Georgia Today: School safety bill passes; More CDC layoffs; Fentanyl mandatory minimum sentences

Sofi Gratas: Hello and welcome to Georgia Today. On this podcast, we feature the latest reports from the GPB News team. On today's episode: Georgia lawmakers give final passage to a bill aimed at increasing school safety; more layoffs at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,;and a new bill establishes mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl distribution. But some in the drug recovery community worry that it won't help.

Brittany Galvanaskis: What we have been doing historically, which is mass incarceration, it doesn't work. Because if it did, then we would not be losing over 100,000 people every year.

Sofi Gratas: Today is Tuesday, April 1. I'm Sofi Gratas, and this is not a joke: You're listening to Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Sofi Gratas: Lawmakers in the Georgia House and Senate gave final passage yesterday to a bill that aims to increase school safety, sending the measure to Gov. Brian Kemp. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports.

Sarah Kallis: The passage of House Bill 268 is personal for Rep. Holt Persinger. He represents Barrow County, where a deadly school shooting took place last fall.

Holt Persinger: It's been a long hard road from Sept. 4; we've been working on this almost every single day.

Sarah Kallis: The bill sets up a variety of new elementary and secondary school safeguards and protocols, including school mapping for first responders, the timely transfer of a student's academic and legal records between schools and law enforcement, and creating a statewide emergency alert system. HB 268 passed both chambers with overwhelming support and now awaits Kemp's signature. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol.

Story 2:

Sofi Gratas: Also heading to Gov. Kemp's desk is a bill to ban transgender girls from participating in female school sports. Senate Bill 1 requires elementary school through collegiate athletes to compete in a division for their sex assigned at birth. Homer Republican state Rep. Chris Irwin says the bill is necessary. 

Chris Irwin: This legislation does not target individuals, it targets inequities.

Sofi Gratas: Avondale Estates Democratic Rep. Karla Drenner says it's a solution in search of a problem.

Karla Drenner: This is a manufactured crisis, designed not to solve a real problem, but to create division and fear.

Sofi Gratas: SB 1 passed the state House and Senate yesterday along party lines.

Story 3:

Sofi Gratas: Mass layoffs are underway at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Employees across the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Department began receiving dismissal notices this morning in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. About 2,400 job losses are expected at the CDC, which monitors for infections, disease outbreaks, and works with public health agencies nationwide. The layoffs had been signaled for weeks as part of the Trump administration's federal downsizing. Georgia U.S. Sen. John Ossoff today condemned the mass firings as a quote, "foolish attack on America's preeminent public health agency."

Story 4:

Sofi Gratas: In Georgia, people already can face prison time for unwittingly selling or sharing the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. A bill recently passed in the General Assembly would go further by establishing mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl possession. Proponents say it will slow the flow of the drug, but some in the substance abuse disorder recovery community worry that it also might send drug users to prison instead of toward help. GPB's Ellen Eldridge has this story.

Ellen Eldridge: Austin Walters died by fentanyl poisoning after buying what he thought was a Xanax, a prescription medication for anxiety. His father, Gus Walters, says his 31-year-old son didn't share his mental health struggles.

Gus Walters: Um, my wife and I both feel like that if he'd had a really nice young lady that loved him, that, uh, you know, he probably wouldn't have been in such a depression or dealt with depression and anxiety like he did.

Ellen Eldridge: Walters wanted to find the person responsible for his son's death and hold them accountable. When law enforcement found Austin's dealer, the only available charge for selling Xanax was a misdemeanor. The person who sold the single pill avoided a felony charge by saying they didn't know the Xanax was laced with fentanyl. That loophole inspired Georgia lawmakers to craft and pass in 2024 what's known as Austin's Law.

Gus Walters: So Austin's Law last year basically created a new charge. It's aggravated involuntary manslaughter.

Ellen Eldridge: The law says if somebody sells, distributes, or manufactures a medication that causes the death of another person through fentanyl or a fentanyle derivative, they can be prosecuted for manslaughter.

Gus Walters: So whether they put it in there not, or they know it's in there or not —

Ellen Eldridge: — they are responsible for any harm.

Gus Walters: So it was more of a reactive law. In other words, on the front side somebody dies and the reaction is now we can go after the person that sold the pill that killed that individual.

Ellen Eldridge: Walter says that's a start. But for him, Austin's Law still doesn't go far enough to punish the dealers he holds responsible for deadly overdoses. The new bill, the Georgia Senate Bill 79 or the Fentanyl Reduction and Eradication Act, goes further by establishing mandatory minimum sentences for merely possessing fentanyl. The bill calculates those sentences in lots of different ways, but in one example, just under an ounce of the drug would net 25 years in prison plus a half million-dollar fine. Beth Lambert is the volunteer coordinator of Living Proof Recovery in Rome, in Northwest Georgia. Her lived experience includes incarceration and addiction.

