Georgia’s spending per pupil has grown over the past two decades, but its enrollment has increased at a higher rate, a new analysis found.
According to the Reason Foundation’s 2022 K-12 Education Spending Spotlight, