Fight over voucher spending is key to setting Georgia budget

ATLANTA (AP) — For Georgia lawmakers to agree on a state budget, they must first agree on how much they are going to spend on a new voucher program for private schools and home schooling.

Georgia’s voucher program is different from some states, with lawmakers agreeing when they created the program last year that lawmakers would decide each year how to spend.

The state Senate, which passed its version of next year's budget on Friday, wants to spend $141 million on the program. House members proposed spending only $46 million. It is a key disagreement lawmakers must resolve before Georgia's annual legislative session ends next week

At $6,500 per voucher, the Senate amount would provide enough for more than 21,000 vouchers, while the House amount would provide for only about 7,000 slots.

The overall budget would spend $37.7 billion in state revenue in the year beginning July 1. Once federal and other money is combined, it would be more than $67 billion.

Voucher programs are ballooning nationwide. Many supporters want all students to be eligible, regardless of school performance or family income. States that have adopted universal vouchers, such as Arizona, Florida, Iowa and Ohio, reported more applications than expected, causing costs to bulge.

Georgia Democrats fear that happening here, although lawmakers would have to change state law to spend more than 1% of what the state spends on public schools.

“Let’s call this what it is, a transfer of public money into private hands," said Democratic Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes of Duluth.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, a Vidalia Republican, defended the program and spending, arguing that low reading achievement levels point to the need for change.

“The reason we support a voucher program is because kids have to be given an ability to do something better,” Tillery said. "Their parents have to be given options to take their kids somewhere else. Why? Because we have failed them.”

House members, though, have complained that the Georgia Education Savings Authority, the group created to administer the program, interpreted the law in such a way that it made many more students eligible than many lawmakers had expected.

The program is midway through its first application period, which runs until April 15. As of Thursday, 4,439 applications had been approved. There are two more application periods set for the summer and fall, but it is unclear how many total applications would be approved.

Tillery said Thursday that if the scholarship program doesn’t need the entire $141 million, lawmakers can take the money back later.

The Senate budget also rejected a House proposal to borrow more than $300 million next year for construction projects. Instead, the Senate plan would spend on construction only from existing state revenue for the third year in a row.

“We're funding that with cash, saving generations 10 and 20 years from now from paying for buildings we're building now,” Tillery said.

Gov. Brian Kemp sets the maximum amount that lawmakers can spend, so they can only move money around to different spending items. That means lawmakers must decrease spending on one item to increase spending on another item. So with the Senate rejecting borrowing and increasing spending on vouchers, it pinched spending the House proposed on other items, including supplemental funding to educate students in poverty.

The Senate plan also spends less than the House proposed on prisons, mental health, housing and grants to rural communities.