THE ASHE ADVOCATE –March 30 , 2007

House adopts supplemental budget proposal

By Rep. Kathy Ashe

The House of Representatives approved a supplemental budget proposal last week, increasing fiscal year 2007 spending by $700 million.  The midyear appropriations bill (HB 94) also includes a $194 million earmark for the 2.65 percent increase in public school enrollment; $11 million in tornado disaster relief for Americus; $9.6 million in additional funding for the Public Defenders System; $1 million for the Tour de Georgia bicycle race; $7 million for antiviral pandemic flu vaccination; $4.7 million for the Local Assistance Road Program to repave Georgia roads and $100,000 for an outside audit of the state electronic voting system.

The Senate will now consider the supplemental budget while budget writers continue to work on the state spending plan for fiscal year 2008, which begins July 1.

Tuesday, March 27 was “crossover day” for the 2007 session of the Georgia General Assembly. As the 30th legislative day of the session, it was the deadline for measures to be sent from either the House of Representatives or the Senate for consideration by the other chamber this year.

Among the measures approved by the House was legislation would disqualify thousands of Georgia children from health care coverage under the PeachCare for Kids program. I voted against House Bill 340 because lowering the eligibility level to 200 percent of the federal poverty level from the current 235 percent is not necessary to sustain PeachCare’s financial viability.

HB 340 would actually allow the Department of Community Health to reduce the rate to 185 percent if it so desires.  HB 340 would also require families to pay a premium for dental and vision care when the existing program provides it for free.

Congress is delivering the action its leaders have promised to meet the federal funding shortfall for PeachCare. This should not be an occasion to kick Georgia’s working families out of the program.

House members adopted legislation I co-sponsored, which would create the Georgia Arts Alliance and foster a public-private partnership for support of the arts in our state, was favorably reported by the House Economic Development & Tourism Committee. HB 291, which would also develop a Future Art and Music Teachers pilot program, now goes to the Senate for its consideration.

Legislation that would, for the fourth time in five years, delay plans to reduce class sizes in Georgia schools, was also approved by the House majority.  Since taking office in 2003, Governor Sonny Perdue has delayed implementation of this important education initiative claiming lack of revenue, every year except 2006, when he was seek-king re-election.  Reducing the teacher/pupil ratio has proven value in our schools, which is why I voted against HB 332.

The House passed HR 273, by a unanimous vote of 165-0.  The resolution calls for the U.S. Congress to continue pressing for strong measures to end the violence in Sudan.

It also urges the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide guidance to public pension fund managers in order to avoid investments which may be supporting nations involved in the support of terrorism or human rights violations.

Also this week, the House approved Senate legislation that would authorize optometrists to prescribe a limited number of eye medications. House members amended SB 17 to include a longer list of medications and a compromise version will have to be worked out between the two chambers. Georgia is the only state in the nation that does not grant optometrists these prescriptive rights.

Among the legislative proposals that did not make it out of the House on crossover day included HB 163, which would repeal the state’s ban on “payday lending.” For the second time in a week, it was narrowly voted down. Not even coming up for a vote in the House were HB 610, which would allow for excessive tree-cutting around billboards along Georgia’s interstates, highways and roads, HB 195, which would have exempted all retirement income from state income tax, and HB 337, which would have dramatically changed Georgia’s Certificate of Need law for construction of health care facilities. These bills and others will be studied later in the year and be eligible for consideration in the 2008 legislative session.

Along with other members of the Fulton County legislative delegation, I am very concerned about the shocking results of a Georgia Office of the Child Advocate audit of the county’s Department of Family & Children Services (DFCS).

The report, which characterizes the DFCS performance with language such as "high failure rate,” “obviously poor casework,” and “inexcusable,” comes after Governor Perdue and other leaders failed to implement measures to help protect Georgia’s most vulnerable children. It has been nearly three years since Perdue announced a major DFCS overhaul and his reform efforts, like DFCS itself, have failed miserably.

It is time now for the Governor and members of the legislative leadership to take action, including a comprehensive statewide review of DFCS to determine if this colossal failure to protect our children is going on around the state.

By a vote of 106-65, House members approved HB 185, which gives a judge the option to apply the death penalty if at least 10 out of 12 jurors in capital cases vote for that recommendation. I voted against this legislation in favor of current law, which requires a unanimous jury to apply the capital punishment. We have had too many cases in Georgia recently where it was determined years later the wrong person had been sent to prison for certain crimes, and we cannot afford to lower the standard for condemning a defendant to death row.

• Rep. Kathy Ashe (D-Atlanta) represents the 56th District (Fulton County) in the Georgia House of Representatives. Contact her at 409 Coverdell Office Building, Atlanta, GA  30334; by phone at 404-656-0116 or by e-mail at kathyashe56@mindspring.com.