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Good News in Georgia's State Budget for Turner College Faculty and Staff

According to information provided in Ty Tagami's recent report for Capitol Beat, there is good news ahead for Turner College faculty and staff. In recent days Georgia lawmakers reached a compromise on the mid-year budget, fulfilling priorities of Georgia's House, Senate and Governor's Office. The process was not without ups and downs, however, given that in order to overcome an impasse after the state House and state Senate took money from each other’s priorities — and from Gov. Brian Kemp’s — to pay for their own projects, Kemp had to dig up an extra $1.4 billion in surplus funds. So, as Tagami indicates the amended fiscal year budget for 2026 that was a $42.3 billion is now nearly $43.7 billion. A chunk of that is for one-time givebacks to taxpayers. The Georgia House put $850 million into the budget for property tax rebates to Georgia homeowners. Governor Kemp originally placed $250 income tax rebates ($500 for couples filing jointly) into his budget request, and the House and Senate liked the idea and this week set aside over $1 billion to pay for it. “Between the two relief initiatives, this body is returning $2 billion dollars back to the citizens of our state,” said Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin. Hatchett, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers will approve the income tax rebates later. “The winners in this budget are the taxpayers of Georgia,” said Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee who was, with Hatchett, a member of the conference committee that negotiated the final line items in House Bill 973. From this information it seems that Turner College faculty and staff will soon be receiving $250 income tax rebates, $500 if married, to go along with $200 to $250 property tax rebates, $400 to $500 if married. In addition to these, several of Kemp’s big-ticket items that were raided earlier in the budgeting process were fully restored. The Senate had cut his $2,000 bonus to state employees to just over $1,000, but the conference committee restored the more than $600 million needed to pay for the full one-time supplement. Thus, this restoration adds another $2,000 in one-time payments to Turner College faculty and staff, bringing the total to as much as $3,000 including the two tax rebates. Lastly, the $325 million Kemp wanted for a need-based scholarship program called Georgia DREAMS got back into the budget after it was trimmed by the House and nearly eliminated by the Senate. It returned with the help of $145 million in surplus funds from the state lottery, which also funds the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships and pre-kindergarten.
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