Editor’s note: Following are excerpts from the 2017 State of the State address:
In 1944, Georgia’s own Johnny Mercer wrote the (song) lyrics … “You’ve got to accentuate the positive/ Eliminate the negative/ Latch on to the affirmative/ Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”
That was great advice for our nation as World War II was drawing to a close and it is great advice for us today.
… (In) 2011, I was just entering office as your governor. Our state was still in the grip of the Great Recession.
Some states that were facing similar circumstances resorted to raising taxes on their citizens. With your support, Georgia did not do that.
The result: that 10.4 percent unemployment rate has dropped to 5.3 percent. Our Rainy Day Fund has increased to approximately $2.033 billion. We have set new records in trade, film production and tourism.
We have laid the groundwork to improve our transportation infrastructure dramatically over the next 10 years. New private sector jobs have reached more than 575,000 and, for four consecutive years, Georgia has been named the best state for business.
Why did this happen? Because we had faith and we accentuated the positive.
We will soon complete the three-year plan to bring Georgia’s physician reimbursement rates in line with Medicare rates. I would point out that we are not mandated to do so, but have chosen to take these steps because we want the best quality of health care for our citizens. Without adequate funding for our physicians, we will not be able to maintain the proper quality of providers in our Medicaid program.
The Medicaid program for our state in the next fiscal year’s budget will cost over $10.5 billion. That translates into more than $1,020 in tax per person in Georgia. One of the funding sources for our Medicaid program comes from the fee paid for by hospitals, amounting to roughly $311 million annually. That is money the state uses to leverage over $600 million from the federal government. If that authority is not renewed, the more than $900 million dollars now available to us for the Medicaid program will have to be made up elsewhere in our allocations. Therefore, I encourage you to reauthorize the authority expeditiously so that we do not have to take away from other portions of the budget.
… I want to take a moment to caution against taking giant leaps on healthcare policy until we know what Congress and the incoming administration will do. Hopefully very soon, the authority to make decisions regarding our state Medicaid program and how to design it in such a way that best fits the needs of our citizens will be returned to Georgia.
Yet another area where we have endeavored to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative is education. Our graduation rate, for example, has gone from 67.4 percent in 2011 to 79.2 percent today – a significant improvement that shows we’re headed in the right direction. I do not need to tell you how much we owe to the educators that have made such progress possible.
Currently, the greatest negative in the education landscape of Georgia is the number of children trapped in failing schools. Two years ago, there were 127 chronically failing schools with roughly 68,000 enrolled students. Now … we find that there were 153 schools that had a failing score for three consecutive years. Those 153 chronically underperforming schools served almost 89,000 students last school year … .
It should be abundantly clear to everyone, including those in the education community who so staunchly support the status quo, that this is unacceptable. If this pattern of escalation in the number of failing schools does not change, its devastating effects on our state will grow with each passing school year.
Since the vast majority of those chronically failing schools serve elementary-aged children, our proposals for addressing this issue will place an emphasis on elementary schools.
To that end, my office is working closely with … others to craft legislation that will be presented to you this session.
For those who will contend that the real issue is lack of resources, let me remind them that we have increased K-12 spending by 2.017 billion dollars over the last four years … . That translates into roughly 50 percent of all new growth in state revenue being dedicated to K-12 public education.
It is not enough to pour more and more money on a problem in hopes that it will go away.
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