Lucid Idiocy Exposes the Green Door Committee

And he has pictures too!

Some of y'all might remember state Rep. Rusty Kidd, I-Milledgeville, talking during the special election about some unknown committee that does all the real budget writing for the State of Georgia. It may have sounded like some kind of election year mumbo jumbo at the time, but the Telegraph's Travis Fain stumbled upon the end of the rainbow today and found the committee's secret meeting spot.
Read all about it here.

Who'd a Thunk It

In news that anyone could've guessed, but few took the time to actually find out, the AJC is reporting that in this time when no state department or agency is safe from drastic budget cutting, legislators' own budget is rising.

...under the original budget lawmakers approved for this year, spending on the House, Senate and joint legislative operations jumped more than 20 percent from 2003.

The story says the rising budget is due in part to increases in legislators' per diems (not sure if that spelling is correct) and the creation of separate budget offices for each legislative chamber.

"Perishable items produced in the state do not even have to be reported"

Last Friday, the AJC had this delicious vignette about culinary culture under the Gold Dome.

"Whoever said there is no such thing as a free lunch never stepped inside the Georgia Capitol when the state Legislature comes to town.
Not only lunch, but breakfast, brunch, dinner and an endless array of artery-clogging snackage are heaped on lawmakers’ plates every day -- and night -- during the annual 40-day session.

I guess they were simply trying to whet readers' appetites for this hearty main course in the paper's Sunday edition.

"New House Speaker David Ralston has advocated for ethics reform at the state Legislature, but that doesn’t mean he’s steering clear of meals with lobbyists.
Reports to the State Ethics Commission show lobbyists spent about twice as much on Ralston in January as they did on Glenn Richardson, the man he replaced, during the same month last year.

Parham Stirs the Pot

State Transportation Board member Bobby Parham showed up again in the AJC late last week. If you didn't catch that, you can check it out here. (The best part of the story, and the most illuminating, is found in the comments section.)
Parham also stopped by the Union-Recorder offices Monday to defend a State Transportation Board decision to reverse a former DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham (Evans)-era accounting change that he says has slowed the DOT's ability to keep Georgians at work building and maintaining the country's best state highway system.
Parham said the change, from a cash to an accrual method of accounting, would allow the DOT to borrow money to fund the state's portion of federally-backed road projects on the promise of the federal government making good on their end of the investment.
Evans, a perennial Perdue appointee, implemented the cash accounting procedure after a 2008 DOT audit accused a DOT treasurer of purposefully intending "to hide the true state of GDOT’s finances."
As the AJC and ATL Bizness Chronicle reports say above, the state Transportation Board has already passed a motion to move back to the accrual form of accounting in last week's meeting. But Parham said Trans Board Chair Bill Kuhlke called a special meeting for this Thursday, and he (Parham) thinks Kulhke will try to get the board to reconsider the motion, or at least postpone the change until the next fiscal year, which begins in July.
Board members are asking Attorney General Thurbert Baker to decide whether or not it is constitutional for DOT to use the accrual accounting.
Parham says there is more to this story, so watch it grow legs Friday.

Out of My League

I think you'd be surprised to hear that I'm blaming my recent absence from the blogosphere on the fact that I was not One Capital Removed this week, but actually reporting for The Union-Recorder from under the Gold Dome. Well not so much Thursday, but definitely Wednesday for the Governor's final State of the State Address.
But maybe that's in keeping with the witty blog title.
Either way you look at it, I'm not sure if we're much more informed following the news items of the week.
Governor Perdue delivered his final session-opening speech Wednesday and the verdict from the peanut gallery was all about the same.
I think this sums up my take on the speech:

"In a 37-minute-long speech that was long on style—quoting at liberty from the works of great thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Alexis de Tocqueville—and short on substance about how he would like legislators to tackle the challenges facing Georgia in the here and now, Perdue gave the General Assembly a pep talk to send them into the session."

But the real meat of the thing won't come out for another hour, when Perdue drops his proposed budget.
I unfortunately missed Perdue's press conference about his proposal for transportation funding because I was in a Georgia Press Association conference across the street from the Capitol. But much like his proposal to tie teacher pay to student performance, most of the heavy lifting will be done by his successor.
As I said above, today is going to be the big news day, and it is already delivering, with Perdue's budget at 11:45 a.m. and, possibly, the announcement of House Speaker David Ralston's committee assignments. Not the committee's he'll be on, of which I think tradition holds that there will be none, but the committee assignments he'll be doling out because he's got that right.
We'll, of course, be interested in this because Rep. Rusty Kidd will be getting his first assignments today.
I'm hoping for Appropriations and Health and Human Services assignments, and maybe State Institutions and Property, but that may make him too much like state Sen. Johnny Grant.
In other news of the day, I'm glad to hear Speaker Ralston has kept his promise to do away with the hawks system. I know I was a doubting thomas on this, but being a contrarian is my job.
I'm off for the rest of the day, so check in with my One Capital Removed approved bloggers (scroll to the bottom) for up-to-the-minute updates on everything that's going on in Georgia Politics, and I'll tell you something you already know later (please keep reading).

Ax the Inventory Tax?

The Savannah Morning News has this editorial about killing the tax on unsold items that remain on the showroom floor in Georgia retail businesses.
The brusquely-worded editorial makes me take pause in wondering how objective the writer is on the subject:

"Nearly all states have eliminated this obnoxious levy, which poisons business growth, destroys jobs and unfairly soaks the private sector. Georgia, unfortunately, has not.
Some Georgia lawmakers have tried to drive a stake through the tax's ugly heart, only to be beaten back by local governments and public school systems that, unfortunately, rely on this source of revenue to help pay the bills.""

