Gov. Brian Kemp wants to restore more than half of Georgia’s cuts to K-12 education made last year, on top of the $1,000 bonuses he wants to pay to teachers from federal money.
With tax collections running substantially ahead of what was predicted last spring, the Republican Kemp on Thursday proposed to add a net of $650 million to the current year’s budget, boosting state spending to $26.3 billion. Kemp proposes a $27.2 billion budget for the 2022 year beginning July 1, $935 million above current spending levels.
Legislative leaders had been signaling that schools could hope to recoup at best a third of the $950 million that was cut from Georgia’s K-12 funding formula last June, part of 10% cuts that were made basically across the board. Kemp, though, wants to give $567 million more to schools in the remaining months of the current budget year.
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