The Georgia Senate on Friday overwhelmingly backed a post-recession $21.8 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year that includes $1.1 billion in new construction and spends more money in a host of areas.
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 will go for K-12 schools and college buildings, although $23 million is allocated to complete a parking facility near the new Atlanta Falcons’ stadium.
If approved, the bond package would be the largest since 2009, when then-Gov. Sonny Perdue pumped up borrowing to create construction jobs.
The Senate plan, like the House budget proposal, rejects 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.
Under the budget, HOPE college scholarship award would go up 3 percent and grants to private college students would jump about 30 percent.
The Senate’s approval of the budget for fiscal 2016, which begins July 1, sets up negotiations with the House that will result in a final deal before the end of the session in early April. The budget increases spending $900 million overall, but that number could go up substantially if the chambers agree to a transportation funding plan in the final days of the 2015 session.
Including federal funding, the state would spend about $40 billion next year.
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