Georgia Budget Proposals Would Cut Workers, Reduce Services

A 14% cut in state spending in Georgia would lead to more than a thousand employees being laid off or bought-out and thousands more being forced to take unpaid days off.

It would mean fewer state troopers on the road, less money to keep senior citizens at home instead of in nursing homes, fewer scientists in state crime labs, and less spending on hospitals that treat trauma patients.

State agencies detailed those cuts and more as they submitted this week mandated budget reduction proposals obtained by The Associated Press. Lawmakers will ultimately decide what gets cut, and the proposals may not come to pass. But chainsawing more than $3.5 billion from a budget originally projected at $28 billion in state revenue was always going to be a bloody amputation and not a surgical slice.