Arts cuts prompt protest at state Capitol

Macon.com:

Several hundred people rallied outside the Capitol on Monday to protest state budget cuts to arts programs.

They chanted “Save the arts!” to the accompaniment of bongo drums and flute music, and passing drivers honked their horns in support. The largely youthful crowd was concerned about the state’s plan to eliminate the Georgia Council for the Arts to save money.

About $250,000 in state money would be kept to provide art grants to various communities, but artists fear eliminating the council itself would cause the state to lose out on the $900,000 or so it gets now in federal National Endowment for the Arts money.

When combined with state funding, these grants reach “every single county in Georgia,” said Cindy Hill, grants director for the Macon Arts Alliance. They support artists and spur tourism, funding festivals such as the Bragg Jam’s free arts and kids festival, the Knoxville JugFest and part of the Pioneer Days Festival in Twiggs County, Hill said.

It remains to be seen whether funding for the council will be put back in the state budget, which has already passed the House of Representatives, as it works its way through the Senate this week. But there was some good news Monday for arts supporters. A bill that would allow local communities to implement fraction-of-a-penny sales taxes to support local arts projects and groups made it through committee Monday afternoon.

That idea died earlier this session in the House, but it was revived in the Senate Finance Committee on Monday when it was spliced into another piece of tax legislation, House Bill 335.

If the legislation survives, local voters could vote to increase sales taxes to fund operations for various nonprofits that support artistic endeavors. It’s possible that the fractional tax could be used to support the Georgia sports and music halls of fame in Macon, supporters have said.

Bill would put sports, music halls up for sale

Legislation that would essentially put the Georgia sports and music halls of fame up for sale, as well as overhaul the board that controls the Sports Hall of Fame inductions, moved forward Monday at the Capitol.

Senate Bill 523 already had passed the Senate, and Monday it cleared a House committee. That moves it closer to a vote on the full House of Representatives floor.

Initially a way for Gov. Sonny Perdue to shrink the size of the sports hall’s controlling board, the bill was changed in the Senate to include a call for proposals to move the halls or take over operations funding in Macon.

The bill says the state will call for proposals by the end of this year for “a new location or alternative ownership, management and operation” of the halls. The bill also makes it clear that Macon and Bibb County will get a crack at keeping the halls by making their own proposals.

A local hotel-motel tax increase to help fund the halls already has passed the House and Senate this year and is waiting on Perdue’s signature.

House bill could add arbitrator tax feuds

Legislation that could affect sales tax negotiations between Macon and Bibb County, as well as other local governments across the state, is working its way toward becoming law.

House Bill 991 would implement a Major League Baseball-style arbitration system into local option sales tax negotiations between counties and cities. These LOST taxes are a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax, with the proceeds typically divided by a county commission and city governments in a community. They have to be renegotiated every 10 years or so, and if county and city leaders can’t agree how to split the money, the tax sunsets. That possibility put the city of Macon at a disadvantage when the tax was renegotiated in 2002. It helped Bibb win 40 percent of the tax proceeds, instead of the 20 percent it had been taking. The city’s current budget troubles soon followed as it lost more than $5 million in annual revenue and spent its reserves down to nearly nothing.

Macon and Bibb will have to renegotiate that split again relatively soon, as well as work through various service delivery and consolidation issues. They’re currently arguing about a new special purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST, which differs from the LOST.

But under House Bill 991, LOSTs wouldn’t sunset if city and county leaders can’t come to an agreement. Instead, an arbitrator would be named and both sides would submit a proposed split. Like in Major League Baseball, the arbitrator would have to pick one of those splits and it would be implemented, said state Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, the bill’s sponsor.

This legislation passed the House and Senate last year, but it was vetoed by Perdue. Changes have been made, and Perdue is expected to sign the new version, assuming it makes it again through the full General Assembly.

Bill to overhaul sex offender laws passes House

Various rewrites to Georgia’s sex offender laws moved forward Monday at the state Capitol.

Sponsored by Speaker of the House David Ralston, House Bill 571 is a lengthy overhaul of the state’s rules for sex offenders. Those rules have been criticized as difficult to enforce and, in some cases, unconstitutional. Many feel they don’t make enough distinctions between serious sex crimes and relatively minor offenses.

Ralston’s bill already has passed the House, and it cleared a key Senate committee unanimously Monday. That makes it available for debate and a vote on the full Senate floor.

Kidd measure seeks mental health oversight panel

State Rep. Rusty Kidd, I-Milledgeville, got a new legislative oversight committee that would focus on mental health care tacked onto another bill Monday.

Senate Bill 443 would do several things, but Kidd’s amendment sets up an eight-person committee, appointed by the House, Senate and governor, to watch over the state’s Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities. That’s the department created last year to focus on mental health and physical disability care in the wake of a federal investigation into suspicious deaths at state institutions, including Central State Hospital.

Kidd said he was surprised to learn, in the newspaper, that the state was shuttering buildings at the hospital, including the Powell Building there. And he said there wasn’t enough oversight when the department signed a mulitmillion-dollar contract with a private doctor tasked with overhauling the state’s system.

Too often “the department heads are running the state with no oversight by people who are elected and are responsible for state government,” Kidd said. Kidd’s amendment passed a House committee Monday.

Multiyear leases bill for state passes committee

Legislation meant to help the state save money by signing longer real estate and other contracts passed committee Monday at the Capitol.

Senate Bill 254 and Senate Resolution 510 would authorize multiyear leases, instead of limiting the state to a series of one-year contracts, as is now law. Voters would have to approve a change to the Georgia Constitution first, though, and the resolution calls for a November referendum on the issue.

Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, has estimated that the state could save about $37 million over 10 years if it makes the change.

Read more: http://www.macon.com/2010/04/20/1100048/arts-cuts-prompt-protest-at-state.html#ixzz0lhBie5N6

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House