Wednesday, January 9, 2002
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Wednesday, January 9, 2002 |
| Budget crunch,
traffic, top Westmoreland's agenda
By JOHN THOMPSON
The numbers just don't add up for Rep. Lynn Westmoreland. As the Sharpsburg Republican gets geared up for the start of next week's General Assembly, he has been busy analyzing data for this year's tight budget. "From 1990-2003, the state grew by 24 percent, but the budget spending increased by 86 percent. That type of spending is not good for anybody," he said. Gov. Roy Barnes has already instructed department heads to look at ways to trim their budgets this year, because of a soft economy. Westmoreland said he plans to look at ways to prevent the free-wheeling spending of the last decade and approach all money matters in a more fiscally responsible manner. While he believes the budget is going to take up a lot of the legislators' time, he said several other issues should rise to the top during the session, including: Proposing a constitutional amendment that adopts guidelines for redistricting. "We have got to make sure our citizens are protected from the type of political maneuvers that occurred during this last batch of redistricting," he said. Westmoreland was one of the more outspoken critics of the way Barnes handled the new legislative and congressional maps after the 2000 Census figures were released. Tinkering with the governor's education reform package. Last year, the governor signed off on reforms to his education package. "He basically reformed his program with Republican ideas. I don't know if he's going to propose reforming his reforms or not," said Westmoreland. Dealing with traffic congestion. During the governor's first year, he pushed for the creation of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. Now, critics are wondering what the authority has done. "The only thing they've done is put buses in Clayton County. It's time to focus on roads, such as programs in the Governor's Road Improvement Program, which has been in place for 19 years," Westmoreland said. As far as local legislation, Westmoreland has heard from Coweta County school officials about legislation to help lower school taxes for seniors, but has not heard any specific requests from Fayette County yet.
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