Georgia spends about $3,200 per resident per year to operate the state. The person overseeing this spending is the state’s most powerful elected official, currently Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
The budget and thousands of pages of other financial documents generated every year show how political rhetoric looks when it’s turned into actual spending and choices are made.
Here’s our guide to three documents that inform The Current GA staff’s reporting on the state government. Check them out.
‘Big’ and ‘little’ budgets
In January, at the start of the legislative session, Georgia’s governors typically use major speeches to the state Chamber of Commerce and to the legislature to make the case for how taxpayers’ money should be spent — or not taken in the first place.
This year, Gov. Kemp highlighted a proposal to cut state income taxes from 5.19% down to 4.99% for people and for companies, plus a rebate to taxpayers of about $250 each and bonuses to state employees and teachers of $2,000. The governor skirted health care, the environment, data centers, and deportations.
Kemp also publishes a proposed “little budget” and “big budget.”
The “little budget” adjusts spending in the fiscal year that’s underway and that ends June 30. This year’s little budget is the Amended Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
The “big budget,” meanwhile, covers 12 months and the legislature must pass this spring before Fiscal Year 2027 begins on July 1.
The 180-member state House and 56-member state Senate will hold budget hearings and propose their own big and little budgets.
The three sides must then reconcile their preferred budgets by the end of the 40-day legislative session, set this year for April 2.
In practice, the state House and Senate budgets and the final compromises tend to hew closely to the governor’s version. That’s because the office enjoys veto power, as well as the use of the considerable influence of his office to sway legislative voting.
Besides that, Republicans have controlled the state House, Senate and governor’s office for most of this millennium, meaning elected officials broadly agree on spending philosophies.
The Governor’s Budget Report is a dry document, but it starts with a list of highlights that governors want to emphasize. It covers the amended and the full fiscal year together. Be aware, the highlights don’t include spending cuts — only additions.
Finding the cost of an idea
Lawmakers can take proposed legislation to Georgia’s official nonpartisan auditors and economists to figure out the cost — which is useful if they want the cost or value of the legislation publicized.
Rank-and-file lawmakers can request a “fiscal note” up to five times per year from the state Department of Audits and Accounts and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. For example, lawmakers have used this tool to see how much money could be raised by taxing vapes by a different amount. Or to see how much it would cost for Medicaid to cover doulas.
The nonpartisan DOAA consults with state agencies and the governor’s office to evaluate expenditure impacts; contracted economists at state universities prepare revenue estimates for bills with tax implications.
The typical fiscal note is a few pages long and contains a key table that shows high and low estimates of what a policy would cost, or the revenue it would raise. Fiscal notes do not address the pros and cons of the policy, only the costs.
The rules around fiscal notes change about two months before the start of the legislature. From that point only committee chairs can request fiscal notes; and sometimes there’s not enough time to evaluate each amendment or bill before a vote.
Even lawmakers of the minority party — currently the Democrats — can request fiscal notes. It’s a small but meaningful way that the party not in power can draw attention — and maybe colleagues’ interest — to items on their legislative agenda.
Browse fiscal notes here.
Finding the cost of special treatment
Every year, researchers at Georgia State University, under contract with the state, add up tax money Georgia could have collected but for the special tax treatment given to some people, organizations, activities or goods.
The Tax Expenditure Report lists every preferential tax break that the state grants.
Some breaks benefit a wide class of Georgians. For example, most people pay sales taxes on most objects they buy. But no one pays sales taxes on groceries in Georgia.
But if the state did tax these staples, it could raise about $1.2 billion in revenue.
Some tax treatments only benefit a small class, like data-center owners. Equipment that goes into data centers isn’t subject to state sales tax. If it were, the state could collect about $474 million.
Browse state Tax Expenditure Reports here.