They're the lucky ones. Facing sluggish tax collections, budget writers slashed overall spending by $245 million below what Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed in January.
The big loser is schools, who had been hoping the state would finally replenish austerity cuts that have affected districts for six years. Republican lawmakers wanted to replace the full $141 million in proposed cuts for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Instead, they were able to add just $56 million.
"We'll take whatever we get, but we would like to see more than the 50-million dollars returned to the austerity cuts, we certaintly preferred the House version where they were going to completely restore the 140-million of austerity cuts," said Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield.
The Senate replaced most of the 2.5 percent cut to Georgia's prison system that had been championed by the House. Georgia's inmate population is among the fastest-rising in the nation.
``We want the public protected,'' Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill told senators Friday as they prepared to vote on the spending plan. ``We are not going to allow prisons to be closed.''
Republicans in the House complained that the Senate version slashed a proposed pay hike for corrections officers. Low salaries for the corrections officers is making it difficult for them to recruit and retain staff.
The parents of HOPE scholarship students bound for private colleges in Georgia got some good news in the Senate spending plan. The HOPE scholarship award would rise from $3,000 to $3,500 a year at private schools, the first increase in at least a decade, Senate budget officials said.
The House and Senate eliminated $500,000 that was supposed to fund an education effort by the Secretary of State's office on Georgia's new voter ID law.
Elections officials had wanted to do additional outreach to let voters know about the new photo ID mandate in advance of the fall's presidential contest.
The House has already passed its version of the spending plan. Budget negotiators from each chamber will meet to resolve their differences before the 40-day session legislative session draws ends on Friday.
More budget cuts could be on the horizon. Perdue has the constitutional authority to set the amount the state may spend for a given fiscal year. He lowered that revenue estimate earlier this month, saying the state needs to tighten its belt as tax revenues shrink.
Perdue also expects to dip into the state's $1.5 billion reserve fund to pay the bills.
In a letter to lawmakers earlier this week, Perdue warned he might have to lower the revenue ceiling yet again.
ODDS & ENDS
Three Georgia businessmen indicted on federal felony charges in connection with a failed beef plant in Mississippi have ties to prominent state Republicans. The three worked for The Facility Group, where state Rep. Earl Ehrhart is a senior vice president.
The House voted to give local governments the option of levying a 1-cent sales tax hike to fund regional transportation projects. The constitutional amendment passed 136 to 35, easily earning the needed two-thirds majority.
Gov. Sonny Perdue has made no secret of his opposition to allowing grocery and convenience stores to sell alcohol on Sundays. In a new opinion piece he penned for use in Georgia newspapers, the governor said public safety is a large part of the reason why.
Voters in Dunwoody would get the chance to form their own city under a bill signed into law by the governor. The measure will allow the residents of the north DeKalb County community to decide if they want to incorporate.
Georgia lawmakers have put up a road block for local governments looking to install more red light cameras. The House voted 136-24 to give final approval to the measure, which now goes to the governor.
Gov. Sonny Perdue will have another chance to sign legislation that stiffens penalties for unlicensed drivers. Under legislation that received final passage in the Senate, a driver who is stopped for a fourth time in five years without a valid license would be prosecuted as a felon punishable by at least a year in prison.
A bill that toughens the penalties for dog fighting in Georgia is on its way to the governor. The legislation received final passage in the state Senate on Friday by a unanimous vote of 44-0.
Georgia lawmakers have stripped an anti-obesity bill of a key provision that would have forced students to climb on the scale for twice-yearly ``weigh-ins.'' The data would have been used to determine whether a child has a healthy body mass index, calculated through a combination of height and weight measurements.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
``If you have ever comforted the parents or grandparents of a young person lost in a DUI crash, then you know that the cost of this proposal is too great and the damage it stands to inflict is too heavy a burden for innocent families to bear,'' Gov. Sonny Perdue, in an opinion piece where he outlined his opposition to allowing the Sunday sale of alcohol at grocery and convenience stores.
DAYS IN SESSION
4 days remain in the 40-day session.
LOOK AHEAD
Trim the income tax or erase the car tag tax? That's the election-year question state lawmakers will face as they plunge into the final frantic week of the legislative session. Along with debating the two competing tax plans, the Legislature must also vote on a $21.2 billion spending plan.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/3/208500