Georgia Legislature braces for busy week as Crossover Day deadline looms

ATLANTA — The Georgia General Assembly will be in overdrive mode Monday and Tuesday as Wednesday’s Crossover Day deadline approaches.

For those unfamiliar with Crossover Day, Sen. Greg Kirk, R-Americus, explains.

“This means that every Senate bill wishing to be turned into law this year must be vetted and passed on the Senate floor and sent over to the House before the Wednesday deadline,” Kirk said. “After that, we will only be reviewing House bills until Sine Die, when every bill passed by both the Senate and the House will be in its final step of being signed into law by the governor.”

While most of the attention has been focused on HB 918, which updates the state’s 2018 tax code, there are several education-related House bills that may or or may not make it to the Senate by Wednesday.

Among the bills to watch are:

• HR 992: Local sales and use tax; use for educational purposes of a school system

This is a resolution proposing an amendment to the state Constitution to authorize the use of local sales and use taxes for educational purposes for maintenance and operation expenses of a school system. It also provides for some related matters and calls for the submission of the amendment to ratified or rejected by Georgia voters.

• HB 787: Education; certain provisions relative to charter schools

This would revise certain provisions to provide that state charter schools may receive services from regional educational service agencies, revise provisions relating to a code of principles and standards for charter school authorizers, revise funding for state chartered special schools and state charter schools, provide for initial funding for charter schools with projected student growth exceeding 2 percent, provide for initial funding for training and experience and repeal conflicting provisions.

• HB 392: Move on When Ready Act; allowing funding for students taking dual credit courses at certain eligible postsecondary institutions

This bill which applies to the Move on When Ready Act and dual credit courses, allowing funding for students taking dual credit courses at certain eligible postsecondary institutions that utilize nonstandard term systems to be eligible for payment for up to five nonstandard terms per academic year.

• HB 908: Education; certain individuals over 20 years old may be eligible to enroll in a state charter school

This bill relates to elementary and secondary education, providing that individuals 20 or older may be eligible to enroll in a state charter school that provides instruction for over-age students. It also provides for an exception to the maximum age of eligibility enrollment.

Rep. Ed Rynders, R-Leesburg, said Saturday that he thought several non-education related bills would also be worth following on Wednesday.

“Two issues that will have a lot of interest are the funding for mass transit (mostly in the Atlanta Metro area) and justice reform relating to bail,” Rynders said. “I don’t know how many people down here are going to have any interest in mass transit funding, but it does have legs in metro Atlanta.”

Part of Gov. Nathan Deal’s Judicial Reform Initiative, SB 407, would allow judges consider a defendant’s ability to pay when setting bail and give law enforcement officials more flexibility to issue citations instead of criminal charges.