GSSA Capitol Report
Friday, March 6 – – Legislative Day 28 – Crossover Day
The House of Representatives met and considered the following:
HB1114 (Yearta – R) Allows students in ninth and tenth grade to complete the required high school graduation financial literacy course. Expands current law which restricts the financial literacy requirement to eleventh or twelfth grade students only.PASSED 171-0
HB1116 (Blackmon – R) HOME Act – transitions existing sales taxes for Cities/Counties to LHOST and establishes a revenue cap on property taxes at CPI or 3% (whichever is less) on property taxes for all governmental entities, including school districts. The cap for school district reserves was raised from 15% to 25%. A referendum will now be required to exceed the 3% cap. PASSED by Rules substitute 98-68
HB1293 (Jones – R) Revises eligibility requirements and funding mechanisms for Georgia’s Dual Achievement Program that allows students to earn high school diplomas through technical college coursework. Establishes a new funding formula and eliminates the program’s automatic repeal date to make it permanent. PASSED 166-0
HR1000 (Efstration – R) Proposes a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate ad valorem tax assessment on timber harvested from forest land conservation use property. The amendment requires the state to provide partial compensation to local governments and school districts that lose revenue from this tax elimination. ADOPTED 166-4
The Senate met and considered the following:
SB445 (Dolezal – R) “Georgia Promise Scholarship Act”; provides public schools with a state-wide attendance zone and states that certain charter schools shall not be included in the separate list of public schools annually reported by the Office of Student Achievement. PASSED 50-2
SB454 (Hickman – R) Authorizes the use of temporary door locking devices in public buildings during emergency situations like lockdowns or active threat scenarios. Establishes specific technical requirements and approval processes for these devices to maintain fire safety compliance. PASSED 51-0
SB475 (Kemp – D) Requires local boards of education to treat local charter schools no less favorably than other local schools with respect to the expenditure of special purpose local option sales tax proceeds. Lowers the percentage of eligible voters needed to trigger a local referendum on dissolving a city school district into a county district. PASSED 43-6
SB498 (Dixon – R) Creates the Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority to provide loans and financial assistance to charter schools for constructing and renovating educational facilities. Authorizes the state to issue general obligation bonds to finance charter school facilities and establishes loan limits and terms for qualified charter school organizations. PASSED 49-3
SB515 (Hickman – R) Amends Georgia’s teacher recruitment and retention tax credit program by reducing the annual tax credit from $3,000 to $2,500 for new participants. Increases maximum participating teachers from 1,000 to 1,200 annually and revises school qualification requirements based on performance metrics. PASSED 49-1
SB556 (Payne – R) Creates dual credit courses and academic eligibility requirements to receive the HOPE scholarship by providing for the inclusion of advanced placement (AP) and international baccalaureate (IB) fine arts courses in the calculation of grade point averages for determining student eligibility for the HOPE scholarships and other scholarships. PASSED 50-0
SB589 (Brass – R) Allows children who turn four or five by August 1 to enroll in Georgia’s Pre-K Program at their parent’s request. PASSED 54-0
SB566 (Hufstetler – R) Allows for the acceptance of tax digests in the event of a publication error made by a newspaper. Revises required information to be contained on a property tax bill and extends certain exemption application periods. PASSED 53-0, only applies if SB382 passes both Chambers and becomes law.
SR668 (Dolezal – R) Constitutional Amendment which would authorize assessment of property taxes on electronic equipment primarily used to process, store, or transmit digital information and data. FAILED TO GET 2/3 APPROVAL 29-21
Editorial: The House has thrown school systems under the bus. HB 1116, was brought back late in the evening rewritten carving school systems out of the bill so they could remove the Constitutional Amendment requirement. They have setup school systems to be the bad guy when it comes to property tax. It passed along party lines (no surprise there) but we are disappointed with those who say they support public schools and then do not have the courage to stand up for school systems when we need them. The Cities and Counties will have the extra penny to reduce property tax on their side of the ledger. School systems will be subject to the property tax not to exceed 3% cap or CPI. A referendum is required by school systems when they want to exceed the cap. We have been handed all the restrictions and hurdles to jump with little to no support from our political representatives. Believe how they vote not what they say.
HB 1116, will now move to the Senate and go through the committee process. We all should contact our Senators and let them know this is a bad bill for local school districts and ultimately local communities. They are not going to get the tax relief the original bill promised. Remember it is an election year.
