Sunday Solutions — Sept. 28, 2025
Good morning! While you’re trying to figure out what this crazy storm is going to do, we’ve got a few things to add a little certainty to your lives. Here are the weekly updates and some new reads for your day.
In the meantime, stay tuned to your county’s emergency alerts and plan ahead. If it doesn’t come, then you have a plan for next time. Take care.
INVESTIGATIVE: ACCOUNTABILITY
Joining forces for school funds, health care
When it comes to The Current GA, you can be sure we’re always looking for ways to collaborate with other trusted media in order to reach more people with accurate, in-depth information. This week, we had examples of two sweet collaborations that do just that.
• Data reporter Maggie Lee kicked off a collaborative series with Georgia Recorder‘s Ross Williams to examine the progress and process of the state’s new school voucher program. The program provides $6,500 a year of taxpayer money to students who are served by the lowest performing 25% of the state’s public schools. This week, Lee gave us more detail and a map: Locations where students and private schools are benefiting from the initial distribution of $7.1 million of your tax dollars. See if your predictions are true.
• Our second collaboration, The Current‘s Margaret Coker’s work with ProPublica on Georgia’s Medicaid work-requirement experiment, had another injection this week as the federal government extended the state’s waivers for a bit longer to see if it would work. Coker’s stories on Georgia Pathways have shown the administrative costs of nearly $60 million in taxpayer money to be twice the costs of providing actual health care for those who can master the system. Those findings were validated by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan agency that monitors federal programs and spending. You can read the latest piece and the series of stories here.
Shine a light on turtle letters
There’s a flare-up in Glynn County over high-mast lights towering above Interstate 95 at the Buc-ee’s exit and the push to turn them down for the sake of darker nesting sites for sea turtles.
A letter from the state to the county asks for dark, as highlighted in the most recent reporting from The Current GA’s Mary Landers. In a reply, the county asks for evidence that the lights are doing any harm, and it’s interesting reading as we near the end of hatchling season.
NEWS: ENVIRONMENT
Extra water? Stay tuned
Last week’s meeting of two regional water planning councils was the first since International Paper announced it was closing mills in Savannah and Riceboro. Together, each day they used 22 million gallons of Floridan aquifer water plus another 13 million gallons from the Savannah River. While the move will take less from the aquifer and the river, it’s not clear what will happen to the water permits — for now, IP still has them. Read Mary Landers’ story on the possibilities, the questions and the rules around water permits.
🎉 Congratulations to Tillandsia for knowing that last week’s Spyglass was the Hall of Mirrors inside the Jekyll Island Club. We had 32 correct answers last week — let’s see how you do this week.
Test how well you spy details in Coastal Georgia. Give us the location of the item in the photo above. Some spots may be easier to identify than others; some will be tougher. We’ll collect correct answers each week and draw for a weekly winner.
CLICK HERE TO GIVE YOUR ANSWER
NEWS: UPDATES
Weekly reads: autism studies, shrinking Georgia, chimps and weather forecasting
- The hollowing out of rural Georgia: Charles Hayslett is known for studying the Georgia outside of Atlanta for a bit now. This is the first of several analyses of demographic data trends Hayslett writes for The Daily Yonder. What does it mean when 100 of 159 counties has more deaths than births?
- RFK Jr. Vowed to Find the Environmental Causes of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying to Do Just That.: With all the focus on acetaminophen and autism, there’s a lot of research missing from the conversation. From ProPublica.
- Watch: For lab chimps to retire, they need to learn the rules of the new neighborhood: This video story from Grant Blankenship at GPB News looks at how humans are helping formerly caged lab dwellers get ready to retire to the outdoors.
- National Weather Service at ‘breaking point’ as storm approaches: In recent news, we learned the government had agreed to rehire hundreds of positions at the weather service. What happens in the meantime while we have storms headed our way? From The Washington Post.
EDITOR’S CHOICE: FAMILY
☕ Your second cup: Whose job is it?
If we haven’t given you quite enough to spark lively dinner conversation this week, here’s a story from The 19th* with results from a recent survey on cultural norms and gender roles. We’ll start with this and leave you to read and discuss the rest: Half of respondents said they believe that society would benefit from a return to traditional gender roles. What does it mean for workplace and national policy? Who stands to gain and who supports it the most? Talk amongst yourselves.
FROM THE CURRENT GA
Comings & goings
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had some changes at The Current GA and we always like to share.
- Sarah Harwell, our part-time social media editor, is joining us in Savannah full-time this week. Harwell was a 2023 summer reporting fellow at The Current.
- Jeffrey Woolverton, chief revenue officer, has resigned.
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Coastal Georgia tropical updates
By The Current
The Current’s staff will update information from your county as the storm passes over the next few days.
Taxpayer funds: Where school voucher money goes in Georgia
By Maggie Lee
Private schools in a few smaller communities in Georgia are receiving as much money as schools in much bigger cities.
Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement program spent twice as much on administrative costs as on health care, GAO says
By Margaret Coker
Republican lawmakers cite Georgia’s Pathways to Coverage as a national model for federal Medicaid work requirements that are set to take effect in 2027. A new report shows the program has spent at least $54 million on administrative costs alone.
Glynn slow to shut off brighter turtle-confusing lights near Buc-ee’s
By Mary Landers
Glynn County in Georgia has not yet turned off high-mast lighting at the I-95 exit for Buc-ee’s convenience store, despite receiving permission to do so from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
EPD: IP’s water permits remain active for now
By Mary Landers
International Paper’s closure of its Riceboro and Savannah paper mills will free up 22 million gallons of Floridan aquifer water a day, and local water councils discussed what that means at a recent meeting.
Analysis: The Hollowing Out of Rural Georgia – Part 1
By Charles Hayslett/The Daily Yonder
The demographic crisis in rural Georgia has been exacerbated by the widening divide between the greater Atlanta area and the rest of the state, with the number of counties reporting more deaths than births increasing from less than 20 to nearly 100 in less than 20 years.
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