For anyone who’s complained recently about ineffective management of professional licensing boards and the oversight of elections and voter registration efforts, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has some welcome news: a proposed budget increase next year of almost 10 percent.
The financial boost signals that Secretary of State Brian Kemp — a loser in recent budgets — finally has his mojo back. But even he warns it will take more than a proposed $2.6 million to restore the office to full luster.
“Everybody realized we needed more help to address these issues,” Kemp said. “Even with this increase, we’re still very, very behind.”
The cuts have come for years, gashing their way through one of the most recognizable offices in Georgia. With a mandate to oversee elections, corporate filings and the professional competency of much of the state’s workforce, the Secretary of State’s Office in 2008 sailed along with more than $42 million annually in state funds.
This year, that amount will be somewhere around $22 million.
“You cut the fat, you cut into the tendons and then you start sawing the bone,” said state Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, who sits on the House Appropriations subcommittee vetting the office’s budget. “You can’t maintain services at a good level.”
Next year’s proposal includes the most controversial divisions within the office: elections and professional licensing. The elections division’s $280,000 increase would largely help pay for four new employees to help prepare for future elections. It’s a touchy subject for Democrats whose voter registration efforts last year came under scrutiny by Kemp’s office — which also won a court hearing over Georgia’s registration process — and they hope it’s not a one-time boost.
A report last year by the the Pew Charitable Trusts knocked the state for its performance in the 2012 presidential election, including worsening return rates from overseas ballots, increases in the number of people not voting due to disability or illness, and one of the longest wait times in the nation. Kemp at the time acknowledged problems and noted he had already begun making changes — including an online voter registration system launched early last year.
Money spent on the right things could only help the office improve, said Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker: “I would think we could make a more significant contribution.”
Kemp described the past several years simply as “tough.” Re-elected in November to his second term, Kemp took office in 2010 and almost immediately faced problems.
An oversight by lawmakers in 2011 when they passed a stringent state immigration law led to massive backlogs for professional license renewals. Mounds of paperwork overwhelmed office staff in Macon, as applicants had to prove they had “secure and verifiable” identification every time they renewed their licenses.
Lawmakers passed a fix in 2013 — the same year they took control of the Georgia Archives away from the Secretary of State’s Office. The move, worked out by Gov. Nathan Deal, came seven months after Kemp’s office announced layoffs at the Archives and the cancellation of public hours — a decision that surprised the governor and led to public protests.
By then, the Secretary of State Office’s overall budget had been reduced by more than 45 percent and it had lost 30 percent of its people. The cuts kept coming.
Deal also in 2013 by executive order moved the state ethics commission out from under the office’s control.
The same year, lawmakers transferred the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency from the office to the state Department of Community Health. That same agency also won control of the state’s dentistry and pharmacy boards. Then, last year, the state Board of Accountancy cut ties and landed with the State Accounting Office.
On all accounts, these boards wanted more control over their own destiny. A shrinking budget hampered by both the recession and increased mandates was not an attractive partner.
“Little things happen every year,” Kemp said. “Nobody probably really remembers a few years ago, we didn’t have to register or do things with certain professions that we have to do now.”
Next year’s proposed budget increase would provide some relief to the overworked Professional Licensing Boards, a division of Kemp’s office charged with regulating a remaining 42 different fields, such as plumbers, cosmetologists, geologists and podiatrists. The boards alone would see an extra $1.3 million – a 17 percent boost – with most of the money going to operations and the creation of 10 positions to chip away at a backlog of consumer complaints.
The largest of these boards by far is the Georgia Board of Nursing, which raises about $4 million a year in licensing fees from the state’s 150,000 registered and licensed practical nurses. In 2013, then-Board President Barry Cranfill, a nurse anesthetist, made public his complaints about a backlog estimated at 3,340 open complaint cases and fears that the underfunded board was endangering the public.
Deal did not reappoint Cranfill when his term expired last summer, but Cranfill has remained active, serving on a board advisory committee with other past board members.
Cranfill said the nursing board still struggles with a backlog of complaints, including complaints generated by a new law that requires hospitals and health professionals to report nurses with drug addictions and other problems. He said the larger budget will help, but it is not nearly enough.
“As long as the secretary of state has ultimate control over the funding — and that’s appropriate I think in some ways — he’s got a lot of mouths to feed and he is still not getting all the money the licensing boards are collecting,” Cranfill said.
Fees collected by the licensing boards are deposited into the state’s general revenue fund, and only a fraction of that money comes back. Cranfill and others have advocated to retain their fees to fund their operation, but the Legislature has shown little interest in that plan.
“I think the secretary of state did all he could to provide additional resources as he could,” Cranfill said, “but you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”
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