Lawmakers working on ways to give Georgia’s record $16B surplus back to taxpayers

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A new bill that passed out of its committee on Wednesday would return tax dollars to the pockets of Georgians.

The state currently has a record $16 billion in rainy day funds. But because of the way Georgia law works, only the governor can dictate how those funds are spent and he can only allocate 15% of tax revenue left over from the previous year to put towards things like tax rebates, pay raises and other methods of returning tax dollars to state employees and residents.

“That acts as a savings account essentially, so at the end of the year, any money left over from tax revenue that hasn’t been spent automatically goes into the revenue shortfall reserve,” said Danny Kanso with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “The problem is that under state law, we limit the revenue shortfall reserve to 15% of tax collections. So that account right now is capped out at about $5.4 billion.”

House Bill 464 would allow access to 25% of the revenue shortfall reserve and would also allow lawmakers some say in how it’s spent.

The General Assembly has raised the threshold in the past, like in 2011, when it was raised from 10% to its current 15% rate. But this new law would also make them part of the process.

“We have this huge amount of money that there are plenty of ideas for across the political spectrum that right now is really being unused,” said Kanso.

“It’s sitting there, and it’s not really having any direction,” said State Representative Beth Camp (R-Concord), who voted for the bill in the House Ways and Means Committee. “There are opportunities for the General Assembly to use those funds in a very measured way, in a very direct way, that otherwise was not provided for in law.”

The $16 billion reserve figure represents about 45% of the state’s entire operating budget, and it’s only expected to grow in years to come if lawmakers can’t figure out a way to put it toward constituents.

“There’s so many needs, so many proposals to use those funds, and right now they’re just being held in an account that Georgians really don’t know too much about,” said Kanso. “You could see them spent of things like school busses, or childcare, or tax relief, or a whole host of things.”

“We’re putting money back in the pockets of people who put it in the coffers,” said Camp. “Taxation when there is such a large rainy-day fund is very hard to justify.”

But lawmakers will have to act fast if they want the bill to have a chance this session. The General Assembly is approaching crossover day, where bills that haven’t passed with the state House or Senate essentially fall flat until next year or indefinitely.

Kanso said it would be a useful “tool” for lawmakers to effectively return tax dollars to the people they came from.

“It is a recognition from the General Assembly that we have this huge quantity of funds available, more than we’ve ever seen in Georgia history, and that’s a big opportunity for the General Assembly,” he said. “There are a lot of needs out there, there are a lot of folks that want to see change in their community, positive investments, and this is the biggest opportunity we’ve seen in state history to be able to move the needle in that way.”