Georgia Senate eyes budget that indicates recovery

Proposed construction

Many of the construction projects in the Senate version of next year’s state budget were initially recommended by Gov. Nathan Deal. Some were added by the House, some by the Senate. Included in the package is:

Source: Senate version of House Bill 76

The state would borrow $1.1 billion for new construction projects, give pay raises to top judges and rate hikes to nursing home owners, and continue providing health insurance to school bus drivers as long as local districts foot the bill under a spending plan backed by Senate leaders Wednesday.

The bond package would be the largest since then-Gov. Sonny Perdue pumped up borrowing during the Great Recession in hopes of creating construction jobs.

The projects are part of a $21.8 billion state budget for the upcoming fiscal year that the Senate will approve Friday. The House has already passed its version. A final spending deal will be worked out by House and Senate leaders over the next few weeks.

"It may be a little different than some of the budgets we've had in the past," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville. In many ways it is a budget typical of a state recovering from years of spending cuts brought on by a recession. But Hill also noted that it focuses money on health care and human services more than in recent years.

Overall state spending would increase $900 million, and that number may climb if the two chambers approve a big transportation funding bill before the session ends in early April.

As a down payment of sorts, both chambers agreed to include $200 million worth of borrowing for new transportation projects — half to repair and replace dangerous bridges across the state, half for transit projects.

Most of the rest of the bond money would go to k-12 school and college construction. Senate leaders added college and library projects in the districts of about one-fourth of the chamber’s members.

While the budget includes 1 percent pay raises for most state employees, Supreme Court justices and Appeals Court judges would receive 4 percent increases. That would boost their pay to about $173,000. Superior Court judges, some of whom already earn far more than Supreme Court justices, would receive 2 percent increases, as would district attorneys and public defenders.

That's far less than the House approved for many judges, but Hill said senators were concerned about giving big increases to judges and not to other state employees.

“We felt with state employees getting a 1 percent raise, we could not go much beyond that (for judges),” he said.

Both chambers agreed that 22,000 part-time school employees and their dependents should be able to remain on the State Health Benefit Plan, the state’s health insurance program for teachers, retirees and state workers. Gov. Nathan Deal had proposed booting part-time school bus drivers and cafeteria workers off the coverage.

But both chambers say local school districts need to come up with $103 million more in the upcoming year to pay for coverage for the so-called noncertified school employees — both part-time and full-time.

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.

Lawmakers say the noncertified school employees are the responsibility of local school districts, and that teachers and state employees have been subsidizing their insurance through higher premiums for years.

Angela Palm of the Georgia School Boards Association said the higher insurance tab for districts is “likely to force local boards to once again review their options.”

“They have to either find the money in their budget and not do something else they intended, opt out of the State Health Benefit Plan and find an alternative to offer these employees, or not offer insurance and hope the employees can find an alternative, perhaps through the Affordable Care Act health exchange,” Palm said.

In other areas, the Senate budget plan was good news for key health care providers.

The Senate backed Deal's proposal to pay the owners of select nursing homes about $27 million in extra annual payments, even though the industry's lobby said it didn't need all the money. In addition, the Senate backed a more general $14 million rate hike for the politically connected industry.

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.

While the $60 million increase doesn’t make up the full loss, supporters said it was a start.

The Senate sided with Deal on increased funding for the state ethics commission, backing his plan to add eight staffers to the agency charged with policing campaign finance and lobbying laws. The House had cut that proposed increase in half.

“We’re pleased to see at least one chamber of the Legislature committing to restoring the staffing level the agency needs to perform its work,” said William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia.

The budget also would add money to fund 278 additional caseworkers for the state’s troubled child welfare system, and it would fund increases in HOPE college scholarships and in grants to students attending private colleges.