The General Assembly sent Gov. Nathan Deal a $21.8 billion budget Tuesday that makes it clear that the state’s finances have recovered from the Great Recession.
The measure would borrow $1.1 billion for construction, give judges substantial raises, provide extra money for nursing home owners, doctors and state ethics watchdogs, spend big to replace and repair bridges, and continue providing health insurance to school bus drivers, albeit on the dime of local school districts.
It seeks a $900 million increase in overall spending, not including any money added in the General Assembly’s transportation funding plan.The Senate approved the spending plan 55-1 late Tuesday. The House backed it 173-0 shortly after that.
Passage of House Bill 76 clears the way for the session to end on time. Under law, the budget is the only bill lawmakers must approve and takes effect at the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1. It now goes to Deal for his signature.
Deal played a role in the final days of budget negotiations. He asked lawmakers to give many Superior Court judges, district attorneys and public defenders extra raises. He also sought and received $17.6 million in borrowing for a regional training center in the Savannah area. The center could be used by big local businesses, such as Gulfstream. It could also help entice auto companies looking to locate a plant.
Lawmakers punctuated a session-long debate about pay raises for judges by adding, at the last minute, $1.5 million in the budget to increase the size of the Georgia Court of Appeals.
The state budget provides helps fund the education of about 2 million students and provides health and nursing care for more than 1.8 million Georgians. The state funds road improvements and prisons, economic development initiatives and cancer research, business and environmental regulation, parks and water projects. It creates thousands of private-sector jobs through construction projects.
During the recession, tax revenue dropped and lawmakers spent years cutting spending to match what was coming in. Most employees went without raises and teachers were furloughed. Many received tiny raises this year, their first since 2008 or 2009.
With tax collections back to where they were before the recession, Deal and lawmakers faced a deluge of requests for higher spending. Including federal funding, the state has more than $40 billion to allocate.
The biggest chunk, as in past years, would go to schools and Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and disabled.
Lawmakers included the $280 million extra that Deal recommended to allow local school districts to give raises to teachers and eliminate furloughs left over from the recession. They rejected his proposal to eliminate health insurance coverage for 22,000 part-time school employees and their dependents. The budget, however, would force local school systems to pay an extra $103 million for health coverage, eating into the extra money Deal had included for raises.
House and Senate leaders backed Deal’s proposal to pay the owners of select nursing homes about $27 million in extra annual payments, even though the industry’s lobby said they didn’t need all the money. They also agreed to pay doctors an extra $70 million in state and federal funding to help partially make up for the loss of federal payments this year.
HB 76 includes Deal’s proposal to substantially beef up the troubled state ethics commission, which regulates campaign finance and lobbying laws. The agency would add four lawyers and four investigators next year.
HOPE scholars would see a 3 percent increase in awards next year and private college students would receive nearly 30 percent increases in grants.
The budget includes a 1 percent payroll increase to give raises to state employees and staffers with the University System of Georgia. Teachers could receive raises if school districts decide to give them.
Supreme Court, Appeals Court and workers’ compensation judges would see 5 percent raises. Superior Court judges, district attorneys and public defenders would also be in line for 5 percent pay increases. In addition, they would receive state supplements of about 5 percent if they serve in circuits with special accountability courts. Most circuits have such courts, which have been a pet project of Deal’s.
The $1.1 billion worth of borrowing in the budget is the largest construction package since Gov. Sonny Perdue pumped up bond sales to create jobs during the recession.
"All of the state will benefit from this package," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville.
Most of it would go to k-12 schools and college buildings. However, $100 million would go toward replacing and repairing bridges. An additional $75 million would go toward transit projects. That figure had been $100 million until the last minute, when Deal wanted some of the money to go toward the training center near Savannah.
In making another late change, House and Senate leaders added $10 million to expand Lanier Technical College in Hall County. Both Deal and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle are from Hall County.
Among the projects cut toward the end of the process: money to demolish the old state archives building off of I-20, down the block from the Capitol. State Building Authority officials have long wanted to tear down the building, but lawmakers have always found other uses for the money needed to demolish it. Authority officials have plans to build a judicial complex on the site if the archives is ever torn down.
Senate Minority Whip Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, was the lone Senate vote against the budget. Fort said he couldn't back a spending plan that doesn't expand Medicaid to give health coverage to more Georgians. The federal government would pay most of the cost, but Deal has rejected expansion, saying the state couldn't count on federal funding long term and that the state can't afford to chip in.
“I am not going to vote for a budget that does not include Medicaid expansion,” Fort said. “We ought to think of this as life and death, because it is.”
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