Friday, December 19, 2008

M.R. Hampton Productions

Check out the latest videos from the Berrien Academy Plc's very own Matthew Hampton. Matthew has begun a video log of his experiences at the PLC on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/MRHamptonProductions. This is his first 6-part series for the second nine weeks at the Berrien Academy PLC.

PRE-SESSION BRIEF

Georgia legislators are preparing for the opening of the 2009 General Assembly on Monday, January 12. With the budget shortfall nearing $2.5 billion, the priority this session will be determining how to manage the deficit for the remainder of FY09. Current budget forecasts note that an economic recovery may not occur until fall 2010; this will have major impact on the FY10 budget.

In late July, Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered the Office of Planning and Budget to cut six percent from every state agency with exceptions for Medicaid and PeachCare (5 percent) and the Quality Basic Education (QBE) budget (two percent).

As the budget deficit continues to grow, agency cuts at the eight percent level have been made and some expect the cuts could reach 10-percent or higher. Unless Georgia finds revenue from other sources, the state will face additional cuts for the remainder of FY09 and into FY10.

Other key issues
Georgia is also on the brink of a major restructuring of the state agencies that provide health and human services. A task force of nine members, including representatives from the Office of the Governor, two senators (Sen. Jack Hill and Sen. Renee Unterman) and two representatives (Rep. Ben Harbin and Rep. Mark Butler) met for several months and have the following recommendations for the restructuring of the current Department of Human Resources:

-Division of Public Health will move to the current Department of Community Health, which will be renamed the Department of Health.
-The current Division of Mental Health, Addictive Diseases and Developmental Disabilities will be divided, with Mental Health and Addictive Diseases forming a new Department of Behavioral Health.
-The Department of Human Services will be comprised of the Developmental Disabilities, Aging, Family and Children’s Services, and Child Support.

Legislation to achieve these changes will be introduced during the early days of the session.

Prefiled Healthy Children Legislation

SB 5 (Sen. Don Thomas, 45th) and HB 22 (Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, 83rd) would require safety belts in pickup trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles, with the exception of farm vehicles used on a farm in connection with agricultural pursuits. Georgia law currently exempts these vehicles from the safety belt law, costing the state millions in federal transportation dollars.

HB 19 (Rep. Oliver, 83rd) would add a points penalty for the use of cellular, hands-free or mobile telephones while driving. Emergency calls to police, emergency medical response units, etc. would be exempt.
HB 21 (Rep. Oliver, 83rd) would prohibit anyone with an instructional driver’s permit or a Class D license (age 18 with one year’s driving experience) from using cellular, hands-free or mobile telephones.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Bridgebuilder Grant Award

The Spring Bridgebuilder Grant awards have been announced! Congratulations to CIS organizations of Atlanta, Barrow, Berrien, Bulloch, Dodge, Hart, Marietta/Cobb, Miller, North Georgia, Turner, Warren, and Washington, who were selected to receive grants ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 for their fantastic “bridgebuilding” projects! A total of $21,000 was awarded for the spring cycle. Overall, the fall and spring administrations of the Bridgebuilder Grants awarded a total of nearly $76,000 to affiliates around the state. We are looking forward to seeing your projects come to life! Please share any PR material, press coverage, and pictures of your projects so that we can celebrate them across the network.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

South Georgia at the State Capitol – November Revenues

By State Sen. Greg Goggans


The Governor and the Department of Revenue recently released the revenue figures for November. On the positive side, the month-to-month comparisons between November of this year and November of last year (FY08) show that revenues were 1.4% higher.

In addition, the state has been making up ground over the last three months in terms of its annual revenues. In September, year-to-date (YTD) revenues were -2.61% below FY08 actual revenues, in October YTD revenues were -1.98% below FY08, and in November YTD revenues were -1.3% below FY08 revenues. In the summer budget writers were operating under the assumption that the state would be .9% below FY08 (a $1.6 billion deficit in FY09), so actually November revenues suggest that the state is approaching this target.

While this information is encouraging, most state budget writers are concerned that Georgia is not yet feeling the effect of the national economy and are currently discussing a shortfall of $2 billion or more. Here are the details of how revenues performed in November:

Income Tax
Personal income tax collections were 3.8% above November 2007 (FY08) collections, which is an increase of $27.3 million. These figures are surprising considering that both Georgia and the United States as a whole has seen significant increases in unemployment over the past couple months. This disconnect between unemployment and personal income tax collections suggest that Georgia has not yet seen the full effect of unemployment and economic conditions.

