Georgia House panel OKs ’25 state budget

ATLANTA — Georgia House budget writers approved a $36.1 billion fiscal 2025 state budget Tuesday that includes pay raises for teachers, state and university system employees and judges.

The House Appropriations Committee signed off on most of the spending recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp presented to the General Assembly in January, including $249.6 million to account for public school enrollment growth, a $204 million increase in student transportation costs, and $104 million in grants to improve safety on public school campuses.

The committee also added many but not all of the funding requests individual House members submitted. Lawmakers were particularly active on that front this year because the state has built up a $16 billion surplus.

“There were a lot of requests,” committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told committee members Tuesday. “We’ve been able to address many of them, but you may wish we had gone further on some.”

Even though the $37.5 billion midyear budget Kemp signed last week contains well more than $1 billion in capital projects, the fiscal 2025 spending plan also includes $786.5 million for building projects.

The list includes $52 million for the Department of Juvenile Justice to build a 48-bed expansion of a detention facility in Milledgeville, $40.1 million to build a medical examiner annex in DeKalb County, and $22.2 million to build a goat, sheep, and swine barn at the Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority complex in Perry.

The budget is expected to reach the full House for a vote later this week. The fiscal 2025 budget will take effect July 1.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Capitol Beat.