Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Budget cuts, HOPE on the agenda

By JOHN YATES
Representative, District 85, Post 1

This is my first report for 2004 and I purposely stressed the counties that I represent under former Gov. Barnes’ mismanaged reapportionment of the General Assembly. While I like the conservative-leaning people in all four of the counties, it is not fair to the citizens when they find that my schedule does not allow me an opportunity to properly visit all of you.

We House Republicans hired a competent law team to bring this to court and the case was heard recently, with what we believe will be favorable results. We believe that we could get an early decision by this three-judge federal panel even before the session ends. If so, the citizens could receive the benefits of close-knit districts again as they have enjoyed in the past.

This session started with less bickering, with some work done, but basically the first week was mostly ceremonial with speeches by the governor and court justices. With the government still divided with a Republican governor and Senate and a Democrat-dominated House, we could have the disastrous results as we experienced last year, when the governor’s program was passed in the Senate and arrived in the House with a “dead on arrival” greeting. We trust that this will not happen in 2004 as the people deserve better and with a tight budget the people expect better.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee we had already attended budget hearings the week of Jan. 5 in which the current budget was discussed as the various department heads presenting their proposals. We are doing the same thing in considering the new budget which will be effective July 1, 2004.

I am already receiving more than the ordinary number of letters and calls with expressions of concern about reported cuts announced in newspapers, particularly in the education and medical fields.

There are several things which brought this situation to its current state. Gov. Perdue came into office in a depressed economy, with growing populations and needs and with a small rainy-day fund. The rainy-day fund was used last year to balance the budget. The schools are overflowing with students due to an increase in population between 1990 and 2000 of 2 million, growing from 6 million to 8 million with much growth since 2000.

In order to handle all the needs of this growing population, the state would need a growth in revenue in excess of 6.5 percent. While we are now coming out of the recession, the growth in revenue is only 4.2 percent for the first four months of this fiscal year. We believe that it will continue to improve, but the budget must be cut in the meantime.

I believe that political pressures are causing the two political parties to promise a teacher and state employee raise, without any concrete plan for finding the money.

Under these conditions, you must realize that the pie is only a certain size and when you give more to one group, you must take it away from another group, because I have not received a single message that anyone wants us to raise their taxes.

Therefore if the teachers receive a raise, the money will be taken away from many worthwhile medical programs, which were already cut during the last year’s budget cycle. While we believe that the teachers mainly are a hard-working, deserving group, we must realize that they have received raises each year for several years, except last year and are now the best paid in the Southeastern United States and are [at] the national average.

Since there have been many questions of concern about the Hope Scholarship Program, I will bring you up to date. During the summer, there was a very comprehensive bipartisan study by senators and representatives and a report was issued, which will result in the introduction of legislation to make some changes.

Two cuts will be suggested, in that books and fees would no longer be paid for. The suggestion that the grants should be tied to the SAT scores was not included in this bill.

Since Gov. Perdue and others feel strongly that the SAT should be tied in to ensure that Georgia students improve in this area to raise Georgia’s SAT scores in comparison to the rest of the nation, this could be introduced as an amendment or a new bill. Please let me know your thoughts.

These are extremely tough times, with people in many worthwhile departments losing their jobs and under such conditions, we must all pull together until the crisis is over.

I will be glad to discuss any of these issues or others with any citizen. During the day I can be reached at 404-656-0126 and at night and weekends at 770-412-7166.