· Year-to-date personal income tax collections for FY09 are down 1.6% compared to FY08, which is equal to $58 million.

Sales and Use Taxes
Compared to November FY08, the sales and use tax collections for the state were only down .5%, which is equal to $2.3 million. However, in part this differential is because of a new system of remitting sales taxes to local governments. Earlier in the year, locals were receiving more than the state did in prior year months, now they are receiving less. The figure that more accurately reflects sales and use tax performance is gross sales and use tax collections, which were down $129.8 million, or 14%.

· The amount remitted to local governments was down by 27% (which is an increase in collections for the state); however, this change is in part due to the Department of Revenue shifting from an estimated remittance to local governments to a system that reflects actual local collections. This change affects the month over month comparisons. Consequently, there should be no large increase or decrease at the end of the fiscal year.

Sales and use tax collections were propped up by three categories.
· Sales in the ambiguous “miscellaneous services” category, which accounts for 10.1% of collections, were up 9.4% year to date.
· Also up were sales in the equally ambiguous “miscellaneous” category, which accounts for 12.1% of collections, and is up by 12.1% year to date.
· Utilities sales, which account for 14% of sales and use tax collections, were up 11.9%.

Time to Write a Budget
The Governor faces a difficult task in preparing an Amended FY2009 Budget and projecting revenues for FY2010. We have not seen such uncertainty since 2002-03. The Legislature will have to make some tough decisions this session once Governor Perdue submits his budget. I look forward to working with the Governor and my colleagues in the Senate to pass a budget that is fiscally responsible and provides Georgians with the most essential and efficient government programs.

As always, I’d like to thank members of the Senate staff, who contribute regularly to my column. Please contact me in my office at the Capitol with your questions, comments or concerns.


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Sen. Greg Goggans represents the 7th Senate District, which includes Atkinson, Bacon, Berrien, Clinch, Coffee, Echols, Lanier, Pierce and Ware counties and a portion of Cook County.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

South Georgia at the State Capitol – Budget Math

By State Sen. Greg Goggans

Georgia’s FY09 budget is a three hundred and forty-three page document that outlines a spending plan for a $21.2 billion state funds budget. Of this $21.2 billion, only $19.1 billion are state general funds, which are generally free from constitutional or legislative restrictions.

$ 21.2 billion (state funds)
minus $ 1.04 billion (motor fuel funds)
minus $ 0.88 billion (lottery proceeds)
minus $ 0.16 billion (tobacco settlement funds)
minus $ 0.020 billion (brain and spinal injury trust funds)
$ 19.10 billion (state general funds)

State General Funds are comprised mainly of tax and fee income and can be spent for any legitimate state expense. State Motor Fuel Funds can only be used to provide and maintain roads and bridges. Lottery Proceeds can statutorily be spent for “educational purposes and projects only” but basically fund the HOPE scholarship and the Pre-Kindergarten school program. Tobacco Settlement Funds represents Georgia’s share of the national tobacco settlement. Georgia generally has chosen to allocate these funds for health and rural economic development purposes only.

How the State Spends Its Money
Here are some of the broad policy areas and the amounts the state spends:

· Education (K-12 and Higher Education) – $11.86 billion, over 56 percent of the state budget
· Health Care – $2.51 billion, just under 12 percent of the state budget
· Public Safety – $2.03 billion, just under 10 percent of the state budget
· Human Resources – $1.75 billion, over 8 percent of the state’s budget
· Debt Service – $1 billion, over 4 percent of the state’s budget

How Budget Cuts Are Being Made
By now, everyone is familiar with the state’s predicted $1.6 billion shortfall (which may be optimistic given recent economic news and current economic conditions). Currently, many are discussing a $2 billion shortfall. The difficult part of managing a revenue shortfall is deciding what to cut while still complying with various legal and policy restrictions.

The Governor has exempted K-12 education formulas from the full 6, 8, or 10 percent cuts. Instead, the Governor has ordered 2 percent cuts from the approximately $7.65 billion in education formula funds such as Quality Basic Education, Equalization, Pupil Transportation and others. The money spent through these programs is equal to 45 percent of the state’s budget. Similarly, the Governor has exempted Medicaid spending, which is $2.3 billion, from full cuts. Instead, he has ordered a 5 percent cut to this program.

