The Georgia Senate approved a $21.8 billion budget for the upcoming year on Friday that would spend a little bit more in a lot of areas and makes clear that the state’s post-recession fiscal picture is brightening.
Now it will be up to House and Senate leaders to negotiate a final spending deal for fiscal 2016 — which begins July 1 — before the session ends in early April. The House passed its version of the budget, House Bill 76, earlier this month.
The budget would provide 1 percent raises for about 90,000 state and University System of Georgia employees. It holds out the hope of raises for teachers, but that will depend on the finances of local school districts. And it would give 4 percent raises to judges on the Supreme and Appeals courts and 2 percent raises to Superior Court judges, district attorneys and public defenders.
Both chambers rejected Gov. Nathan Deal’s recommendation to boot 22,000 part-time school workers and their dependents off the State Health Benefit Plan. But like the House, the Senate plan would make local school districts pay $103 million extra for part-time and full-time school worker insurance.
That cuts into the money Deal and lawmakers planned to send districts to fund teacher pay raises and eliminate furloughs left over from the recession. With the increased insurance costs, some systems may not be able to afford much in the way of raises.
At least some nursing home owners would come out way ahead in the Senate budget. Nursing home companies and owners have donated $1 million to lawmakers and state parties in recent years and another $1 million to Deal’s campaigns and his political action committee.
The House and Senate backed Deal's proposal to pay the owners of select nursing homes — including several owned by major Deal donors — about $27 million in extra annual payments. They did so even though the industry's lobby said it didn't need all the money. In addition, the Senate tacked on a more general $14 million rate increase for the politically connected industry.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, said he hopes negotiators can find even more money for nursing homes in the final version of the budget.
Senators also added about $60 million in state and federal funding to help partially make up for the loss of federal payments to doctors this year. Under the Affordable Care Act, primary care doctors got a bump in their Medicaid pay for two years, as part of an effort to encourage more doctors to see Medicaid patients. The federal government paid the full cost of the increase for the two-year period, which ended in 2014. States could then decide whether to continue the pay increase.
The spending plan backed by the Senate would borrow $1.1 billion for construction projects. That would be the largest bond package since then-Gov. Sonny Perdue pumped up borrowing early in the Great Recession to create construction jobs.
About one-fifth of the borrowing for construction would go to transportation projects: $100 million for bridges and $100 million for transit programs.
Most of the rest would go for k-12 schools and college buildings, although $23 million is allocated to complete a parking facility near the new Atlanta Falcons stadium.
In addition, under the budget, HOPE college scholarship awards would go up 3 percent, grants to private college students would jump about 30 percent, and the state ethics commission would get a boost in staff. Several health and human service programs would see increases as well.
Senate Republicans leaders put money into the budget for a few items meant to attract Democratic votes for the transportation funding plan. But Senate Democrats voted against it anyway.
Overall state spending would increase about $900 million, but that number could go up substantially if the chambers agree to a transportation funding plan in the final days of the 2015 session.
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