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.

Mental Health Cuts Announced

The AJC is reporting that the state must cut mental health programing and furlough workers to remain fiscally solvent in the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 2010.

[Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities]" spokesman Thomas Wilson said the agency has determined it must cut about $15 million so as not to run out of money by the end of the state fiscal year in June."

...

"We ... have to find ways to cut expenses to match declining income," said agency Commissioner Dr. Frank Shelp. "What makes that especially difficult is that the obvious fat has been cut from the budget long ago. Now, wherever we scale back, people are going to be affected. "

...

"The agency will also continue what has been a 5 percent cut to the community service boards, which provide many community-based mental health services to people."
...
"Another program set for termination is a crisis stabilization program at a state mental hospital in Savannah. The participants move to a community-based operation for services. That move will allow the services to receive Medicaid money."
...
"Wilson said that despite the cuts, the state still expects to meet the benchmark of being in substantial compliance with the federal requirements for the hospitals by Jan. 15."

Lucky 7?

When interviewing for the man on the street story about today's runoff election, Baldwin County Chief Deputy Registrar Elizabeth Rodgers told me that the turnout figures for the Georgia Military College Board of Trustees District 2 rematch between incumbent Randy New and challenger Charles Jordan sat at 77 votes for several hours toward the end of early voting last week. (The final total was 80, give or take a few.)
So what?
77 is the same number as the vote tallies both candidates carried after all votes had been counted during the November general election, putting those candidates into the runoff.
To make things even spookier, when I relayed the number of ballots cast thus far (by that time Tuesday afternoon) at the District 2 precinct, and she added them to the final figures for early voting in that race and the sum equaled 154--the total number of votes cast during the general election in that contest.
Can lightning strike twice?

Another Thing About Sunday's Zonee

One other thing said on the Talking Straight Zonee has me wondering about Derrell Black's campaign activities.
Black said he has raised another $10,000 for his campaign, that's $10,000 more than the $4,074 he raised within the reporting period before the general election. He also said the Democratic Party had donated $75,000 to his campaign. By Democratic Party, he means the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, who verbally confirmed that they have spent $65,000 on Black's campaign, despite not making the filing deadline for disclosing campaign contributions 15 days before the November 3 election.
Here is the link to Black's campaign disclosure. Here is the link to E. Culver "Rusty" Kidd's campaign disclosure.
On Black's link you'll see a pull down menu for the campaign contribution reports efiled. That’s where you’ll find the $4,074 report contributions and expenditures.On Kidd's you'll see the same pull down menu for campaign contribution reports efiled and a pull down menu for two business day reports.
We're going to have to take Darrell Black's word on the extra $10,000 he claimed to have raised because there's nothing compelling him to disclose any contributions between the 15 days before the November 3 election report and the next filing deadline, six days before the December 1 runoff election—i.e.tomorrow--EXCEPT (see below). Oh and don’t worry, there’s a five day grace period, which means they really don’t have to file until the day before the election.
We're also going to have to take his word on the $75,000 from the Georgia House Democratic Caucus because they haven't disclosed any spending on the 141st District House race.
O.C.G.A. 21-5-34 states that"within the two-week period prior to the date of such election the independent committee shall report within two business days any contributions or expenditure of more than $1,000.00."
I see that Kidd is making those disclosures as O.C.G.A. 21-5-34 mandates--though I'm having trouble opening the file to see the details--but Black seems to be disregarding the rule, so there's really no way of knowing what's going on in his campaign.
Now the $10,000 Black mentioned above is a lot of money, at least in my book, and from what I'm hearing, Black is saying he's raised $20,000--$10,000 on his own since the 15-day filing period and roughly $5k to $10,000 from the Dems, should we believe anything they say.
These are not big deals in the realm of election ethics law. The fine for fudging your campaign contributions and expenditures is between $25 to $75, and that's not a lot when you're claiming to have raised about 1,000 times that amount.
But it makes for great copy, and really helps to get my blood flowing.

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.

Elections Certified

Sorry to be absent.
Caught a wicked flu-like ailment following citywide flesh pressing on election day. They always said politics is dirty business.
But despite my being out of action, I've been thinking about the political action that happened one capital removed, Tuesday.
I just got off the phone with Elections Superintendent Todd Blackwell, who told me that all Tuesday night numbers remain more or less accurate.
Only two provisional ballots cut the mustard, and neither of them were in the second municipal district where Georgia Military College Board of Trustees candidates Randy New and Charles Jordan will compete in an unheard of repeat, two-man runoff election.
"I've been involved in some close elections where the race is decided by one or two votes , but I've never seen one that resulted in a tie," Blackwell said.
There was only one overseas absentee ballot out there and that elector either did not participate or did not return their ballot in time.
Your state House special election runoff will stand between E. Culver "Rusty" Kidd and Darrell Black.
Expect that race to really pick up the pace now that it's down to Rusty and the Dems.

Caught on Film

The candidate forums featuring candidates in the state House of Representatives and Milledgeville City Council District 1 races are up on the tube-type thing that shoots electronic letters everywhere.
You can check out the playlist of the state House forum here, and the playlist of the City Council District 1 forum here.

But in case you can't wait to link to those, I'll leave you with this:

"Midnight Plane to Georgia"

How on earth can this be legal?
"The Big Apple is offering homeless families a one-way plane ticket out of New York to the destination of their choice, as long as a family member agrees to take them in. New York City officials said families have been sent to 24 states and five continents so far, mostly to Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas and Puerto Rico."

"She's just a wizard who can make money appear out of thin air."

That's state Senator Johnny Grant,R-Milledgeville, about how the Department of Human Resources, and especially Commissioner B.J. Walker (pictured), intend on to make good on the state's settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on Civil Rights violations in Georgia's Mental Health system.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has told us that these things cost money:
"The settlement agreement, which requires a federal judge’s approval, binds the state to “undertake its best efforts” to find enough money to transform the hospitals. If legislators fail to allot the money, federal authorities may ask a judge to force additional spending.
State officials have not determined how much compliance will cost. A Journal-Constitution analysis last year found that increasing mental health spending in Georgia to the national average would require more than doubling the current annual budget of about $465 million."
But according to Grant, Walker says the state will be able to meet the terms of the yet-undisclosed settlement while parting with about $29 million due to the governor's proposed budget cuts.
Now that's government in action for ya.