A key Senate committee Monday approved an $18.2 billion budget for the upcoming year that would spend extra money to go after tax dodgers and borrow from Medicaid to fill a gap in the state employee and retirees health care plan.
The measure also would add money for construction projects, including a few in metro Atlanta.
The spending plan for fiscal 2012, which begins July 1, will go to the chamber for a vote Wednesday. The House has already passed its version. The two sides will begin negotiating a final budget after the Senate vote.
The Senate budget plan would spend about $23.4 million on auditors, field and fraud officers, collection officials and others at the Department of Revenue to increase tax collections and improve customer service. Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, said the stepped-up effort to recover what is due the state could bring in an extra $121 million next year and $231 million in fiscal 2013. Hill said efforts to increase tax compliance this year have netted the state more than $40 million.
The budget would borrow money from Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor and disabled, and raise insurance premiums 19 percent on state employees, teachers and retirees to fill a $270 million hole in the state health benefits program. The state faces the shortfall in large part because the General Assembly raided the program's reserves to fill other budget holes in the past.
Hill acknowledged Medicaid, which is partially funded by the federal government, would have a $180 million shortfall in the upcoming year. That problem will have to be fixed next spring by lawmakers.
"To short Medicaid is maybe not the best solution, although in the short run, it may be the only solution we have," Hill told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Senate budget plan calls for $345,000 to clean up some of the worst tire dumps in the state. Lawmakers have been criticized in recent years because they have not allocated enough money for the program even though the state collects a $1-per-tire fee on new tire purchases for dump cleanups.
The Senate budget also would add extra money for Mercer University's medical school and for a special engineering scholarship that goes only to Mercer students.
Hill said the Senate added about $50 million that would be used for construction projects, including $3.5 million for campuswide construction projects at Georgia Gwinnett College, $3 million to equip the North Georgia College and State University campus in Forsyth County and $1 million for construction of the academic science building at Atlanta Metropolitan College.
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