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DEL.ICIO.USLast session’s hot fight over the budget turns into a cold war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five months after Sonny Perdue vetoed or deferred about $130 million in projects, agencies find themselves still stuck in the middle of a nasty budget feud between the General Assembly and the governor.
A new House committee has begun hauling the top layers of state operations into meetings to ask them what they are doing with the money that the Legislature approved for spending in April — and Perdue later deferred.
The Department of Education and Board of Regents, which have two of the largest budgets in state government, were up Tuesday. Turns out they are pretty much sitting on the disputed money, according to our colleague James Salzer.
Spending it would just make somebody mad.
For those who need a refresher, here’s what happened. The General Assembly passed a mid-year budget that included a $142 million property tax cut. Perdue didn’t like it, so he vetoed the property tax cut.
The House was miffed so it overrode his veto, but the Senate failed to follow suit, so the attempted revolt died. Then the General Assembly passed a $20.2 billion budget for fiscal 2008.
Perdue signed the budget, but in some instances of spending, he told agencies to ignore the wishes of legislators. Legislature leaders went ballistic. So they told agencies they’d better follow the wishes of the Legislature and ignore the governor.
The result: millions of dollars approved by the General Assembly and Perdue isn’t getting spent.
One example: DOE officials said they haven’t yet spent the $1.6 million the General Assembly approved for foreign language programs in elementary schools. Perdue told the DOE to instead send each elementary school $1,200 for library materials.
DOE officials told the House committee Tuesday that the checks aren’t in the mail.
The same goes for about $2 million in Board of Regents projects, from a Washington internship program and an Albany water policy center to funding for a smoking cessation effort.
“Right now we have no plans to spend these funds,” William Bowes, the University System’s vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, told the committee.
That’s fine with House members. House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) has warned agencies that if they go against the General Assembly’s wishes, they will pay for it during the 2008 session. Agencies live and die on what they get appropriated by the governor and Legislature, so they take such threats seriously.
For his part, the committee’s chairman, state Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla), made it clear he understands the fix agencies are in at this point. “You’re in a position where you can’t win on this issue,” he said.
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