I will advocate for good paying jobs that tap into our state's talent, ensure safe working conditions, and protect secure benefits.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, legislators and communities to advance this mission.

Strengthening Georgia's position as the number one state for business and the best place to live, work and raise a family.

Governor Kemp introduced the state's new Commissioner of Labor today, Vera Holmes.

Holmes takes over from Bruce Thompson, who passed away last November.

Good evening and welcome to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

We'll learn more about the new labor commissioner in a moment.

It's day 32 of the Georgia General Assembly.

The action during the 40 day legislative session determines what happens in your life for months and years to come, from your child's school to the roads and bridges you drive, to the safety of your home and the type of health care you receive.

Decisions made at the Capitol shape it all.

Much of it is determined by how billions of dollars are spent.

It's money that comes into the state budget from taxes through your income sales tax, gas tax and the corporate world.

It's why tonight we're going to focus on money, especially given that passing a budget is the only thing the Georgia Constitution requires the General Assembly to do each year.

To break down the details, the budget chairman from the House and Senate join the show.

But first, it's time for an overview of the day at the Capitol.

From correspondent Sarah Kallis.

Hi, Donna.

Today at the Capitol, Governor Kemp announced the new labor commissioner and the Senate debated a controversial resolution.

The Senate passed three bills and four resolutions.

Today, House Bill 89 would allow the Maternal Mortality Review Committee to acquire psychiatric and medical records related to the maternal mortality cases in the state.

What this bill is, is an effort to try to lower the rate at which people are passing away after they give birth.

HB 223 would provide tax relief for timber farmers who suffered economic losses from Hurricane Helene.

This bill will allow payments made to producers from USDA block grants and crop loss payments related to storm damage to be exempt from state income tax.

Both bills were easily passed.

House resolution 32 and its enabling law, HB 90, would allow farmers to double the amount of farmland that they can own and receive lower tax rates on.

This legislation will allow farmers in one name to own up to 4,000 acres.

Just trying to to bring our code up to date with the family farm.

Family farms have grown over the years.

The bill and resolution were easily passed, but now will have to be approved by voters to change the state's constitution.

Regarding the increase.

More controversial were two Senate resolutions praising Republican politicians.

Senate resolution 245 recognized former Georgia U.S. Representative and current Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins.

Collins is.

The first Iraq.

War veteran to serve as Secretary of the Veterans Affairs.

His vision for veterans care is rooted in his life as a military veteran, ensuring world class care for our American heroes.

While some Democrats supported the resolution, others said that Collins complicity in reducing federal workers from the agency could not be overlooked.

Unfortunately, Secretary Collins has decided that he is a card carrying member of the DOGE crew, that he is on board with 80,000 cuts, at least 25% of the VA's workforce is veterans.

So it's the jobs at the VA, but it's also the services that veterans receive.

That resolution was passed, and a similar resolution, SR 246, commending President Donald Trump, was debated for over an hour.

It is highly fitting that this resolution be presented to you guys today, and I hope that this body will join me and commend these pro-American policies, and we commend President Donald Trump, who has gained the confidence of millions and millions of American voters and workers.

Democrats pushed back again, wondering why the need for a commendation to a sitting president.

The only time that a resolution like this was passed in 2017, when this body did the exact same thing when Trump was elected the first time.

And when matched up against presidents in my lifetime, both of and Republican, I don't see the need or the worthiness for him to have any type of acknowledgment or recognition.

We've actually fired him during his last presidency.

They also called the resolution political pandering.

The majority thinks that they have to.

Continue to bend the knee to the president in order to get favor or preserve funding in Georgia, or get an endorsement in next year's elections or whatever the motivation is.

As expected, the resolution passed along party lines 31-18 Also today, Governor Brian Kemp appointed Barbara Rivera Holmes as the state's new Commissioner of Labor.

Holmes replaces Bruce Thompson, who passed away last year from pancreatic cancer.

I will advocate for good paying jobs that tap into our state's talent, ensure safe working conditions and protect secure benefits.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, legislators and communities to advance this mission.

Strengthening Georgia's position as the number one state for business and the best place to live, work and raise a family.

