Pay raises and tax refunds mean Georgia’s era of big spending is not over.
Gov. Brian Kemp, in budgets released Friday, proposed increasing spending in the current budget year by $2.4 billion, largely to pay for two billion-dollar tax givebacks, and then to maintain spending in next year’s budget, funding $2,000 pay increases for all state and university employees and public school teachers.
Georgia saw state revenues spike to $36.6 billion in the year ending June 30, driven by a surging economy propped up by a bonanza of federal COVID-19 relief. Revenues had originally been projected to fall back to $30.2 billion this year. But through December, the halfway point of the 2023 budget year, tax receipts are running nearly $1 billion above that projection, according to numbers released Friday.
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