[January 14, 2024] | The 2024 legislative session is underway. The first week of session is pretty slow, everyone and committees getting organized, and lawyers in our legislative counsel's office writing bills for members to drop, for consideration by the appropriate committee.
Most of the talk was about the budget and waiting for Governor Kemp to come and tell us what his thoughts were and to show us his budget.
Governor Kemp did that this week at his speech to the Eggs and Issues meeting with 2000 Chamber members and at the State of the State Address in a Joint meeting with the Senate in our House Chambers.
I will summarize the main ideas of his speeches for you here.
Governor Kemp started off encouraging us to pass the school voucher bill to help those children in failing schools in the state. His reasons were to provide our kids the best educational opportunity we can. A $6000 scholarship would follow the child to the school of their choice.
Governor Kemp spoke about the approximate $2 billion in new spending for the next budget year. Some of the highlights were increased spending for school security and making it a permanent budget line; also raises for teachers and other state employees. He spent quite a bit of time talking about Public Safety and his support of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and the pay raises and improving retirement for our state public safety personnel. This has been a real issue for Georgia.
Governor Kemp also talked about increasing mental health spending by $200 million in an attempt to meet the need of this service in our state. We currently spend about 1.4 billion on mental health services in Georgia.
Taxpayers will be glad to know that we continually work to reduce the state income tax by taking a part of growth in tax revenue each year and applying toward reducing the rate. We will accelerate our plans to lower the state income tax rate again this year. I'm very excited to see the governor work toward this.
Transportation in our state will see a big bump in both the amended budget and 2025 big budget. $1.5 billion will be put to use, improving transportation across our state. This is welcome news to many who have projects that have been put on the back burner while some of our Economic Development projects are done. Dollars to local projects will double, an increase our cities and counties will be glad to hear.
And lastly, Governor Kemp is using some of our surplus funds to restore dollars to the state employee retirement funds. Our state retirees will be glad to know that is happening.
The week after Martin Luther King Day will be devoted to budget hearings where department heads, agency heads, and elected officials come to the legislature to talk about their state budget needs and answer questions from legislators about spending.
It does get pretty busy in the days ahead; my number one job is to be your voice at the Capitol. I encourage you to visit me at my Capitol office, or call me if you have any questions or concerns regarding the bills, the legislative process, or any other measures considered under the Gold Dome.
My Capitol office number is 404-656-7153. My email is rick.jasperse@house.ga.gov.
As always, thank you for allowing me to serve as your State Representative.