About The Banks County news. (Homer, Banks County, Ga.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 2013)
PAGE 4A THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 Editor: Angela Gary Phone: 706-367-2490 E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com Website: www.banksnewsTODAY.com Opinion “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” — Thomas Jefferson Shorter legislative session saves taxpayers money This session was one of the shortest in recent his tory, finishing the state’s legislative business weeks earlier than normal. The shorter, and more con densed, session proved to be more efficient as we saved taxpayers money (per diem and temporary workers salary) and ensured the conservative ideal of small er government was adhered to. Even in a short period of time there were a number of issues that the Senate worked with the House and governor’s office to achieve. The FY 2014 budget is comprised of $19.8 billion. It is a constitutional require ment that the General Assembly pass a balanced budget each year. This budget adds $2.6 million for school nurses based on recommendations by the State Education Finance Commission. It also adds $146.6 mil lion to cover 1.36 percent enrollment growth in students and training/experience for teachers. It also fully restores the proposed reduction of $1.3 million for school nutrition programs. The Tuition Equalization Grant was restored to maintain the award amount and meet projected enrollment for Georgia’s Private College and Universities. Due to changes in the Technical College HOPE scholarship from 2011, nearly 9,000 students lost the grant last year when the grade point average requirement was increased form a 2.0 to 3.0. The Senate reinstated the 2.0 GPA requirement because thousands of students could not afford to pay what HOPE no longer covered, resulting in a drastic num ber of students dropping out of technical colleges. The budget also adds $17.1 million to meet pro jected need for HOPE-Public Schools Scholarship while increasing the award amount by 3 percent. Ethics reform has been a top priority of the Senate from the first day of the legislative session, when the chamber adopted the strictest ethics standards in State Capitol history. The House and Senate reached an agreement on ethics reform. More than 80 percent of primary voters endorsed ethics reform in the July 2012 election. This legisla tion is a direct result of the voter’s desire for ethics overhaul. Expenditures by lobbyists would generally be limited to $75 per occurrence. Expenditures on leisure activities such as golf, athletic events, and concerts would be prohibited. There are limited, commonsense exemptions for expenditures on the entire General Assembly, either chamber or caucus es approved by the Ethics Committees. Committee dinners would be limited to one per year. The Georgia General Assembly convenes two legislative sessions during each biannual term and legislation introduced in the first year of each term is eligible for consideration during the next legislative session. Although SB101 did not pass this session, it is still alive and eligible to pass next session. I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment and will work to ensure the protec tion of our right to bear arms. While we are never able to accomplish every thing on our individual priority lists, I’m proud of the work we did and the progress we made. Sen. John Wilkinson represents the 50th Senate District, which includes Banks, Franklin, Habersham, Rabun, Stephens and Towns counties and portions of Hall and Jackson counties. He can be reached by phone at 404-463-5257 or by email at john. wikinson@senate.ga.gov. The Banks County News Founded 1968 The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga. Mike Buffington Co-Publisher Scott Buffington Co-Publisher Angela Gary Editor Randy Crump Sports Editor Sharon Hogan Reporter Anelia Chambers Receptionist Phones fall 706 area code): Angela Gary Phone 367-2490 Angela Gary Fax 367-9355 Homer Office Phone 677-3491 Homer Office Fax 677-3263 (SCED 547160) Published weekly by MainStreet Newspapers, Inc., PO. Box 908, Jefferson, Ga. 30549 Subscription in county $19.75 Subscription in state $38.85 Subscription out of state $44.20 Military with APO address $42.20 Senior citizens get a $2 discount Periodicals postage paid at Homer, Ga. 30547 Postmaster, send address changes to: Subscriptions, The Banks County News, PO. Box 920, 935 Historic Homer Highway Homer, Ga. 30547 The state helps the rich get richer Many school systems are furloughing teach ers and can’t provide a 180-day school year for their students. Our elected leaders at the capitol say they just don’t have the money to spend on public education. Georgia’s highways are jam- packed with congestion and crum bling into disrepair. Our elected leaders say there just isn’t enough money to fix them. Georgia has had to close crime labs and leave unfilled the positions of state troopers who patrol the highways. Our elected leaders say they just don’t have enough money to pay for them. Our elected leaders had no trou ble, however, finding $800 million in taxpayers’ money to build a stadium for Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank. It’s all a