But some Baldwin County Commission watchers may remember Commission Chair James "Bubba" Williams asking County Attorney David Waddell what can be done locally to banish this intrastate development deal breaker.
As the editorial says, local governments receive the majority of proceeds--voters will have an opportunity to ax the state's cut of the invo tax in 2010. But I don't know of any local governments who are either socking away reserve funds or signing tax rebate checks this year, so expect it to be a subject of hot debate during this session of the General Assembly.
Gold Dome Legislators will try to exploit any opportunity to leave the Capitol having cut taxes without disturbing state coffers.

Troubling News Out of Central State

We in Milledgeville all have to be concerned when we read headlines like this*.
But what I gathered from reading the three available stories on the subject--I'm not counting the AP blurb the UR site has--scares me a little more.
Vaishali Patel, our new reporter, says that the 2,500 jobs at CSH are safe for now. Read into that whatever you'd like.
The AJC reports this:

The state's move will thin a patient population that stands at about 450 and free up staff to undergo training, implement new policies and procedures, and change potentially dangerous conditions at the hospital, Wilson said. Overcrowding is not an issue driving this action, he added.

And then we have the Telegraph reporting this:

Central State has had staffing problems for years and that remains a challenge, Wilson said. Current figures were not immediately available Thursday, but in 2007 state figures showed a 23 percent vacancy rate in the hospital’s staff and nearly a 42 percent vacancy rate in licensed practical and registered nursing jobs.

Excuse me, but what on earth is going on with the staffing at the state's largest mental health facility?
2,500 employees seeing to the treatment of about 450 mental health consumers, and the hospital is running an overall 23 percent staff vacancy rate, with licensed practical and registered nurse positions exhibiting a 42 percent vacancy rate.
I'm just not smart enough to tell you what that means, but if you can, please leave a comment to clue me in.


*Is anyone else bothered by the fact that I have to link to competing news sites to provide compelling content about events happening in our own community?

FY2010 is just the beginning

Insider Advantage has a doosie of story out this morning culled from recent interviews with state economic thinkers.
Despite the national news that General Motors may be bundling up for that snowball in hell and returning to the land of profitability, state and local governments can keep their shorts on.
"If you think things are bad now for cash-strapped state and local governments, just hang on. It’s going to get worse."
But don't worry, there's something for everyone.
Communities already angered by the fact that their recent property tax revaluations weren't invalidated by '09 legislation to cap rising tax assessments will have more to protest about as it is predicted that the state's next sales ratio study, which determines whether counties are charging too much or too little in property taxes as determined by recent property sales figures, will finally reflect the reality homeowners--and more appropriately homes sellers--are seeing on the ground.

“As property sells (and a true, market-place value is determined) and the state auditor picks that up, we anticipate a rather significant drop in the digest, which means you either have to increase taxes or you have to cut additional programs,” said Jerry Griffin, veteran executive director of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

The story also mentions the growing movement to have sales tax revenues accounted for locally and not by the State Revenue Department.
Oh, and dig this mid-session missive:

But what about all of those tax exemptions the state has offered various entities over the years? Georgia State University once estimated that there are about $10 billion a year worth of exemptions on the books.
[Jerry] Keen,[R-St. Simons], the House Republican leader, said lawmakers have been looking at some of those over the past few years, particularly those with sunsets upon them. The problem is, he said, only a handful are due to expire in 2010 and, therefore, require legislative renewal, and they are worth only a few million dollars collectively.

With all this going on, why would anyone be vying for a seat under the Gold Dome this year--and next year for that matter.

General Assembly 2010: Right Around the Corner

While Baldwin County is in the process of electing its representative to the General Assembly's lower chamber, state legislators are already starting to set the agenda for the 2010 session.
The Telegraph's Travis Fain has the skinny on what they're thinking about in this week's Political Notebook. Or you can read the remix at his blog Lucid Idiocy.

Unemployed Georgia: Land of Opportunity

Georgia Public Broadcasting aired this story about a private corrections company going to Georgia's most employable county (read: the community most desperate for economic development) "to educate job seekers and generate support for the project within the community."
Something tells me the educational aspect of this meeting will be something along the lines of 'we need a whole bunch of tax credits and other incentives to write your town into our bid.'
Although vague on the details, I couldn't help but wonder if this Georgia Department of Corrections' Request For Proposals to construct a 1000-bed public-private institution is the same Corrections RFP that inspired the Milledgeville City Council to extend the city's opportunity zone all the way across South Milledgeville to Baldwin State Prison in order to attract a similar bid from a private corrections company.
In South Milledgeville, an expanded opportunity zone--a Georgia Department of Community Affairs program that offers tax credits to employers for job creation--creates opportunities for business development of any size, and largely shields the municipal and county governments from bearing the burden of incentivizing a private company's locating their new facility in your community.
But what happens when another community is desperate enough to give away the farm just to get the milk?

No pork on this plate

State Rep. Bobby Parham gave some interesting insight into why he didn't make it to this year's Wild Hog Supper, the aptly-named smorgasbord that has preceded the Georgia Legislature's opening day in each of the last 47 years.
Parham said he and his wife Juanita shun the event because of the amount of germs spread by the different politicos reaching out to grab the pork with their bare hands.
I used to go and enjoy the event, but when she started talking about the germs I started to thinking she might be right, he said.
And who can blame him. With the amount of back slapping and handshaking going on in those circles you could be eating off the hands of the entire state of Georgia.
Picture by Kimberly Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.