The Georgia House on Friday backed a record state budget for the upcoming fiscal year that includes pay raises for 200,000 teachers and state employees and more than $1 billion worth of new construction projects.
The $25 billion spending plan for fiscal 2018, which begins July 1, follows much of what Gov. Nathan Deal proposed during the first week of the session, and the House approved it 167-1 on Friday. The Georgia Senate will now take up the measure in the next few weeks.
It would provide 2 percent pay raises for teachers and most state employees, and a 19 percent raise for child protection workers. The midyear budget Deal signed Wednesday — which runs through June 30 — included 20 percent salary hikes for state law enforcement officers.
The spending proposal includes more than $1.15 billion in new borrowing. High on the list is $105 million to build a new state courts building on the site of the former archives building in Atlanta, which is expected to be brought down next month.
Deal has put money in the budget previously to prepare the archives building for implosion and design the courts building.
The bond package also includes $73 million more to complete a new technical college campus in Deal's home county of Hall.
Deal had added $10 million to the budget in 2015 to buy the land and $48.3 million last year to get the construction started. Combined, if given final approval as expected, the state will have borrowed more than $130 million to move Lanier Technical College from one end of the county to the other and create a new campus.
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