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Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill started off his budget presentation Monday morning at the Capitol telling colleagues, "As always, education comes first."
But he also made it clear that, thanks to Georgia's improved economy, the Senate's version of the record $23.7 billion state budget for the upcoming year would be about a whole lot more.
Like 10 percent raises for public health nurses that the state has been losing in droves because of low pay, and 3 percent more for 200,000 teachers and state employees.
Like more than $1 billion in road and bridge projects, funded by fuel and hotel tax increases that the General Assembly approved last year; hundreds of millions more for public health programs; $10 million for a venture startup fund for small businesses; and millions more to combat cyber crimes and terrorism.
Hill got it through the Senate Appropriations Committee without a word of opposition.
The spending plan that the full Georgia Senate will vote on Thursday or Friday much more closely resembles what budgets looked like before the Great Recession, with relatively small-dollar projects sprinkled in along with the nearly $9 billion for k-12 schools and enough construction projects to keep road-pavers and building firms humming throughout fiscal 2017, which begins July 1.
Passage by the Senate later this week would begin final negotiations with the House on the only bill — House Bill 751 — that the General Assembly is required to pass before it quits for the year later this month.
The state budget helps fund the education of more than 2 million students and provides health and nursing care for about 2 million Georgians. The state funds road improvements and prisons, economic development initiatives and cancer research, business and environmental regulation, parks and water projects. It creates thousands of private-sector jobs through construction projects.
When the recession hit, lawmakers began cutting state spending, and nowhere were those reductions more politically painful than in k-12 education.
With the economy in better shape, some of those cuts have been reversed. Hill, R-Reidsville, said next year’s budget is predicated on a healthy 4.3 percent growth in revenue, and the extra money will pay for increased spending in areas such as education, where more than $400 million extra is expected to fund the costs of increased enrollment and 3 percent raises for teachers.
Local school districts will decide whether to pass along the money for raises. Lawmakers also added money to provide 3 percent raises for school nurses, cafeteria workers and bus drivers.
Public health nurses got particular attention from senators. Gov. Nathan Deal and the House had proposed raises for the nurses, but Senate Appropriations Vice Chairwoman Renee Unterman, R-Buford, wanted to do more after officials reported that the state has lost more than 20 percent of its nurses since before the Great Recession, largely due to low pay.
The entry-level salary for a registered nurse in the public health system — $32,418 — is 44 percent below the average starting salary for RNs in Georgia, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Senators more than doubled what Deal and the House proposed for public nurse raises. If the Senate gets its way, they will see a 10 percent raise, Hill said..
The Senate went along with the House to provide $116 million extra in payments to nursing homes and many doctors who treat Medicaid patients.
Most of the construction projects that Deal wanted made it through the House and Senate budget committees, including a plan to demolish the old archives building down the street from the Capitol that has gotten the legislative ax several times in the past. Officials hope to build a state judicial complex on that site.
House and Senate members also added about $100 million worth of their own construction projects, mostly at colleges and technical schools or for local libraries.
Senators included $1.86 million to design a new GBI Information Sharing and Analysis Center in DeKalb County to support anti-terrorism efforts and additional new spending for analysts to work on cyberterrorism.
And the Senate found money for local projects as well, including $2 million for a family planning program supported by Unterman, $25,000 to do a study on DeKalb County's governing structure, $20,000 to promote tourism and historic preservation along the southern portion of the Chattahoochee River Valley, and $100,000 to help with a modernization at the King Center in anticipation of efforts to commemorate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in 2018 on the 50th anniversary of his death.
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