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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 20 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USHouse approves mid-year budget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House overwhelmingly approved a $19.4 billion mid-year spending plan that helps keep PeachCare and the public defender system in the black.
It also includes an extra $167 million for schools to help pay to educate the rising number of students in Georgia classrooms.
The mid-year plan, which runs through June 30, was approved 171-1 this afternoon. It would pump an extra $81 million into PeachCare, which provides health insurance to about 300,000 children of working poor families.
The midyear budget includes money to both fill a shortfall in the program and to make up for a spike in the number of children being covered.
“This is a budget you can be proud of,” said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans). “This budget meets the needs of our children’s health care program, a program that has been a shining example to the nation.”
The mid-year budget now goes to the Senate, which is also expected to back the extra PeachCare funding.
Harbin said the Legislature is hoping Congress will act in coming weeks to reimburse the state for the shortfall. PeachCare is a joint state-federal program. Lawmakers delayed the end of the 2007 session in hopes Congress would come up with some extra money.
Congress has agreed, as part of an Iraq war spending bill, to provide the funds for Georgia and 13 other states that have come up short. However, that probably wasn’t going to happen before Georgia’s PeachCare was scheduled to run out of money. So state officials agreed to shift Medicaid money into PeachCare until the federal funding comes through.
The midyear spending plan also includes almost $9.6 million to keep the state’s public defender system afloat. The shortfall has threatened to delay several cases. The murder trial of accused courthouse killer Brian Nichols was among those put off because of the funding crisis.
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