matter of how you set your priori ties. For many of our elected officials, it’s more important to stroke the ego of a bil lionaire NFL franchise owner than to fix our roads or give our kids a decent education. Gov. Nathan Deal and the Legislature, working in concert with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and the City Council, made it possible for Blank to get that very generous gift of tax money for his new stadium. A series of independent polls have indi cated that voters, by a large margin, do not support the idea of using Atlanta’s hotel-motel tax revenues to pay for a stadium that would benefit a private business. With another election coming up in 2014, Deal and the lawmakers faced the unpleasant prospect of having to take a position on using that tax money to give the Falcons their new stadium. Deal instead had the matter shifted to the Atlanta City Council and the city’s economic development arm, Invest Atlanta. Those enti ties voted to issue $200 million in construction bonds paid off from the tax revenues. Over a 37-year period, the city is also committed to spend more than $600 million from those tax funds to maintain and repair the stadium. “The city will use ‘only’ $200 million of scarce public money for construction of a facility to benefit the Falcons, up front,” said William Perry of Common Cause Georgia. “But another $680 million will ultimately go to the stadium for largely the same purposes - improving Arthur Blank’s equity value in the Falcons franchise.” Sweet deals don’t get much sweeter than that. It’s not as if Blank needs the money. Forbes magazine lists him among the 400 wealthiest Americans with a net worth estimated at $1.6 billion. He could easily form a busi ness syndicate capable of raising the money for a new stadium and keeping all the profits made from operating it. Why should he bother? Blank essentially can back his limousine up to the state treasury open the trunk and say “Fill her up.” Our state and city leaders are happy to shovel in the tax dollars. This is really a sordid giveaway of public funds in a state that has far more serious problems it should be addressing. At least there were some public servants with the integrity to stand up against this tax payers’ bonanza for a business magnate. Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek) per sistently questioned the wisdom of the tax giveaway, writing in an op-ed column: “It is very difficult to justify to our citizen, who is under enormous economic pressure himself, that there is no money for his kid’s teacher, none to widen the nightmare two- lane road he commutes on, none to fund a drug court to keep his young adult son out of jail for a first offense, but we can help fund a $1 billion stadium which primarily benefits a very lucrative business.” Dudgeon added: “This kind of contrast makes people perceive that their tax money is not being used wisely and the system is rigged.” When the final vote was taken by Invest Atlanta to issue the stadium bonds, Julian Bene was the only board member who voted against it. “What do we get from this in terms of jobs?” Bene asked. “My perception is that we’re switching one stadium for another and that we don’t get an additional amenity for the city.” Bene acknowledged that his vote in opposi tion was a “futile gesture, but someone has to do it.” If only there were more people willing to stand up and do it. Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet news service at gareport. com that reports on government and politics in Georgia. He can be reached at tcrawford@ gareport.com. Child Abuse Prevention Month observed in April Dear Editor: I’ve been fortunate enough to work in the child abuse field for about 12 years now. I say fortunate because I get to see how incredibly resilient children can be when they have the right support systems in place. During this time, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Child Abuse is one of those social ills that is completely preventable. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their 18 birthday. Some 90 percent of the time sexual abuse occurs from someone you know and love — a close friend or family member. Some 75 percent of all high school dropouts have a history of abuse. Children who experience child abuse and neglect are more than twice as likely to be arrested as juveniles. Over 60 percent of individuals in drug treatment reported being abused or neglected as children. Forty-five percent of abused children become adult alco holics. One-third of all individuals who were abused or neglected as children will subject their own children to maltreatment. As you drive through the downtown area, notice the pinwheels blowing in the breeze. They are the symbol for children who suffer abuse because they represent the playful spirit of childhood that abuse seeks to destroy. Each pinwheel represents a silent victim of abuse in the county. A child whose innocence was sto len or simply not important enough in the lives of the adults charged with caring for them. April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. A time for the community to come together and cre ate real solutions to combat this epidemic. The only solution is a community of adults educated to