MOULTRIE - Gov. Roy Barnes announced $5.1 million in grant and loan awards from the OneGeorgia Authority to 12 projects intended to create jobs in the state's economically distressed regions. <br>
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``Our experiences with industrial prospects have helped us realize that rural Georgians must be ready and actively engaged in marketing their community when a prospect comes to town,'' Barnes said Tuesday. <br>
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The authority board also approved regulations for a Regional E911 Program and a budget of $3 million toward making emergency 911 telephone service available to an estimated 31 counties and 250,000 residents that do not have it. <br>
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``Emergency services are critical to the health, safety and quality of life in Georgia's communities,'' Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor said. ``Every resident in Georgia deserves the security of knowing that an emergency call to 911 will be answered.'' <br>
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The authority also awarded $2,112,500 in EDGE awards grants to encourage specific industries to come to Georgia instead of another state. The EDGE awards are expected to create 295 jobs in five rural areas. <br>
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Since its first award of $1.5 million to secure National Beef in Colquitt County last summer, the OneGeorgia Authority has doled out almost $46 million for rural economic development. <br>
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Mostly through projects in the poorest communities, some 4,500 jobs have been created and thousands more are sure to come with money already awarded, OneGeorgia Authority Executive Director Nancy Cobb said. <br>
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The authority uses the state's tobacco lawsuit settlement proceeds to fund projects. Settlement proceeds plus earned interest amount to $65,330,712. Proposed 2003 expenditures approved by the authority board Tuesday amount to $48,152,144, and $18,178,568 will be added to the groups reserves to bring them up to $30,061,035. <br>
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OneGeorgia impacts rural areas in other ways besides bringing in new industry. For the third year, the funds money will direct $13 million of tobacco lawsuit settlement money to aid tobacco farmers. That works out to a little less than $1 per pound, Barnes calculated. <br>
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``The reason for it is they have lost about 60 percent of their lives (with the shift in the industry), so were trying to help them through these times,'' the governor said.