In the House, members gave final approval to Senate Bill 55, which would require companies to pay Georgians with intellectual disabilities minimum wage.

Under current law, they can be paid as little as $0.22 per hour.

We have eight of those programs out of 60 or so still functioning in the state of Georgia.

This bill would do away with those programs and or have them adapt.

They would have two years with federal assistance, helping them go from what they're paying now, which most is about the lowest, I think is $2 an hour and help them get up to the federal minimum wage of 750.

That's what the program does.

It's about dignity and fairness and making sure that people with disabilities are paid, at least what we consider the bare minimum wage for all other workers.

They also passed SB six, which would allow strips that test if drugs have been contaminated with fentanyl or another substance to be sold to the public.

It would also exclude those strips from the drug paraphernalia classification.

Anything we can to prevent deaths, as long as somebody is alive, we have a chance of helping them overcome an addiction.

When they're dead, there is no hope.

The bill passed unanimously and now heads to Governor Kemp's desk to be signed into law.

Tomorrow, the committees will work to pass legislation.

The House and Senate will convene again on Thursday.

That's my Capitol report.

Donna.

Thanks, Sarah.

The rest of the show we're going to spend talking about Georgia budgets, what spending is taking place now and what lawmakers are discussing for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Georgia's budget is not just about numbers.

It's about those dollars who how they will be spent and how they will affect the everyday lives of 11 million Georgians.

Joining the show is Senate Appropriations chairman, Republican Senator Blake Tillery of Vidalia.

He's also vice chair of government oversight and state Institutions and Properties.

Both of those committees, he became a pro appropriations chair in 2020.

Also with us is House appropriations chairman, Republican Representative Matt Hatchet of Dublin.

He's been the governor's floor leader.

Majority caucus chairman and the majority caucus whip.

I want to thank you both for coming on Lawmakers for this annual budget show.

Glad to be here.

Yeah, glad to be here.

Well, let's let's get right to it.

Chairman Tillery, I have you do this every year.

Can you explain the budget process, starting with where it begins?

And while you're talking, we have some of the information up on the screen.

Sure.

We start in the fall with the governor's Office of Planning and Budget.

We begin working through numbers there.

The governor sends out a revenue estimate.

Well, not a revenue estimate, but he sends out a planning target for the agencies.

They bring back those numbers and OPB.

The governor's office then uses that to prepare a budget that they will present to legislators in January.

The after the governor makes his proposal, hatchet gets it first and picks it up and runs there.

The House will pass their budget sometimes by crossover day.

We hope to.

We pick pick on him about that, but the budget's not subject to crossover and then the Senate will pick it up thereafter.

And then it goes to conference where we try to work with each other.

And then, of course, with the governor's office to make decisions that hopefully are the best for the 11 million Georgians you've already referenced.

Yeah.

And so right now we're at the stage where it is with the Senate.

So I know you guys are working on it.

I want to get back to the governor's revenue estimate.

And so for briefly talking about an idea where the money is coming from.

So here's a breakdown of the amended 2025 budget from the House Budget and Research Office.

A good chunk comes from individual income taxes.

Around 38%.

And then there's sales taxes at 20:02 percent, more than 8% from corporate taxes.

Then, as you can see on the screen, the percentages for fees, undesignated, surplus and motor vehicle or fuel taxes, and the amount from the lottery comes in at about 3.9%.

In between, there's that other category, which is, I guess, everything else, then.

But Chairman Hatchett, earlier in the month, the House passed HB 111 to reduce Georgia's income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19%, retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.

So explain what that all means for taxpayers.

So that's it's a two tenths of a percent cut.

And that equates to around somewhere.

I don't know that the actual number is somewhere $800-9 million.

That will stay in your pockets.

It will not be submitted to the state government for us to spend.

So that's that's how that will work.

And I think it will probably go to the governor's desk and get signed.

Okay, then.

Well, Chairman Tillery, back to you.

Each year the General Assembly deals with the two budgets I mentioned earlier, the amended budget to add money to the current spending plan and the one for the upcoming fiscal year.

And Governor Brian Kemp just signed that amended budget that will go through June 30.

It's about $40.5 billion.

One of the things it offers is Hurricane Helene relief.

