Georgia Governor Brian Kemp laid out his agenda for the year 2022 including things like tax cuts, salary increases, criminal justice, education and healthcare.
Taxes
Governor Kemp explained in details on how he wants to spend the states surplus of roughly 2.2 billion dollars. Governor Kemp wants to give Georgia residents 250 dollars per individual tax payer. This means Georgia residents filing married would receive 500 dollars.
Kemp also said he would like to eliminate state income tax for retired people and members of the military. Governor Kemp also said he is open to exploring other ideas to cut taxes.
Criminal Justice
The governor will back legislation to create an anti-gang unit in the state attorney general’s office and devote millions of dollars to hire dozens of technicians at the state’s overwhelmed crime lab.
Governor Kemp also wants to increase training for police officers. Last year the state had 75 cadets. Governor is proposing to offer free tuition for 1,000 Georgians.
The Governor also said he supports legislation to crack down human trafficking that is taking place in the state.
Education
Public school teachers will get another $2,000 raise on top of the $3,000 hike that was previously approved by legislators. There’s also a one-time $2,000 bonus for the teachers to speed the payments, along with a one-time $1,000 bonus for school bus drivers, nutrition workers and part-time workers.
Governor Kemp is also proposing for all k-12 schools to be fully funded and reverse the tax cuts that happened for education during the pandemic returning roughly 425 million dollars back to the schools.
Healthcare
The governor hasn’t yet revealed how to counter the White House decision to reject his proposal to require that more low income and uninsured adults in Georgia meet a work requirement to join the Medicaid rolls.
He said he would include $1 million for the University System of Georgia to expand nursing programs up to 500 students annually, along with more funding for the Technical College System to grow their partnership with Allied Health to serve up to 700 additional students annually.
His spending proposal would also allocate $2.5 million for 136 residency slots and another $1 million to Mercer University to address rural physician shortages. He said the spending would finance an additional 1,300 healthcare practitioners in the state.
Governor Kemp is up for re-election this year. Governor Kemp is running for another term in office. Georgian voters will head to the polls on May 24th for the primaries.