recognize, prevent, and respond responsibly to child abuse. The old proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” is completely true. Especially in a society where families are scat tered and support systems are at times non-exis tent. First and foremost, know the signs of abuse, but also understand that they are not always obvious. Children are great at hiding things, espe cially if they feel shame about what’s happening to them. They most often reveal things through behavior rather than words. Second, listen to them. Children often try to tell what’s happen ing without saying EXACTLY what’s going on. Most important, seek out opportunities to learn more about protecting not only your own child but those around you. Call The Tree House and request a child abuse training session. Let us arm ourselves with knowledge and power to defeat this enemy of childhood inno cence. April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, but every day is an opportunity for hope and healing. Sincerely Becky Lee, LMSW Executive Director, The Tree House, Inc. 770-868-1900; www.thetreehouseinc.org Update on end of legislative session On March 28, the 2013 legislative ses sion came to an end when the House and Senate completed the 40th and final legislative day. This last day of session is known as “Sine Die,” a Latin term meaning “without assigning a day for further meeting,” which is how we adjourned. Although I am still busy going back over all the legislation passed by the General Assembly, there are already several key legislative accom plishments that I want to bring to your attention. One of the most important bills we passed this session was House Bill 106. This bill establishes the state budget for Fiscal Year 2014, running from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014. Totaling $19.92 billion in state funds, the final version of this budget closely mir rors Gov. Deal’s original budget proposal, but includes a number of changes made by the House that benefit education, healthcare, and economic development. Among additions made by the House are $38.3 million for Equalization Grants for education, $489,475 for continued expan sion funding of all programs that provide physician residency training, $25.7 million for road projects throughout the state, and $4.3 million to help the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources retain experienced, certified personnel. House Bills 142, another major legisla tive accomplishment from this session, would strengthen Georgia’s ethics laws by placing a $75 limit on every expendi ture made by an individual lobbyist on an elected official. Food and beverages exceeding the $75 limit may be provided to legislators only at group events where all members of the General Assembly all members of the state House or Senate, all members of a standing commit tee of either body, or all members of a longstanding caucus recognized by the House or Senate ethics committees are invited. The bill also bans gifts of tickets to athletic, sporting, recreational, musi cal concerts and other entertainment events from lobbyists to state officials HB 142 also restores power to the Georgia Government and Campaign Finance Commission by giving it rule making authority. Further, the bill limits reim bursements to elected officials to actual and reasonable transportation, lodging, registration, food and beverage expenses that are related to conferences and meet ings within the United States. Finally, HB 142 clarifies and broadens the definition of who must register as a lobbyist so that it applies to anyone who is compensated for or has their expenses reimbursed in an amount greater than $250 if attempting to influence legislation. It also removed all lobbyist registration fees. The commission is now empowered to set reasonable fees for the cost of the ID card. House Bill 372, the HOPE Grant Expansion also received final approval from the House and Senate this session. This bill returns the eligibility requirement for the HOPE Grant from a 3.0 grade-point average (GPA) to a 2.0 GPA. This will return the HOPE Grant requirements to what they were in 2011. Just as the HOPE Scholarship pays tuition for Georgians attending colleges and universities in the state, the HOPE Grant helps eligible Georgians pay for the costs of attending technical colleges in Georgia. We expect the change in the HOPE Grant’s GPA eligi bility requirement to result in 3,500 5,000 new students at the state’s technical schools. This increased enrollment will help fill vacant employment positions throughout the state that require technical skills like plumbing, electrical contracting, and HVAC. With the future of these bills in the hands of the Governor, the General Assembly’s 2013 legislative session has adjourned sine die. Although session is over, I encourage you to continue contact ing me with any questions or concerns that you might have regarding your state government. You can reach me at my cap itol office at 404-656-0325 or by email at dan.gasaway@house.ga.gov. Additionally, I will be spending a lot more time in the district now, so feel free to contact me locally at 706-677-5015. Thank you for allowing me to serve as your representative. Rep. Gasaway represents Banks County.
