For years, many teachers and state employees went without raises, but the General Assembly has begun trying to make it up to them this session.
Both chambers gave final approval to a record $23.7 billion state budget Tuesday that offers the potential for the biggest raises since before the Great Recession to the state’s 200,000 teachers and state employees.
And, unlike during the recession, when the state was making deep cuts in jobs, the new budget — House Bill 751 — calls for hiring hundreds of new employees.
"We understood that we needed to make an investment in our human infrastructure," said House Appropriations Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn.
The spending plan for fiscal 2017, which begins July 1, calls for nearly $1 billion in borrowing for construction and $825 million in new road and bridge spending, thanks to hotel and fuel tax hikes approved by the Legislature last year.
While most of the budget would go to schools, health care, transportation and prisons, Gov. Nathan Deal and legislators made a point this year of talking about the pay raises that have been lacking in recent spending plans.
Deal proposed providing school districts and state agencies with extra money to offer 3 percent raises to teachers and state employees. School districts would get to decide whether to spend the extra money on raises and how big those raises would be.
Lawmakers later added 3 percent raises for school bus drivers and lunchroom workers.
Deal and lawmakers singled out employees in jobs that are seeing rapid turnover, such as prison guards and public health nurses, for bigger pay hikes.
Public health nurses would get raises of 9 percent, for instance. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month that the state has lost about 20 percent of its public health nurses since the Great Recession, largely because of low salaries. The entry-level salary for a registered nurse in the public health system is 44 percent below the average starting salary for RNs in Georgia, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Deal and lawmakers have had similar concerns in recent years about state patrolmen and other law enforcement officers, who are leaving for higher-paying jobs with other government agencies.
So at the last minute, they added extra money that would give those officers a 6 percent raise.
Deal and lawmakers had considered waiting until next year to address the problem. But Jen Talaber Ryan, the governor’s spokeswoman, said, “As the situation developed, the governor determined that addressing funding levels could not wait until next year.”
England said budget-writers will likely continue trying to boost law enforcement pay over the next few years.
With growth in private-sector hiring, England said the turnover rate for state employees is currently about 18 percent.
“High turnover costs us money and costs us institutional knowledge,” he said.
State retirees, who haven't had a cost-of-living adjustment since before the recession, would also get a 3 percent one-time bonus under the budget.
While hundreds of thousands of teachers, state employees and retirees would benefit from the raises, Deal and legislative leaders likewise continued to build back the state workforce, which was deeply cut during the recession.
The new budget would fund 2,172 new teaching positions next year, a 1.7 percent increase over 2015-2016.
It includes money for about 200 new caseworkers in child welfare, elder abuse and other areas in the Department of Human Resources, about two-dozen criminal investigators and analysts — including some working on cyberterrorism — and 12 Cooperative Extension Service agents.
England said employment in state government is down 17 percent from 2008, before the recession hammered state finances.
Budget-writers also played catch-up with medical providers that they said have not seen much in the way of increases for a few years.
The Senate went along with the House to provide $116 million extra in payments to nursing homes and many doctors who treat Medicaid patients.
Another sign of the state’s improving financial position is that the new budget would pay for things that lawmakers have cut out in the past.
For instance, the General Assembly kept in $6.5 million that Deal proposed to demolish the old archives building down the street from the Capitol and to design a new judicial complex for the site. The demolition money has been cut from the budget by lawmakers several times.
Lawmakers also included $10 million for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s Invest Georgia program, a venture capital fund for startup businesses. Cagle has had a hard time keeping that money in the budget in the past.
"This budget moves the state forward," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville. "This budget really makes a positive statement and has a positive impact on the future of this state."
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