We began the second part of the 153rd General Assembly session on Monday, January 11, 2016. With only 40 legislative days to accomplish our goals, we got straight to work. During this busy first week, the House convened every day and committees began meeting to discuss legislation.
This week marked Gov. Deal’s sixth State of the State address, which he gave before a joint session of the House and Senate. In his annual address, Gov. Deal outlined Georgia’s successes and opportunities for improvement and growth in the months ahead.
Gov. Deal began by highlighting the significant economic progress the state has made since the Great Recession of 2008. Currently, Georgia’s Rainy Day Fund, or reserves, have increased to more than $1.43 billion and continue to grow each year. He noted those same reserves had dropped by $2.3 billion from 2007 to 2011 and were almost completely depleted during that time. Gov. Deal also emphasized the state’s lowest post-recession unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. In our area alone, unemployment has dropped almost 5 points in the last 5 years. In addition, Georgia currently has the third lowest construction unemployment rate in the nation and has created 22,000 new manufacturing jobs, which have generated over $900 million in wages to the state.
These positive figures were great news and provided an encouraging outlook. Since Georgia has seen tremendous growth in manufacturing and construction, Gov. Deal announced his continued plan to strengthen Georgia’s workforce and address the jobs skills gap that many employers are seeing. There are currently 11 areas under the Strategic Industries Workforce Development Grants where students receive full tuition coverage from HOPE for training in 140 different programs and technical institutions. Gov. Deal has asked us to work with higher education leaders to add another field to this critical list and proposed an addition of $17.1 million of the FY2017 budget to continue the great work already in place through this program. With North Georgia Technical College in our area, this is great news for us.
More than half of the state’s proposed budget is dedicated to education and it is still one of our top priorities. The 2017 budget proposal calls for a 3 percent pay raise for all state employees, including teachers. Under the proposed budget an additional $300 million appropriation for K-12 education will go to local school boards. Gov. Deal noted that in the past three years, 94 percent of school systems used this additional funding to reduce or entirely eliminate furlough days, and with this funding, teacher furlough days should be a thing of the past.
In addition to his education budget proposal, Gov. Deal also addressed some of the suggestions from his Education Reform Commission, which over the past year examined our entire education system and reported back to the governor with its recommendations for reform.
I’m pleased that Governor Deal is taking a measured approach to education reform. To make the best decision for our students, he is forming a study committee with more teacher input and asking the General Assembly to spend careful time and consideration reviewing the information and recommendations of the Commission before any actions are taken. One recommendation that came out of the Commission is a student based funding formula to replace the Quality Based Education (QBE) formula, which has been in place for more than 30 years. The new funding formula would assess funds based on characteristics of the individual student. The governor also spoke of a teacher compensation model to reward teacher effectiveness, and he also asked the State Department of Education and local school systems to evaluate their testing requirements and eliminate unnecessary tests. There will be plenty of opportunity for education input before any actions are taken.
In his speech, the governor also addressed a new comprehensive plan for transportation improvements in Georgia. The new infrastructure maintenance plan will be based on funding from the Transportation Funding Act of 2015, one of the legislatures top priorities last session. The comprehensive plan included two project lists. The first is for 18 months and valued at $2.2 billion. According to Gov. Deal, this plan will use roughly 60 percent of the user fees collected from the passage of House Bill 170 last year for repair and maintenance of existing roads, with the remaining 40 percent going towards the construction of new roadways and bridges. The second list is a ten year list, valued at more $10 billion. This proposal is vital to maintaining safe access to our roads and bridges throughout the state and will also serve as a way to continue to promote economic development in Georgia. I commend Gov. Deal and the Georgia Department of Transportation for following through on this initiative.
Finally, after announcing his goals in the speech, Gov. Deal officially released his $23.7 billion state budget proposal to the General Assembly for the upcoming fiscal year. We will use these recommendations as a starting point when we review the numbers in our Joint House and Senate Budget Hearings and Joint Appropriations subcommittee hearings. I look forward to diving deeper into the details of the governor’s budget plans to ensure that we are spending your tax dollars in the most efficient way possible.
It’s going to be a very interesting legislative session, and I hope you will take the opportunity to review these updates to keep you informed. As always, you are my top priority. Please reach out to me and share your thoughts and opinions as we move throughout the session. Also, if you have an issue we can help with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I can be reached by email at Terry.Rogers @house.ga.gov, or by phone at 404-651-7737. Thank you for allowing me to represent you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rep. Terry Rogers (R-Clarkesville) represents Georgia House District 1o. His district includes portions of Habersham and White Counties.
