GEORGIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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Daily Report Number 39
April 1, 2004

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Lawmakers tackled a very long 39th day, passing some twenty bills, and working to sort out Senate amendments to numerous House-generated measures. According to General Assembly rules, each body must approve changes made by the other legislative chamber. If changes are not agreed upon, a conference committee is appointed containing three members from each body who work out the differences and settle on a final compromise position which both chambers can accept.

Today’s proceedings saw the creation of a conference committee to work out the details of one measure which is vital to Georgia’s higher education system. HB 1325 seeks to preserve the state’s popular and highly successful HOPE Scholarship Program for all Georgia’s future generations.

Since its inception in 1993, the HOPE program has spent $2.1 billion to help more than 700,000 of our young men and women better their lives by attending Georgia’s colleges, universities, and technical colleges. However, the program’s unparalleled success has led to a growth rate which experts predict will eventually exceed the lottery receipts which fund it. Hoping to prevent this prediction from becoming a reality, House and Senate lawmakers formed a study commission to investigate the best way to preserve the financial viability of the program. Those recommendations are reflected in HB 1325.

While the Senate agreed to the bulk of the language in the House plan, they did make some fundamental changes which sent the legislation into a conference committee.

One area where the two versions diverge is in how they would handle the phenomena of steadily increasing fees at many of the state’s colleges and universities. Fees at a number of Georgia’s colleges and universities have consistently continued to move skyward, placing an ever growing fiscal burden on the program. Realizing this, the authors of HB 1325 decided to freeze fee payments from the HOPE scholarship at the current level. House members feel this will not only help slow the ever expanding HOPE costs, but also provide a bit of consumer oversight of these fees, since parents would be made more aware of the fee hikes.

However, Senators balked at this action. Expressing a reluctance to get involved in fee structures, Senate lawmakers changed HB 1325 by inserting a trigger mechanism which would only affect fee payments when HOPE demands begin to exceed lottery revenues. If activated, the trigger would cap all HOPE fee payments at $500 per year. If the fund decreases for a second consecutive year, fee payments would be eliminated.

House lawmakers note that the Senate plan does nothing to control fee inflation until the program has already begun to falter. The House version, they suggest, would freeze fee payments at current levels to discourage future fee hikes, and help prevent the type of fiscal crisis which would trigger the Senate plan’s action.

The second major difference in philosophy between the House and Senate versions of HB 1325 deals with a financial trigger which would reduce, and possibly eliminate book payments from the HOPE fund. The House version includes a trigger mechanism which automatically reduces HOPE spending should state lottery sales take a turn for the worse. Under the proposal, the HOPE book payment would drop from $300 to $200 if lottery revenues drop from the previous year’s totals. Should the lottery intake continue to drop for a second year, book payments would decrease to $100. Only after a third year of declining revenues would book payments be eliminated. However, the House plan would still provide book payments for Georgia’s poorer students who qualify for a federal Pell education grant.

The Senate proposal would not change book funds until the third consecutive year of revenue decreases, at which point the payments would be eliminated. Furthermore, Senators were unwilling to accept the House exception for Pell Grant recipients. Senate leaders say that providing such an exemption for poor students could be the first step down a philosophical road which could eventually lead to income-based eligibility caps on HOPE.

House lawmakers note that, as with the fee structure, the Senate plan would not take action to reduce book spending until after the fiscal crisis has taken hold. They also note that the House proposal provides the opportunity to achieve a level at which book payments and lottery revenues could stabilize without exposing students and parents to the instant shock of total book payment elimination. Finally, House lawmakers stand by their decision to exempt Pell recipients from book payment reductions. House leaders note that, regardless of whatever abstract philosophical argument can be presented, the fact is that for a family poor enough to qualify for a Pell Grant the $300 book payment is a lot of money, which could mean the difference for some between a student’s realizing his or her dreams of a higher education and better life, and letting them slip away.

Despite these relatively small differences, the House and Senate versions of HB 1325 are very similar. It shouldn’t be too difficult for negotiators from both sides to find common ground and pass this very important piece of legislation before the final gavel falls on this year’s session.

