Issues to watch as lawmakers return to Atlanta

By AJC staff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 9, 2011

It sounds like a broken record, but lawmakers face another year of tough budget cutting in 2011.

Estimates put the shortfall for the upcoming budget year at between $1.2 billion and $2 billion.

Unless somebody comes up with some bright new ideas (and money), that will probably mean more spending cuts to education.

Lawmakers also will be dealing with a rewrite of the state's tax code. A council is expected to recommend this week that the state put the sales tax back on all groceries and begin charging a sales tax on more goods and services. The trade-off is that the council will likely also recommend a gradual reduction in the state's income tax rate and a cut in corporate taxes.

Education

Education will be one of the hottest topics of the session, with lottery funds going out the door to pay for the popular HOPE scholarship and pre-k programs faster than they are coming in. Both state programs, arguably the most popular in decades, could be scaled back based on forecasts of a $320 million deficit in lottery money to cover the programs' expenses for fiscal 2012.

Educators also are collectively on edge about the massive budget cuts that are expected to state schools at all levels, including technical colleges and universities, as lawmakers address the severe revenue shortfall in the absence of federal stimulus money to plug holes.

In addition, lawmakers are likely to be pressured to take up bills on public school vouchers, immigrants and education, and dual enrollment for high school students.

Ethics

Several changes to state ethics rules take effect Monday, thanks to the first comprehensive update to state ethics laws in several years. The biggest changes involve requiring lobbyists to report their spending activities twice a month during the legislative session. Because of the fight during the 2010 session over the new ethics law, the prospects of lawmakers revisiting these rules again this session are mixed.

Leaders in the House and Senate are unlikely to be interested in making their own conduct a focus of another session, but the man who pushed for more comprehensive changes a year ago said he is planning to take another shot. House Judiciary Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, said in December that he plans to try again to ban or cap lobbyist spending on lawmakers.

That idea, a favorite of many government watchdogs, failed in the final stages of the 2010 session. House Ethics Chairman Joe Wilkinson, R-Atlanta, said he does not believe caps or bans on spending work. Instead, he said, it leads to “nonreporting and underground lobbying.â€