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The gavel sounded at 11:37 P.M. March 19, 1998 adjourning the 144th General Assembly of Georgia sine die.
Highlighting the day and the session was H.B. 1250, the state's $12.5 billion budget for fiscal year 1999 which begins July 1st of this year. It includes $10 million in emergency flood relief and $10.8 million in new spending on the juvenile prison system. Another $15 million for flood relief is expected early next year in the supplemental budget to go to the Albany area.
Of the $12.5 billion, $11.8 billion is projected to come from taxes and fees, which is a 6.6 percent budget increase; $530 million will come from lottery proceeds; and $149 million will come from the Indigent Care Trust Fund.
As far as taxes, the General Assembly cut them by $334 million in the budget; $129 million from removing the final cent of state sales tax from groceries, and $205 million from the income tax approved earlier this year.
Education accounts for 56.5 percent of the 1999 budget. The largest expenditure in the budget is $275 million to provide the fourth consecutive 6 percent pay raise to teachers in public schools, technical institutes, colleges and universities.
H.B. 1250, the state's spending plan for fiscal year 1999 passed by a vote of 151 to 23.
The rest of the day was mostly dedicated to agrees and disagrees.
The 145th General Assembly will convene the second Monday in January of 1999.
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