Yesterday, as the representative for the 9th District on the Georgia State Board of Education, I had to cast a vote to allocate $411 million dollars of federal COVID money to Georgia Schools. Wow! That’s the biggest number I’ve every personally dealt with. Of course, I have known the size of the school budget in the billions, the state budget, which is also in the billions, and the federal budget in the trillions. But I have never had to vote to spend that much money. It was a cause for pause.
The feds have allocated trillions of dollars in the last few weeks and the states, including Georgia are losing revenue and have to balance their budgets. The Governor has called for 14% cuts to the budget. Georgia has already allocated $100 million dollars from the $2.5 billion rainy day fund for the Health State of Emergency. This is definitely a rainy day and I will support the consideration of using $300 million of the rainy day fund to help with balancing the budget. We are at the beginning of this contraction of the economy and I think we need to have as close to 10% of the budget set aside for the emergencies to come.
We have to balance the risk and reward of the measured opening of the economy. People need to work if they cannot work from home and we need to make that safe and easy. The government cannot keep printing money. In addition, local budgets will come under this crisis also and they will be voted on between now and the end of June.
Be patient. This too will pass and better days are ahead for health, wealth and happiness.
