ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate approved its version of the $38.5 billion fiscal year 2027 budget Friday, sending it to the state House for negotiations over the disagreements.
The House started the budget process, passing its version earlier this month.
Among the big differences: the Senate reduced the House’s increase in funding for the state’s public colleges and universities by just over $110 million, increased the amount for private K-12 school vouchers by $31 million and added $100 million to the state employee pension system.
“I think this is one of the most important lines in the budget,” Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told senators before Friday’s unanimous vote for passage. Pensions have been eroded by decades of inflation as increases have failed to keep pace, he said. The extra money is intended to trigger regular annual cost of living increases.
The Senate agreed with the importance of the House’s focus on literacy but amended the way that new program would be funded. Instead of building money to hire 1,313 literacy coaches for K-3 classrooms into the public school funding formula, the Senate chose a $70 million grant.
The Senate made myriad smaller changes. It cut the $11 million the House had allocated to hire staff to confirm all food stamp enrollees are eligible.
Georgia has one of the highest “error” rates in the country, which can mean loss of federal funding. Lawmakers in both chambers want to reduce that rate, but the Senate chose to accept an offer from the company Equifax to do the work for free.
The House disagreed with the Senate’s changes and the Senate held fast, sending the budget to a conference committee to iron out the wrinkles.
Higher education funding could be a sticking point. Tillery said he had heard complaints about the Senate cutting the University System of Georgia’s budget. But he pointed out that the system budget would still rise under the Senate’s proposal, from $3.6 billion in state funding this year to $3.76 billion next year. It just would not rise as much as the House proposed.
“Only in government,” he said in an interview, “can you give an agency more money next year than this year and it be a cut.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.