And I know that for you personally and your community, because of the storm, it hit hard there.

This is important.

So we're going to show some pictures you sent in and then talk a little bit about what the Hurricane Helene relief and the amended budget is all about.

Right to hit chairman Hatchets District pretty hard as well.

Anywhere that existed in Georgia between about Valdosta and Augusta felt the the wrath of that storm.

We obviously our thoughts and prayers go out to our friends in Paulding County who had similar storms this weekend.

The package for relief includes a variety of measures aimed at, first of all, just getting the debris off the ground.

Whether that debris was houses, roofing materials, I mean gas stations that blew over, and then, of course, timber.

The timber in my area.

Chairman Hatchett's area, Senator Russ Goodman area Senator Max Burns area Billy Hickman it is still leaning.

And that's a concern because we know if the the lean of those trees is over a certain percentage, I think it's 35%, then the trees are going to be dead 80% of the time.

Those trees are going to be dead within 12 months.

So we have more debris to clean up.

Just my little county of Toombs County, it's one of the smaller geographic counties.

The bill for picking up on the state and local right of ways already has eclipsed $65 million.

So multiply that out across the other counties that were impacted, roughly 100 counties.

You see how that cost is going to be significant and severe.

Also in my area.

And Chairman Hatchett, sir, you had a lot of folks who had their we'll call them timber 401 S. They had their retirement tied up in timber.

That timber is gone and timber is a little different than crops.

Of course you can tell under crops and and plant them the next year.

It's not easy.

I don't want to diminish the loss to someone who just lost crops.

But if you lost timber, that's a 20 year investment, not just a one year investment.

So the time to recover is going to be significant.

And so the funds that went in this year's budget, it started out with the governor's plan of around 615 million.

Those monies went to about 200 ish million to Dot to just replace street signs and stoplights that had blown over that many of them.

You had $100 million that also went in for the governor's suspension of the motor fuel tax.

During that time period.

We needed to backfill that revenue.

And then so that's 300 million out the door.

You had 200 extra million that was put into the Larp program.

Local road assistance projects.

Again, remember how much infrastructure was destroyed during this time?

About 25 ish million.

At the end.

The Senate put towards folks who were not timber people or local governments necessarily.

And the House was very kind to come along and say that that was a very good ad, and to jump on that with us.

Those folks are still having blue tarps on their roof even this past weekend.

So a lot of repair to be done.

Even though we now sit roughly six months away from the storm.

A whole lot to do and really thankful for our colleagues for jumping in and trying to help.

I know a lot of people across Georgia are just grateful for this money that is coming in.

Chairman Hatchett, I dealing with the amended budget, still $1 billion for another round of state income tax rebates for Georgians.

Talk about that.

Yeah, the rebate is $500 for an individual.

No married married couple, 250 for an individual.

It's what we've done in the past.

So keep an eye out in your in your bank accounts.

And sometimes people get checks and it's a rebate.

It's a refund.

So you have to have paid that much to get it back.

We get a lot of calls, whereas I didn't get my check and all that.

Don, if I could, I'd like to touch on the hurricane relief a little bit, if that's okay.

Sure.

Go ahead.

Sure.

No, it's $850 million worth of relief that we put out there, and 150 million in loans to farmers, 135 million to assist with timber.

But I can't stress enough for those not living in the area.

If you have not gone to see how much that hurricane changed Georgia it's when you hear the term generational change.

And it is, I mean it like Chairman Tillery said, the the people whose retirement was was in trees is now gone.

And and just the employees in the industries, the loggers, the truckers, all the people that that that were needed to support that industry that now are wondering what they're going to do.

So it's it's had a huge impact on our state and on our part of the state.

There will be something we'll be talking about for years and years to come.

So I appreciate what you guys have done.

And but we're just getting started because we're going to continue with our special budget show.

Well, I just want to say, just for everyone's information, this is House Bill 68, not Senate Bill 68.

There's a big difference.

So we'll find out what that means, and we'll dig into the budget for the next fiscal year when we return.

You're watching Lawmakers on GPB.

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Farm Bureau advocates for all Georgia farmers at the state Capitol during the session and year round.

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I'm a queen.

