ATLANTA — The Georgia House completed its work on the budget that will control state spending for the fiscal year starting in July, sending a $38.5 billion spending plan to the Senate Tuesday.
House Bill 974 proposes a 2% increase over the current budget approved this time last year, although lawmakers increased the remaining portion of this year’s spending significantly — to $43.7 billion — in the amended current-year budget that Gov. Brian Kemp signed in early March.
Similar changes are probably in store for the new proposal this time next year. Until then, priorities include funding for education, health care, prisons and poverty, with a nod to problems caused by feral hogs.
Public schools are again consuming more than a third of the budget. The $14.9 billion allocated to elementary, middle and high schools was driven up $14.5 million by the state education funding formula, which considers enrollment and teacher pay grades based on qualifications and experience.
Add in billions for colleges, universities and technical schools, and education takes close to half the state budget. The University System of Georgia, for instance, got a $218 million increase in formula-driven state funding due to nearly 5% enrollment growth.
One of the House’s biggest priorities this year is literacy in the early grades, with $60 million added to the budget for reading interventions through third grade.
There is money for teacher training and for eye and hearing exams on school campuses. There is money for curricula and testing.
The biggest cost is for more than 1,300 classroom literacy coaches.
The House budgeted $31.2 million, which works out to about $24,000 per coach. The experienced educators required for the role earn at least two to three times that amount, and lawmakers know it. But it is difficult to estimate in advance how many will get hired over the next year, and at what pay grade. So House leaders said they expect to add money in the next amended budget a year from now.
“This is a massive downpayment on a historic investment,” said Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
The on ramp to literacy begins before kindergarten, so the House added $10 million for after school care for pre-kindergarten students, and $700,000 for another 25 pre-kindergarten classrooms. The House also moved money around in a way that “frees up” another $10 million in federal funds to add 1,288 students to the pre-k financial assistance program.
The budget “represents the House’s dedication to championing Georgia’s students, children, families and communities in every corner of our great state,” Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said in a statement after the House sent the budget to the Senate by a 159-4 vote.
Among the items he highlighted, besides literacy and pre-k, was $5 million to expand student mental health services and $10 million more toward rural airport aid.
Hatchett said one of his favorite line items was an additional $11.8 million for the Medicaid dental program to raise reimbursement rates and encourage more dentists to serve recipients.
Providing medical care is a challenge, particularly in rural areas. So expanding service has been a priority for lawmakers. To that end, the budget adds $18.2 million for graduate medical education, with $4.7 million toward 147 new primary care slots.
It also puts another $101 million toward prisons, a third of it to hire more correctional officers to reduce the ratio with inmates down from the current 1-12.
And it adds $11 million for more staffers to confirm food stamp enrollees are eligible. Georgia has one of the highest “error” rates in the country. That can mean loss of federal funding, so lawmakers hope to get it down.
There is also another $2 million to draw federal matching funds for a new summer food program for kids in poverty called SUN Bucks.
Feral hogs will not like this budget.
It contains $500,000 for a Department of Natural Resources hog management pilot program and another $400,000 for a hog eradication incentive program.
Hatchett explained that line item on the House floor Tuesday.
“Feral hogs are wreaking havoc statewide,” he said, “causing millions of dollars of damage to crops and farms each year.”
