The Georgia House restored money in next year’s budget for the state’s “sparsity grant” program designed to help small, remote school districts.
Below are the counties that get “sparsity grants” and the amount they received this school year:
Atkinson County
$84,785
Baker County
$97,878
Calhoun County
$195,846
Chattahoochee County
$106,968
Clay County
$104,043
Clinch County
$73,837
Echols County
$242,867
Johnson County
$180,725
Lanier County
$75,980
Lincoln County
$57,055
Miller County
$115,566
Quitman County
$112,783
Stewart County
$150,611
Talbot County
$123,845
Taliaferro County
$152,288
Towns County
$51,796
Union County
$251,631
Warren County
$162,026
Webster County
$129,163
Wilcox County
$80,194
Georgia’s smallest, most remote school systems would continue getting state subsidies to stay afloat, but many private college students would get less tuition help under a $19.8 billion budget the House is expected to approve Tuesday.
The House Appropriations Committee on Monday passed the spending plan for fiscal 2014, which begins July 1.
The budget calls for $800 million for new construction projects — most of it for schools and colleges — and more money for k-12 education. But it contains no cost-of-living raises for 200,000 state employees and teachers.
House leaders decided to save the $2.6 million “sparsity grant” program, which provides extra money to 20 tiny, isolated school districts in the state. Gov. Nathan Deal had proposed eliminating the program.
The grants account for up to 12 percent of some systems’ state funding, however. Most of those systems collect little from property taxes, so it would be difficult to raise money to make up the cut.
“To just pull that money out from underneath them, we felt, would be too drastic,” said Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta, who heads the House’s budget subcommittee on k-12 education and once served as superintendent of schools in Whitfield County.
Quitman County Superintendent Allen Fort was happy to hear the news. His Southwest Georgia district gets $112,000 a year in “sparsity grant” money, which amounts to more than 5 percent of all the funding it receives from the state.
“It is pretty big to us,” he said. “We can’t just pick it up somewhere else. We can’t cut here or there and get $100,000. We can’t cut any more teachers.”
House members also approved Deal’s proposal to add $12.9 million in funding so the state can increase the number of days of pre-kindergarten classes from 170 to 180 days per year.
House budget writers reduced the Tuition Equalization Grant — money paid to all private college students — from $700 to $500. The subsidy program has been around for about 40 years and is meant to help private college students pay tuition.
The $6 million saved by reducing the grant would be plowed into the Technical College System of Georgia. Deal proposed a $24 million cut in technical college funding because of an enrollment drop at the schools. Technical colleges, like University System of Georgia schools, are funded largely based on enrollment.
Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R- Powder Springs, chairman of the budget higher education subcommittee, said the Technical College System could run into accreditation problems because about 70 percent of its instructors are part-time. Further cuts would only make that situation worse.
“We are looking at a train wreck if we don’t get a handle on our ability to fund out technical college programs,” he said.
House leaders also added$40 million in funding to avoid having to cut payments to medical providers who treat the state’s poor and disabled. They made up the money by cutting spending growth in the Medicaid public health care program.
After the House approves its version of the spending plan, the Senate will gets its chance at the budget. Both chambers must pass a budget before the General Assembly completes the 2013 session, probably this month.
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