I don't fear anyone.

This is a woman.

People wanted to follow.

You are an important part of our work.

You're stronger than you know.

Saddle my horse immediately.

She's a female trailblazer.

We did it by acknowledging our own worth.

Oh, please do continue.

Got my head out the sunroof.

Oh!

Oh, la la la la la la la la la.

Understanding the past gives a sense of the future.

Heart like a lion.

This is the first time that anyone has seen this in 2000 years.

Oh oh oh oh stop.

The big is happening.

So hurry up.

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This is amazing.

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Pompeii is a battle against time.

Eyes wide open.

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But look at this.

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History teaches us to honor the past.

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When you look back, you're like, wow, that was pretty special.

This is something that's actually altering the course of history.

You're charged with keeping these stories alive.

Eyes wide open.

You.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

We're continuing with our special budget show with two of the most sought after people at the Capitol.

The pair, who lead the discussions on state spending.

The budget chairman, Representative Matt Hatchett and Senator Blake Tillery, who are joining the show right now from the state Capitol.

We appreciate you, both of you, sticking with us.

Now, we've talked about the amended 2025 budget, also known as the baby budget.

Now we're going to talk about the big budget for fiscal year 2026.

And Chairman Hatchett, it's known as the big budget.

But as you pointed out, when you presented in the House, it's actually smaller than the amended budget this year.

Can you explain the difference?

So yes, the mini budget, we come back every year and in true up the expenses that we know are coming and the expenses and Medicaid expenses in K through 12 education, because we always have an increase there.

So that's what we do in the little budget amended budget, but the amended budget this year I think was right around $4 billion.

So the the 26 budget that we passed out of the House, $37.7 billion, is an increase over the 25 the the first budget we did in 25, I think it's around $4 billion increase to maybe three point something.

I had really studied up on my fiscal year 25 notes, but it 26 is is, you know, is what we were just passed out of the House.

And the Senate is considering it now.

So, okay, well, I'm going to spend more time with you, of course, because of course, we just pointed out that you passed the House, passed its version, and Chairman Hillary and the Senate are working on theirs right now.

And as you said, Chairman Hatchett, the biggest winners in that that House budget are education and prisons, prisons.

So let's start with education K-12.

What's in that group that.

K through 12.

You know, it's all of our high schools, middle schools, elementary schools.

The enrollment I enrollment was up slightly, but I think there was like a $500,000,000 increase in the expense with our schools, a large a large adjustment for the year over year.

And the big, the big the other big part was the prisons.

You know, we put $345 million into the amended budget, into our Department of Corrections.

Our recommendation for 26 puts another $250 million in corrections.

So it's a huge investment in our prison systems.

And I think they're essential.

It's essential for our safety.

It's essential for our workers at the prisons.

And it's essential for the safety of the prisoners.

And I want to get into that a little more in a moment.

I want to stick with the education budget because it allocates $62 million for a new program called Student Support Services.

You've called it an umbrella program.

So what exactly does that entail.?

Exactly?

So it's $10 million for or $28 million for mental health workers in or counselors in our schools?

It's, you know, however, the school system would like to use that money.

It's a grant, $20,000 per school.

They could contract with you know, telehealth to do consults at schools.

They could contract with mental health providers.

And I know one of the things I said, mental health goes hand in hand with school security and the mental health of our students there.

There's $5 million for an additional portion of mental health at the schools.

Another 25 million, I think, for for a school security threat program.

You may have to refresh my memory on on the rest of that.

Donna.

Sorry.

No, all of that is good.

And I don't know how you guys keep all those numbers in your head.

Anyhow, I really, I really don't.

I have such admiration for that.

I want to continue to get back to the budget part on corrections.

You mentioned the $20,250 million in new spending, and part of that is for pay raises to hire more than 700 guards.

How great is the need to shore up the workforce in Georgia's correctional system?

You know, Donna, I don't think I can stress enough how great that need is.

We've we've been they so far, we're seeing a successful increase in those that are applying and those that are staying.

We've we've given them pay raises.

We've helped helped the number having more corrections officers at the prisons actually helps for the safety.

And it helps people feel more secure in the job that they're doing.