Beth Lambert: Here we are at a crossroads where we want to get fitting all off the streets, but I feel like this will lead to more overdoses and overdose deaths because people are going to be less likely to call in for help now.

Ellen Eldridge: Because they might be too afraid of being charged with possession and the long prison term that could come if they dial 911. If SB 79 were the law when Brittany Galvanaskis struggled with substance use disorder, she says her daughter would not have a mother or a father today. Dad died of an overdose. Brittany would still be in prison. Today, Galvanaskis is the executive director of Living Proof Recovery.

Brittany Galvanaskis: What he have been doing historically which is mass incarceration. It doesn't work. Because if it did, then we would not be losing over 100.000 people every year.

Ellen Eldridge: Those deaths from fentanyl overdose have been falling in Georgia and the nation in recent years. Experts credit access to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone for the current drop in deaths. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.

Story 5:

Sofi Gratas: A federal judge has handed Georgia another legal victory in its long-running water wars with Florida and Alabama. On Monday, Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Lauren Alican settled the last remaining lawsuit in a decadeslong dispute over allocation of water from northwest Georgia's Lake Alatuna. The decision upholds a 2021 U. S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to grant metro Atlanta's water supply requests from the lake and allocate more of the reservoir to meet the long-term needs of Cartersville and Bartow County. The state of Alabama had challenged the agency's decision, arguing it would allocate too much water from the Alabama Coosa-Talapoosa River Basin to Georgia.

Story 6:

Sofi Gratas: Two major lawsuits surrounding Georgia's elections have been dismissed. GPB's Chase McGee has more.

Chase McGee: On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the Justice Department to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Georgia's SB 202, a state law which added voter ID requirements and limited the use of mail ballots and drop boxes. In a statement, Attorney General Bondi said that Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us. A federal district judge has also ruled that Georgia can continue to use its electronic voting system, throwing out a lawsuit that alleged the system is vulnerable to attack. But although the lawsuit was thrown out, it's already inspired legislative changes, like the removal of QR codes from ballots by July 2026. George's elections have been at the center of litigation and legislation since former President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, a victory that President Donald Trump has contested. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee.

Story 7:

Sofi Gratas: A coalition of community groups in Columbus is partnering with the Columbus Muskogee County government and the United Way to create an office focused on reducing poverty. The office has set an aggressive goal to reduce area poverty by 50% over 10 years. The office's leader, Columbus state Rep. Teddy Reese, said the effort won't provide any new services. Instead, it's aimed at coordinating existing resources, ensuring efficiency, and advocating for anti-poverty policies on the federal, state and local levels.

Teddy Reece: Someone could look at it and say, "Hey, well, you know, this is money that could be going toward a poverty situation." That is true. But what are we doing to help people down the road? This is the long-term solution.

Sofi Gratas: He says the office will address transportation, health care, and other issues, as well as what's called, quote, "changing mindsets," both among residents living in poverty and those who are not. The office will be located within the United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley and overseen by community partners, including Goodwill, Valley Healthcare, Enrichment Services, and other groups.

Story 8:

Sofi Gratas: The estate of Otis Redding is celebrating 60 years since the release of his album, The Great Otis Retting Sings Soul Ballads, his 1965 sophomore record featuring hits like "Mr. Pitiful" and "Nothing Can Change This Love." The anniversary comes alongside another milestone, the grand opening of the Otis-Redding Center for the Arts in downtown Macon. The facility will offer arts education for students, toddlers, and seniors, continuing Redding's legacy of community and creativity. A bronze statue honoring his iconic song, "Dock of the Bay" — y'all know it — will also be installed on the campus later this spring.

Story 9:

Sofi Gratas: In Georgia college sports, Georgia Tech women's basketball coach Nell Fortner is retiring effective immediately. Fortner led the Yellow Jackets for six seasons, including an NCAA tournament appearance this year and a 22 to 11 record. She was named ACC Coach of the Year in 2021 and recently honored as Georgia's Women's College Coach of The Year. Assistant Coach LaSondra Barrett will take over as interim head coach while the school launches a national search.

That's it for today's edition of Georgia Today. Thank you for listening. If you would like to learn more about these stories, visit GPB.org/news. And if you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, take a moment right now and keep us current in your podcast feed that way. If you have feedback, we would love to hear it. Email us at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Sofi Gratas. We'll see you tomorrow.

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