WEEKLY LEGISLATIVE REPORT—April 8, 2008

8th District budget items sent to governor’s desk

By Sen. Tim Golden

The $21.2 billion annual state budget for fiscal year 2009, adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives on the final day of the recently completed legislative session and sent to the governor for his signature, includes a number of significant appropriations for the 8th Senate District.

As secretary of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I was very pleased that the following line items I promoted made it through the entire legislative budget process:

• $12.76 million, secured by Sen. John Bulloch (R-Ochlocknee) for a classroom building at Southwest Georgia Technical College in Thomasville.
• $4.075 million for design and construction for the renovation of Nevins Hall to become the math and computer science building at Valdosta State University.
• $1 million for rail lines for the St. Augustine Road Rail Switching Yard expansion.
• $600,000, also secured by Sen. Bulloch, to replace boilers at Southwestern State Hospital in Thomasville.
• A total of $215,550 to add one veterans’ benefits counselor position to each of six Veterans Service Offices, including the one in Valdosta.
• $150,000 in additional funds for a planning grant for the Georgia Wellness Incentive Pilot Program, which will benefit the Lowndes County Partnership for Health.
• $10,000 to the City of Quitman for assistance with rehabilitating the former City Hall and Police Department building to provide space for the Quitman campus of Valdosta Technical College.
• $10,000 to Cook County to replace a boiler and air conditioning unit at the Cook County Library.
• $10,000 to Reed Bingham State Park to build an observation deck.
• $10,000 to the City of Valdosta to assist with a broad scale study to gauge the existence and perception of existence of barriers to people with disabilities in access to public and private buildings and businesses.
• $5,000 to the City of Adel to help renovate the old Adel Post Office into a museum.

Hopefully the governor will sign the budget and leave all of these appropriations that are important to our area intact. The budget legislation, HB 990, also includes a 2.5 percent pay raise for educators and other state employees, $1 billion in school construction projects $98 million to fully fund PeachCare for Kids and $30 million in bonds for reservoirs.

The budget reflects a $90 million reduction in state funding for local schools, bringing the six-year total cuts under the Perdue administration to $1.5 billion. These cuts hurt both our students and local property owners, who are forced to shoulder more of the tax burden. But at least the legislature was able to restore $50 million of the $140 million the governor had proposed to cut this year.

Also approved and sent to the governor was HB 948, this year’s version of Georgia’s popular sales tax holidays, which former Rep. Ron Borders of Valdosta and I first introduced several years ago. The legislation is intended to give Georgians a break on back-to-school items and energy efficient appliances at certain times of the year, and also provide a sales boost for retailers in our state.

The 2008 sales tax holidays for school supplies, clothing and computer equipment are scheduled for July 31-Aug. 3. For energy efficient products, the sales tax-free period will be Oct. 2-5.

Forest land owners also get a tax break under HR 1276 and HB 1211, the Georgia Forest Land Protection Act of 2008. This legislation encourages land owners to keep their land in trees and make large, contiguous tracts less vulnerable to development or conversion to other non-forest uses. In order to qualify for the new property tax land classification, land owners must commit to a covenant to keep the land in the qualifying forest use.

In addition to these measures, manufacturers won significant and long over due tax relief in HB 237, which provides a sales tax exemption for machinery and parts used in the manufacturing process, and HB 272, which places a cap on the state sales tax on spiking energy costs to manufacturers.

However, efforts to broaden tax relief to many more Georgians fell victim to political conflicts between the presiding officers of the Senate and House.  The lieutenant governor and the House speaker failed to reach agreement on competing proposals to reduce income taxes, eliminate the ad valorem tax on automobiles and freeze property tax valuation assessments.

Also falling by the wayside on the final night of the session were trauma care and transportation. I was very disappointed that the House failed to adopt legislation that would have created a reliable revenue stream to support a statewide trauma care network. Meanwhile, the Senate fell three votes short of adopting a proposed regional local option sales tax to provide funding for transportation projects.

Aside from those disappointments, there were many other issues addressed by lawmakers. In my next report, I will summarize all of the major legislation of the 2008 session.

• Sen. Tim Golden represents the 8th District (Brooks, Cook, Lowndes, and Thomas counties) in the Georgia State Senate.  Contact him at 121-A State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334; by phone at 404-656-7580; or by e-mail at tim.golden@senate.ga.gov.