Alan Powell

To begin the process of the General Assembly’s constitutional mandate to pass a balanced budget each year, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees held a series of joint budget hearings Jan. 17-19. The meetings began with a briefing from Gov. Nathan Deal, who reviewed the highlights of his proposals for the annual budget for fiscal year 2013 as well as the midyear budget for the remainder of fiscal year 2012, which ends June 30.

Before last month, when state tax collections declined by 1.2 percent, Georgia had seen 18 consecutive months of revenue growth, putting the revenue estimate for 2013 at $19.2 billion. State revenues are up 5.2 percent overall for the first six months of the current fiscal year.

With this increase, the governor said he hopes to end some of the major cuts to public education that have shifted the tax burden to the local level, while investing in schools and infrastructure projects, fill holes in Medicaid and ensure our prisons are fully equipped to keep dangerous criminals off the street.

State Economist Kenneth Heaghney told lawmakers that he is forecasting a slow, steady growth which would not see Georgia reaching its peak general fund revenues seen in 2007 until fiscal year 2015. Overall per-capita spending in the budget plan for next year, when adjusted for inflation, is 20.5 percent less than the fiscal year 2002 budget.

This means we must remain committed to maintaining a conservative budget and lean state government. It is with this sense of fiscal responsibility that Georgia is one of only eight states that have managed to keep the AAA bond rating from all three rating agencies. This top rating has saved taxpayers $11 million over the life of bonds sold last year alone.

During the budget meetings, committee members heard budget requests from the heads of more than 20 state agencies and departments, including University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black and Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, who spoke on behalf of the judicial branch of government.

Chancellor Huckaby said that continuing increases in tuition and fees have caused as many as 700 students to drop out of classes at some of the state's larger campuses. He said the University System would begin to slow down the pace of these increases. To save money, the Regents recently approved a recommendation to consolidate eight of the state's public colleges into four institutions.

Meanwhile, Technical College System of Georgia Commissioner Ron Jackson told legislative budget writers that a number of under-utilized technical college campuses will likely be closed in order to achieve a 2 percent budget cut ordered of all agencies by Gov.  Deal.  

If you wish to review the governor’s budget proposals online, please visit http://opb.georgia.gov.