Here is how we arrive at the amount to which a 6 or 8% cut can be applied:


$ 19.10 billion (state general funds)
minus $ 8.5 billion (for education formulas, which will be cut at 2%)
minus $ 2.3 billion (for Medicaid, which will be cut at 5%)
minus $ 1.0 billion (for debt service, which cannot be cut)
$ 7.3 billion (from which to make remaining cuts)

Because local contributions have to be considered as part of the education numbers, each 1% reduction from the education formulas yields around $76 million. Each 1% cut to Medicaid yields around $23 million. Each 1% cut across the rest of the budget yields about $73 million.


$ 1. 6 billion (predicted shortfall)
minus $ 0.157 billion (2 % cut to education)
minus $ 0.114 billion (5% cut to Medicaid)
$ 1.329 billion (remaining shortfall)

For 2009 at least, one-time funds are being applied to the shortfall which reduces the amount that has to be raised from the 6 or 8% cut. Now it would seem that there is $1.329 billion left to cut from the remaining $7.3 billion of state general funds, but the Governor reduced the amount needed from budget cuts by applying one-time funds to the deficit as shown below.


$ 1.329 billion (remaining to be cut after education and Medicaid)
minus $ 0.057 billion (deferring state employee pay raises)
minus $ 0.1 billion ( reduce Other Post Employment Benefits contribution)
minus $ 0.225 billion (utilize State Health Benefit Plan surpluses)
minus $ 0.04 billion (shift reservoir money from cash to bonds)
minus $ .07 billion (other one-time reserves in the budget)
$ 0.832 billion (left to be cut from state agencies)

So, the Governor and legislature have to cut about $832 million from the $7.3 billion as shown above. This is an 11 percent cut to state agencies. To further reduce the amount of agency cuts, the Governor proposed to take $428 million from the Homeowners Tax Relief Grant, which would reduce the amount of the across the board cut to state agencies in the remaining $7.3 billion to around $404 million, or about 6%. This is the proposal that most of the agencies are operating on right now.

If the situation were to worsen and the state had to find an additional $400 million to cover a $2 billion hole in the budget, this would be the equivalent of another 6% cut across the board to all agencies except Education and Medicaid unless those were cut additionally.

On the good news side, the Department of Audits reported this week that the Revenue Shortfall Reserve had increased from $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion from funds that agencies managed to save at the end of FY08. Most of these efficiencies came from changes in the state’s administration of the Medicaid program. Leaders are reluctant to use much of the reserve until the depth of the downturn is clearer.

As always, I’d like to thank members of the Senate staff, who contribute regularly to my column. Please contact me in my office at the Capitol with your questions, comments or concerns.


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Sen. Greg Goggans represents the 7th Senate District, which includes Atkinson, Bacon, Berrien, Clinch, Coffee, Echols, Lanier, Pierce and Ware counties and a portion of Cook County.

Monday, December 1, 2008

CASA Program Launch

The CASA of the Alapaha Judicial Circuit is now a reality. The Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) has been in existance for over 30 years and has been in Georgia for the past 20 years. This program is designed to focus recruiting and training volunteer advocates for our abused and neglected children that are going through our DFCS and Court systems. The planning for this program started over a year ago when Representative Penny Houston and Judge Jody Steedley met with a CASA representative Angela Tanzella to discuss the possibilities of starting a CASA program for our Judicial Circuit. After this very pressing meeting with Representative Houston and Judge Steedly, Angela met with the Family Connection Coordinators, Communities In Schools Executive Directors, and Drug Free Coalition members from Atkinson, Berrien, Cook, Lanier, and Clinch Counties to form a steering committee. This committee was constructed to design a strategic implementation plan for the CASA of the Alapaha Judicial Circuit program. After many months of research, planning, and evaluating options, the steering committee decided to house the program under the Berrien County Collaborative's umbrella of programs and services. The Berrien County Collaborative has since hired Elaine Douglas as a full-time CASA Director and has begun to recruit volunteers for the first scheduled training class in early February.

The need for this program is vital to our support system for our children. We currently have over 200 abused and neglected children in need of these services. If you would like more information regarding this program and or would like to be volunteer advocate for a child, please contact Elaine Douglas at elaine.douglas@berrien.k12.ga.us/229-686-6576.