The Georgia Senate backed a midyear budget Friday, but not before swatting down an amendment to cut the Georgia Public Broadcasting salary of former Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers.
The Democratic amendment — which would have cut GPB’s budget by $150,000 — was defeated 35-13 on a party-line vote. Rogers’ salary is $150,000.
Democratic lawmakers didn’t specifically name Rogers, but they said the Republican-led General Assembly has cut too much from education and they questioned the state’s priorities. And most everyone in the chamber understood where the proposed cut was directed.
“I don’t know if you are trying to send a message or not, but this is not a message to send today,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, told the Democrats.
Democrats and some other Georgians were outraged earlier this year when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Rogers, the Senate’s longtime Republican leader, would be paid $150,000 by GPB as an executive producer for a new community jobs programs. A longtime producer resigned after the AJC reported Rogers’ salary.
Rogers is the second-highest-paid employee on GPB’s staff and earns more than Gov. Nathan Deal.
After defeating the amendment, the Senate approved the $19.3 billion midyear spending plan 49-0. A slightly different version has passed the House, so now the leaders of the two chambers will begin negotiating a final budget for the rest of fiscal 2013, which ends June 30.
The Senate’s midyear budget would send local school districts an extra $167.6 million, mostly to fund enrollment growth. It also would fill a hole of more than $200 million in the state’s health care program for the poor, elderly and disabled.
It restores about $2.7 million that Deal had proposed cutting from Georgia Gwinnett College. It would cut $73 million in basic funding for the University System of Georgia and nearly $40 million budgeted for economic development programs. Most agencies would take midyear cuts because state leaders aren’t sure tax collections will meet expectations if the economy slows during the first half of 2013.
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