Senate waters down bill to lower fees

A bill to force the state to lower some fees and fines if lawmakers continue diverting the money away from its intended purpose is being watered down in the Georgia Senate, supporters say.

The move comes a little more than a week after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the measure could keep lawmakers from diverting about $40 million a year. Or it could force lawmakers to lower the fees and fines.

Legislative leaders say the diverted money has been used during the recession to help prop up budgets for schools, public safety and health care. And Senate leaders want to give lawmakers flexibility to continue diverting the money unless the state's reserves are fairly full -- more than $1 billion full.

House Bill 811 would force lawmakers to lower the $1 fee on new tires, landfill  fees and certain fines if the money doesn't go to where it was intended when the fees and fines were implemented: high school drivers education, cleaning up landfills and tire and hazardous waste dumps and police training. Instead, the money has been spread throughout the state budget.

The bill by Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla, would force the state to lower the fees and fines gradually if lawmakers divert a big chunk of the money in the future. It easily passed the House last month.

"The voters don't trust us to put the money where we say we're going to put it," Powell said. "There is no reason to collect a fee for a service you are not providing."

Local government, police and environmental groups support the legislation. They have complained for years about money being diverted.

Combined, by the end of this year, the tire and hazardous waste programs will have collected almost $200 million in fees since 2004. About $76 million of that has actually gone to dump and waste cleanup efforts. Of $58 million in traffic fine add-ons raised for teen drivers ed, only $8 million has gone for that purpose.

A Senate subcommittee changed the bill so that the fees and fines could only be lowered if state reserves equaled at least 7 percent of what lawmakers appropriate for the year, minus a few areas of spending. That would be about $1.1 billion this year, Senate officials said.  State reserves have only been that high a few times in recent decades, most recently before the recession. State reserves are now about $328 million after dipping below $100 million during the recession.

The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Greg Goggans, R-Douglas, said lawmakers need the flexibility to divert the money to schools or other areas in a downturn.

Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour, R-Snellville, said the diversions have been going on for years, and few Georgians have noticed.

"We have been doing this for 20 years and I keep getting re-elected," Balfour said.