SITTING IN ON APPROPRIATIONS MEETINGS
On Tuesday, January 16, my legislative colleagues and I returned to the State Capitol to begin “budget week.” Each year, the Georgia General Assembly is tasked with one constitutional obligation which is to pass a balanced budget, and, as such, the second week of the legislative session is historically devoted to joint House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearings to begin the state budget process. To kick-off budget week, Governor Brian Kemp presented his formal recommendations to the joint committee for the current and upcoming fiscal year budgets, and the governor’s proposal will ultimately be incorporated into legislation that will guide how our state allocates its spending. You can watch a video archive of the governor’s budget proposal presentation here.
Although freshman House members do not sit on the Appropriations Committee, I made sure to attend each meeting so I will have a full grasp of how we are spending the tax dollars of hardworking Georgians. As we start the state budget process, the Appropriations Committee will begin drafting two budget bills. The first bill, the Amended Fiscal Year 2024 (AFY 2024) budget, will appropriate spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year ending on June 30 and accounts for any differences between last year’s projected revenue estimate and actual revenue obtained. Based on updated revenue estimates, the AFY 2024 budget will include approximately $5.06 billion in additional revenue that our state can utilize over the next six months. This adjustment brings the total appropriation for the Fiscal Year 2024 budget to $37.51 billion. The second bill, the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025) budget, will determine state spending for the upcoming fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2024, and ending on June 30, 2025. This FY 2025 budget is set at a revenue estimate of $36 billion.
