1 billion, saving individual homeowners hundreds of dollars.
That comes on top of another $1 billion proposal by Kemp, a tax rebate like the one the General Assembly approved last year that provided $500 to married couples who file their taxes jointly and $250 for single filers. The House approved the measure this past week.
The Senate budget plan increases spending by about $2.36 billion, which Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said is in line with inflation.
One-time bonuses of about $500 would also be paid to 54,000 state government pensioners, who last year received their first cost-of-living increase in more than a decade.
The Senate version of the midyear budget also includes $50,000 safety grants for each school; money to help students who may have fallen behind academically during the COVID-19 pandemic; and more money in dozens of other areas, such as health care, rural workforce housing development, prisons and public safety.
The House passed its version of the spending plan a few weeks ago, and the two chambers will soon negotiate a final deal.
Then the work will really get started on the budget for fiscal 2024, which begins July 1. Tillery warned that “if you think the ’23 budget is difficult, the ’24 budget will be harder.”
The state has realized massive tax surpluses in the years following the COVID-19 economic shutdown, but revenue collections are expected to be down this year, giving lawmakers less money to work with as inflation continues to increase costs for the government, just as it does for taxpayers.