Among the Senate items which were making their first appearance on the House floor, one measure, SB 184, seeks to attack a very serious problem facing Georgia. Methamphetamines are the new drug scourge of the state. Not only does the drug ruin the lives of the user, and his or her family and friends, but the drug’s production has the very deadly potential to end the lives of innocent children. As recently as last month, metro area newscasts were replete with images of charred mobile homes where children died in fires which were started by an adult’s attempt to cook methamphetamines.

Throughout this session, lawmakers have brought forward proposals to counteract this awful problem. These measures have ranged from increased penalties for adults who would endanger the lives of children by producing methamphetamines, to creating study committees which will investigate the dangers of the residual chemicals which are used to cook the illegal drug.

SB 184 approaches the problem from another direction, by getting tough on those who would destroy property while trying to produce the drug. The legislation would create a new category of arson in the first degree to include anyone who, while engaged in committing another felony (such as the production of methamphetamines), causes a fire or explosion resulting in the destruction of any house or dwelling place where some persons life might be endangered. Persons convicted under this new statute could be punished by a fine of up to $50,000, or a prison term of up twenty years, or both.

Hoping to quell this terrible scourge before it claims another life, House lawmakers voted 146-1 to pass SB 184.

Also among the items receiving passage on the 39th day were:

• HR 1569 (156-1)- encourages the five county Metro Atlanta Area to work together and in conjunction with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to reduce gang violence and gang crime in the Metro Area.
  
• SB 148 (102-53)- would clarify language in the code governing juvenile courts to allow courts to charge parents for truancy counseling and services if they can afford it. The House added language from HB 1418, which passed the House earlier this year and raises to 18 the age where a young offender is considered to be a juvenile.
  
• SB 357 (138-19)- would create state guidelines to provide for the labeling and tracking of previously wrecked automobiles which have undergone major repairs. This will help prevent the dishonest resale of previously wrecked cars without notifying the buyer.
  
• SB 403 (154-0)- seeks to allow storage facility owners, after having notified or attempted to notify the renter via certified mail, to begin the process of selling unclaimed property in their storage facilities to recover unpaid rental fees.
  
• SB 431 (147-0)- seeks to save money and resources by removing the requirement that each state agency publish and distribute a yearly report on its actions over the last year. Agencies would instead make the information available at the request of individual lawmakers, or administration members.
  
• SB 461 (163-0)- would bring Georgia law into compliance with the Federal Drivers' Privacy Act which only allows for the sale of registration information which contains the person's name, address, and driver identification number. The information is sold to companies such as recall notification companies, tax collectors, and other state and federal agencies. The House also added language which would state that license suspension begins when the clerk enters the suspension into the state database.
  
• SB 485 (155-0)- seeks to move the Georgia Medical Center Authority from the Department of Community Health under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Community Affairs.
  
• SB 492 (153-1)- would allow members of auxiliary organizations that are affiliated with organizations allowed to operate BINGO games in Georgia to aid the parent organization in operating a BINGO game.
  
• SB 502 (145-2)- annual update which adds new medications to list of drugs which are illegal to possess without a prescription. The House added language to allow seized drug money to fund the Georgia Law Enforcement Museum.
  
• SB 514 (157-0)- seeks to allow local county and municipal governments to issue short term variable interest bearer type bonds to fund local construction ventures and draw down federal money for local projects.
  
• SB 525 (158-1)- seeks to prevent traffic blockages by allowing motorists who have been involved in accidents where no injuries occur to move their vehicles to the side of the roadway. This is currently allowed on freeways and four lane highways. SB 525 would expand the current law to apply to all public roads in Georgia.
  
• SB 582 (147-0)- would allow data on brain and spinal injuries which currently goes through the Department of Human Resources to go directly to the Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission.
  
• SB 584 (154-0)- seeks to allow state employees who wish to do so to have a portion of their paycheck automatically deducted and sent to approved international charities.
  
• SR 184 (146-1)- designates the 121 bypass around the eastern side of Waynesboro as the Burke Veterans Parkway in honor of this country’s veterans.

Georgia House of Representatives
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