GERALD GREENE: With Crossover Day behind, flurry of work continues in House

The Georgia House of Representatives reconvened for Crossover Day March 6, 2023. Crossover Day is a crucial deadline for the House and Senate, as this is the last day for bills to pass out of their chamber of origin in order to remain eligible for consideration this session. By the time we adjourned just before midnight, my colleagues and I passed more than 50 bills and resolutions in one day.

Each legislative session, the General Assembly has a constitutional obligation to pass a balanced state budget, and this week the House of Representatives passed House Bill 19, or the Fiscal Year 2024 budget. The FY 2024 budget will go into effect on July 1 and is set at a revenue estimate of $32.4 billion, which is $2.2 billion, or 7.4%, more than the Fiscal Year 2023 budget.

As usual, funding for education makes up more than half of the FY ‘24 budget. This budget also would make significant investments to support higher education by providing substantial support for graduate and undergraduate medical education. HB 19 also would provide an additional $26.7 million to bring the HOPE Scholarship program factor rate to 95% of the previous year’s tuition costs; this funding would provide more financial relief to every student that is eligible for the scholarship.

Numerous Medicaid rate increases also are included in this state budget. The state’s Medicaid program would receive a total of $35.1 million for reimbursement rate increases for health care providers. Now that the House has passed the FY 2024 budget, our Senate counterparts will begin making adjustments to this budget to reflect their priorities and help finalize the legislation.

We also voted overwhelmingly this week to adopt a Conference Committee Report to give final passage to House Bill 18, or the Amended Fiscal Year 2023 (AFY 2023) budget. Once this bill is signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, HB 18 will immediately go into effect and will determine our state spending through June 30. The AFY 2023 budget is set at a revenue estimate of $32.56 billion, which is an increase of $2.36 billion, or 7.8%, over the original FY 2023 budget.

Later in week nine, the House and Senate convened for a joint legislative session for the annual State of the Judiciary address. Chief Justice Michael Boggs highlighted that the judicial system is continuing to work to reduce the crushing backlog of criminal and civil cases that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic; he also noted that it could take years before the courts reach more manageable case numbers. Furthermore, Chief Justice Boggs brought our attention to the work force shortage our judicial system faces, including a lack of judges, prosecutors, public defenders and court reporters, which continues to impede efforts to address the case backlog.

Rural areas of our state are having an especially hard time recruiting and retaining these public servants who are essential to the judicial system. Additionally, our judicial system is specifically looking into the cross-section of mental illness and the criminal justice system to identify ways to divert non-violent offenders who are struggling with mental illness.

We have only a handful of legislative days left in this session, and we will spend the remainder of our time considering bills that were passed by our Senate counterparts before the Crossover deadline. The House also will give final approval to House legislation that could undergo changes by the Senate in our last 2 1/2 weeks.

I encourage you to contact me regarding bills that may be up for consideration during these final days of the session before we complete our work on March 29. You can reach my Capitol office at (404) 656-9210 and [email protected].

As always, thank you for allowing me to serve as your representative.

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