Georgia Senate budget writers on Wednesday approved a spending plan for the coming year that would include a $2,000 pay raise for teachers and continue attempts to slow state government turnover.
The measure now heads to the full Senate chamber, and then on to negotiations with the House on a final budget. Lawmakers must give approval to the spending plan by the time the session ends April 4.
State lawmakers would be among those receiving the full $5,000 raises in the upcoming year’s budget. Legislators haven’t gotten an increase on their $17,000 part-time salary in more than a decade.
The $30 billion spending plan for fiscal 2023, which begins July 1, builds on the record midyear budget that Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed into law.
The midyear budget, which runs through June 30, includes $2,000 bonuses for teachers and school workers, and $5,000 cost-of-living raises for most state and university employees.
The budget for the upcoming year would turn the teacher bonus into a raise — meaning it would be built into their future years’ salary — and continue to fund the state employee increases. Some staffers in areas with hard-to-fill jobs, including corrections and mental health agencies, would receive bigger raises.
Private prison operators also would receive more money to give their corrections officers raises under the plan, even though they are not state employees.
The spending proposal calls for a market study to look at what the government needs to pay to attract and retain employees. Some agencies have annual turnover rates over 25%, in part because of low pay. In the state Department of Juvenile Justice, it’s closer to 90%.
The Senate plan for the coming year mirrors the House proposal, calling for spending big money on priority areas: improving mental health care, boosting salaries, adding more facilities such as hospital and crisis beds, plus staffers; increasing access; aiding crime fighting; and enhancing schools and public health care programs.
“We focused on areas of quality, stewardship and fidelity,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake TIllery, R-Vidalia.
Tillery said the Senate plan would add incentives to improve the outcomes of state programs, including $28 million for efforts to improve third-grade reading levels in schools. “We have heard for years that we can look at third-grade reading rates and project how many prisons we will need,” Tillery said. “That is a sobering” thought.
The Senate plan would include a new pay scale step for state troopers, plus a big boost in staffing of forensic examiners at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Tillery said. It would eliminate a House proposal to add DUI and SWAT troopers.
It would add money for a summer pilot program to make sure 2,800 children in foster care who are ages 14-18 get to experience college campuses in the same way other high school-age kids do to help them decide their futures. It also would provide more money for local libraries for books and materials.
As the House did, the Senate plan backs Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposal to boost state spending on higher education and would eliminate the “institutional fees” that students have been forced to pay since the Great Recession, when the General Assembly slashed college funding.
While the state midyear budget for the fiscal year ending June 30 saw a massive increase — from about $27 billion to $30 billion — the spending plan for the upcoming year would see a more modest rise.
State tax collections are running 16% ahead of last year for the first eight months of fiscal 2022, which is good for budget writers who have to make sure they can afford the midyear budget increase. Gains are expected to slow in the coming year.
The teacher pay raise is particularly important to Kemp, who faces a tough reelection battle this year. Kemp promised during his 2018 campaign that he would give them a $5,000 increase over the course of his first term. He’d previously delivered on $3,000 in 2019, so the new raise would fulfill that promise.
In total, the state would spend about $950 million more on raises for state, k-12 school and university employees.
