Legislative Notebook: House Proposal Would Put Many Budgets Online

By TRAVIS FAIN
The Macon Telegraph
February 17, 2010

ATLANTA — Georgia cities, counties and school boards with budgets topping $1 million would have to put their budgets online under legislation that passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

House Bill 122 would require all local governments over that mark to submit an electronic copy of their annual budgets each year, starting in 2011. It would also require that audits be posted to the Web site, which would be maintained by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.

The bill, which was actually introduced during last year’s legislative session, passed in the House 166-0 on Tuesday morning. It still must pass the Georgia Senate and be signed by the governor to take effect.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, would also require local law enforcement agencies to submit electronic versions of reports breaking down property seizures to the Web site.

Hospital tax focus of gubernatorial debate
Today will be a big day for Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plan to prop up the state’s Medicaid program with a new tax on hospital profits.

The 1.6 percent tax — or fee as some in the governor’s administration prefer to call it — will be up for discussion in a special subcommittee created just to hash out the proposal. Perdue has said it’s the best way to keep the economic downturn from blowing a multi-hundred-million-dollar hole in the health-care program, which receives state and federal funding. But the tax, which Perdue also recommended last year, has proven unpopular.

This issue also will be a major focus of a gubernatorial debate earlier in the day. The debate, put on by a health-care coalition, will last about 90 minutes and starts at 10:30 a.m. at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead. Most of the Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2010 governor’s race are expected to attend, and the entire debate will be geared toward health-care discussion, organizers said.

It also will wrap up in time for attendees to make it to the Capitol for the 1:30 p.m. subcommittee meeting, where state Rep. Jim Cole will present the governor’s 1.6 percent tax proposal, which is contained in House Bill 307.

Cole, R-Forsyth, is the governor’s floor leader in the House. He’s drawn some tough duties this session, his last before leaving the statehouse to take over as Mercer University’s athletics director. Cole is carrying the hospital tax bill for the governor, as well as a Perdue bill that would allow future governors to remove problem school board members when their school systems founder and a proposal for new transportation funding that’s sure to be a major issue as the legislative session goes forward.

Small group rallies against death penalty
More than 50 people rallied at the Capitol on Tuesday to call for a moratorium in the state’s death penalty.

Georgians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty wants the state to suspend the death penalty for at least a year so individual cases can be studied to make sure everyone on death row is actually guilty. DNA tests have exonerated some inmates, and advocates are particularly concerned about the case of Troy Davis, who was convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah police officer.

But since that conviction, several of the witnesses have recanted their testimony against Davis, and no physical evidence has been presented at all, supporters say.

Senate Bill 175 would implement a one-year moratorium on the death penalty in Georgia, during which Davis’ case, and others, could be reviewed. But the ultimate goal for many advocates at the Capitol was a full repeal of the death penalty. And Tuesday’s event was heavy on religion after an Atlanta pastor noted, the day before Ash Wednesday, that if Rome had not had the death penalty, Jesus Christ would not have been crucified.

Perdue bill to fund transportation filed
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s much-anticipated transportation funding bill was filed late Tuesday afternoon.

House Bill 1218 is about 40 pages and will likely be one of the most debated pieces of legislation of the session. Perdue has already discussed the bill a couple of times so far this session, saying that he favors 2012 votes to bind several counties together across the state to charge an extra penny sales tax to raise new money for transportation projects.

But the devil, as they say, is in the details. And with Tuesday’s filing of the actual bill, negotiations will begin in earnest as the governor, House and Senate work to resolve disagreements over details that have derailed similar transportation funding talks in the last few years.

Committee OKs bill about bicycles on sidewalks
A bill that would allow local governments to decide whether to allow bicycles on public sidewalks moved forward again Tuesday, passing the House Transportation Committee.

The legislation, House Bill 965, moves now to the House Rules Committee, which sets the calendar for debate in the full House. Current state law just allows children 12 and under to ride on a sidewalk. This change, suggested by state Rep. Doug McKillip, D-Athens, would let local governments decide where bicyclists could, and could not, ride on sidewalks in a community.
Legislature honors WRALL softball champions

The world champion Warner Robins American Little League softball team was honored Tuesday in the Georgia House and Senate.

As they usually are, the girls were well-received. They wore their uniforms and took pictures with dignitaries, something that’s kind of become old hat since the girls won the softball Little League World Series in August.

“You girls are awesome,” state Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry, told team members as they filed out of the Senate.

To contact writer Travis Fain, call 361-2702.

http://www.macon.com/local/story/1025834.html tfain@macon.com


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