HEADLINES
State employees and teachers would receive a 2.5 percent cost-of-living pay raise under the $21.2 billion budget that passed unanimously in the Senate. 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, which 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.
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/2008/3/208512