House leaders OK budget with raises for police

Plan also includes pay increases for teachers, other state employees.

House budget writers on Wednesday passed a spending plan for the upcoming year that places heavy emphasis on police and mental health funding, including $4,000 raises for law enforcement officers.

Other state employees, University System of Georgia workers and teachers would receive $2,000 raises in the budget for fiscal 2024 — which begins July 1 — under the proposal approved by the House Appropriations Committee.

The full House is expected to pass the spending plan for the new fiscal year today, sending it to the Senate as lawmakers work to finalize the measure and get it through both chambers by the time the session ends later this month.

On Monday, the House and Senate agreed to a $32.5 billion midyear budget — which runs through June 30 — that includes a $950 million property tax rebate and big spending increases across state government, thanks in part to a massive surplus left over from 2022.

However, with recession talk growing, state officials had counted on a more conservative state budget in the coming year because the rate of revenue growth is expected to slow.

For fiscal 2024, House budget writers included $1.25 million to open a Georgia State Patrol satellite post in Buckhead that would house up to 20 troopers from the motor unit and Nighthawks DUI Task Force.

The announcement comes on the heels of a two-year effort by disgruntled residents in the wealthy north Atlanta neighborhood to secede from the city. Secession supporters cited frustration with Atlanta’s response to high rates of violent crime. Their effort was voted down last week in the Senate.

The House also added $2.7 million for a new GBI cold case office, $2.5 million for sexual assault nurse examiners and $1.5 million for more forensic crime staffers to help clear evidence backlogs.

The House also added money for several mental health and substance abuse programs, including millions more for treatment slots, $10 million to increase wages at state psychiatric hospitals and $2.25 million more for suicide hotline management.

While Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget proposal had included fully funding the state formula for K-12 schools, the House added to the education budget.

For instance, the House backed about $6.3 million in the budget to make sure tens of thousands of children who qualify for reducedprice breakfasts and lunches in school don’t have to pay anything for the meals.

Budget writers also added $8.7 million for $1,000 supplements for school custodians.

In all, the state would spend more than $13 billion on K-12 schools next year, a record amount, said House Appropriations Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-dublin.

Budget writers reduced the increase Kemp had proposed in public school HOPE scholarship awards, putting some of that money toward boosting payments to private college recipients.

House leaders added $26.7 million to the budget to give 54,000 state government pensioners a $500 bonus next year. The House and Senate did the same in this year’s budget.

State government pensioners got their first cost-of-living increase in more than a decade last year and have long complained about the lack of raises. Retired teachers and University System employees in the Teachers Retirement System pension program get 3% annual cost-ofliving increases.

The spending plan would borrow about $628 million for new construction projects, including $33 million for a research tower at Georgia State, $30 million for the second phase of a modernization project at the University of Georgia and $27.5 million for a science, technology, engineering and math education building at Kennesaw State.