2015 Weekly Legislative Update – Week 1

The Georgia General Assembly kicked off the 2015 session on Monday, January 12. It was a busy week with Governor Deal, Lt. Governor Cagle and the other Constitutional officers and members of the General Assembly being sworn in on Monday. On Tuesday Governor Deal, Lt. Governor Cagle and Speaker Ralston addressed over 2,000 attendees of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Eggs and Issues Breakfast. All three outlined their legislative priorities for the year and made it clear that this will be a very busy legislative session. On Wednesday Governor Deal delivered his State of the State Address to a joint session of the State Senate and State House. The week culminated with an Inaugural GALA hosted by Governor and Mrs. Deal at the Gwinnett Arena on Thursday. The event featured Georgia’s own Alan Jackson and other local musical talent. The legislators adjourned on Thursday last week with no formal session this week so that budget hearings can be held. They will reconvene on Monday, January 26 and be in session through Thursday, January 29 of that week. The legislature will be in session Monday – Wednesday (February 2-4) of the following week and Monday-Thursday (February 9-12) after that. No further schedule has been agreed on by the House and the Senate.

The Governor released his FY 16 budget proposal, and it is available online. Of particular interest will be his proposals for Medicaid funding for doctors and hospitals as well as his education funding initiatives.

The dominant issue of this year’s session promises to be the effort to enact increased funding for transportation. No specific plan has been brought forward yet, but we do expect to see legislation the week of January 26^th. It may include increases in the state sales tax, increases in the gasoline excise tax, and redirection of current general funds to transportation or some combination of these revenue sources.  We also expect to see activity in the area of Certificate of Need laws for hospitals and tax law changes and incentives for film production and video gaming.

At this point all signs indicate that we will be in session until April.