And we we have been at a certain officer to inmate ratio, and we are recommending that we reduce that ratio to one officer for 11 inmates and that that in itself costs more money because you have more staff.

But so far, we're seeing a we're a success at retaining and hiring new officers.

And we don't want that momentum to stop.

That's part of the reason of the situation we're in now, because during COVID we lost so many corrections officers at our prisons.

And then that therefore, it led to some of the demise of the actual facilities.

And so there's it's kind of you got to have both the improvement at the facility and more officers there to make sure the investment you're doing or making in the facilities will stay in it.

And it's it's going to you got to have them both.

Yeah.

And I know that this has been something the governor is pushing for to do better when it comes to the Georgia's correctional facilities.

Chairman Tillery, I know you're still working on your budget, but can you give us any idea of some of the Senate budget priorities?

Sure.

Well, we finished up the subcommittees today, so we will start tomorrow morning combing through things probably through this weekend to try to align our budget and our priorities with the houses to come up with the Senate's budget proposal probably by the end of next week.

One of the things that we know we're going to address is the The Promise Scholarship.

That was a reduction on the House side.

It was done based on mathematical reasons, based upon uptake that you saw in other states.

Their number wasn't flawed, it was just picked by some prognostication done by other states.

We we believe in Georgia that the uptake is going to be a little bit higher.

So you're going to see us probably move to replace some of those funds, probably all of those funds, at least on the Senate side, as we enter into the debate.

And then there's also some questions about the House laid out a proposal that was was different from the governor's.

And we're going to have to make an internal decision which path we want to follow that will lead us to make other decisions related to the budget.

But back on the education portion.

Remember, education makes up 50-3 percent of the dollars spent at the state level.

So $0.53 of every dollar you send to Atlanta comes back to the local area in some form or fashion related to education.

One of the things that the Senate has looked at has seen that we've seen a 65% increase in central office and admin spending during that time period.

So while we've increased things like 100 million to help out with pupil transportation, we've also increased school safety funding of roughly $70,000 per school.

Now, we've seen that since we've also passed the bills that allow local school systems to opt out of the funding mechanisms that Cuba funds.

In other words, they can use their funding and a lot more.

A fashion that doesn't tie them back to to the title 20 rules.

We've seen the the jump in admin and central office spending outpace the jump that we would have rather seen in a classroom.

So those areas, I think is where you'll probably see our focus, particularly on the promise scholarship.

And then picking, you know, who's going to be our, our, our more aligned partner as we move forward, whether it be the House's position or the governor's position.

Those are the big things we have to decide this week.

Okay, I know Chairman Hatcher.

We don't have a lot of time.

But can you briefly talk about the bond package?

That's part of the the House, the House budget a little bit.

Why why are you going.

That route shows.

So we chose to bond $321 million of capital expenditures that were previously being paid for in cash to free up some money for us to do the education spending.

Like I mentioned, to backfill the need in corrections, DHS, community supervision, the different departments and some other priorities of the House.

Okay, Chairman Tillery, is the Senate going to have a bond package?

Remains to be determined.

Again, we're waiting to see what the position is of the senators as it relates to the governor's proposal.

And then the House proposal.

If we were to take the House's proposal, then there's a bucket that we're going to need to fill on the promise scholarship.

If we were to take the governor's proposal, then there's a bucket that we're going to need to fill in the bond package.

So there's still a whole lot of work to done, the work left to do.

I think I would probably, Chairman Hatchett would agree with me that this might be one of those bills that gets done last this year.

I don't I don't think we get done early this time.

Right down to the wire on signee die Chairman Hatchett.

As always, we have the show around St. Patrick's Day.

How was it in Dublin yesterday?

I got to get that in real quick.

Good.

So we had a great we had a great weekend Friday, Saturday, even Thursday.

You had a great the weather was beautiful and we had a great time.

Great 60th anniversary of our St. Patrick's Festival.

That's great.

Well, I want to thank you both for coming on the show.

It's always wonderful to find out what's in our budget, but for us, that does it today for Lawmakers.

We'll be back on Thursday for an in-depth conversation with Georgia's First Lady, Marty Kemp.

She'll talk about her fight against human trafficking.

Have a good