Georgia House Aims For Budget Vote This Week

By Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
The Augusta Chronicle
Feb. 8, 2010

ATLANTA --- House budget writers hope to finish adjustments to the current year's budget in the coming week, while Senate leaders aim to begin implementing ideas they've received on spending reform.

The House is close to completion of its consideration of the "little budget," the amendments to the spending plan for the few months remaining before the fiscal year ends June 30.

"It's going to be basically cuts," said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island. "There's not a lot to argue over but the cuts."

Keen predicted the eight subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee would finish considering their parts of the budget today and that the full committee would vote Wednesday. That would allow the House to vote Thursday. Then consideration of the budget for the coming fiscal year will begin.

Senate leaders plan to introduce legislation today to put into law the first recommendations from a seven-member task force Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle recruited. The corporate executives and accounting experts have been combing through the budget for suggestions on how they would react if a business were facing the state's financial problems.

Besides budget issues, House committees approved 19 bills last week for consideration by the full House, and the Senate is moving at nearly the same pace. Among the bills coming up for a hearing in committee this week is one that would allow sales over the Internet to food stamp holders who shop with charities, such as the Atlanta Food Bank.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2010-02-08/georgia-house-aims-budget-vote-week?v=1265590975

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