House leaders are moving quickly to approve a $276 million spending increase for the rest of this fiscal year, pushing through a midyear budget this week before tackling a much more contentious money package for the coming year.
The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday passed the midyear budget, which runs through June 30, and the full chamber will vote on it Thursday.
The midyear budget includes $128 million extra for school systems with growing enrollments, and $40 million for economic development grants.
It also contains:
- $35 million to expand broadband Internet connectivity in local school districts.
- $16 million to pay for rising costs in Medicaid, the state health care program for the poor and disabled, brought about by the federal Affordable Care Act.
- $5 million to hire 103 additional caseworkers in the Division of Family and Children Services.
- $4.8 million to begin medical marijuana trials.
- $515,000 to establish a Georgia Film Academy to train future employees for the state's growing film industry.
The spending plan also contains language supporting the idea of providing health coverage to school bus drivers and cafeteria workers.
House leaders added that phrasing in response to Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposal to save $103 million by discontinuing state subsidies for health insurance for about 11,500 part-time school staffers.
The Deal proposal is in the budget for fiscal 2016, which begins July 1. The part-time staffers would lose the insurance as of Jan. 1.
Health insurance is one of several potentially contentious issues facing lawmakers in next year’s $21.8 billion budget, which is one of the reasons legislative leaders wanted to get moving early on the easier-to-digest midyear spending plan.
Before the fiscal 2016 budget is approved, Deal and lawmakers will have to decide how much money to add to pump up transportation spending.
Deal, House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle have all declared that the General Assembly must come up with a plan to fix the state’s overcrowded transportation system. House leaders released a plan Wednesday that would raise an extra $1 billion a year for roads.
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