In his first State of the State address, Gov. Brian Kemp said Thursday he wants to give Georgia teachers a pay raise of $3,000 a year, launch a number of school safety measures and create a statewide task force to crack down on criminal gangs.
Speaking in the Georgia Capitol after being sworn in earlier this week, Kemp said the teacher pay increase will cost $480 million annually, but represents “a large down payment” on his campaign pledge of funding a $5,000 year raise.
In his remarks, he noted that 44 percent of teachers in the state leave the profession in their first five years.
Kemp’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget of $27.5 billion would also include a two percent pay raise for all state employees that would cost $120 million.
School safety measures also highlight Kemp’s first budget, following a special legislative study committee that toured the state last year.
The former Georgia Secretary of State, Kemp, a Republican, defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in a close election in November. While Abrams, the former state House Minority Leader, won Cobb County, Kemp prevailed in most East Cobb precincts.
Kemp is proposing $69 million in one-time funds for school security grants, with all Georgia K-12 schools receiving $30,000 each. Those priorities would determined by their local school boards, administrators, teachers, parents, and students.
Kemp also wants to provide $8.4 million in additional funding for the Apex program, which addresses mental health in Georgia high schools. Georgia has been at the bottom nationally in providing funding to help students with mental health care needs.
He would spend $500,000 to form a gang task force within the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that would work with local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies.
The proposal would be to use the Criminal Gang and Criminal Alien Database, to be funded with existing resources from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, to track and arrest criminal gang leaders, including drug kingpins.
Kemp also said he will pursue a state Medicaid waiver and is earmarking $1 million in the Department of Community Health’s budget to pursue possible options to the current program “that increases choices, improves quality, encourages innovation and grows access to affordable healthcare across the state.”
You can read the entire proposed budget here.
We will be adding reaction from Cobb officials when we get it.
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