House passes Georgia amended budget with raises, tax rebates

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's state employees and K-12 teachers will get paid more, taxpayers will get rebates and the state will spend hundreds of millions on new prisons and other projects under a revised budget passed Friday by the state House on a 152-4 vote,

The spending plan, which runs through June 30, now moves to the state Senate for more debate.

House Bill 910 includes $5,000 pay boosts for university and state agency employees, $2,000 bonuses to teachers and $1,000 bonuses to other K-12 workers including school bus drivers, part-time employees and cafeteria workers. It also restores $383 million to the state’s K-12 funding formula that had been cut when lawmakers feared revenue decreases at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond the spending, the document also sets up $1.6 billion in state income tax rebates.

State and university employees who have been on the payroll since July 1 will get a $3,750 bonus for time worked through March 30, and a $1,250 pay raise over the remaining three months of the year. K-12 teachers will get a $2,000 bonus, as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp proposed. Lawmakers plan to roll a full $5,000 raise for employees and $2,000 for teachers into next year's budget.

“This is the first cost of living adjustment that we in a state have been in condition to give to our employees in 14 years," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, an Auburn Republican, told lawmakers Friday.

House lawmakers added $8.5 million to provide school custodians a one-time $1,000 bonus to go with the money going to bus drivers and cafeteria workers. They also added $3.5 million to fully cover the cost of bonuses for cafeteria workers.

This year is seeing a huge burst of spending even as Kemp and lawmakers face reelection later this year, thanks to bountiful state tax...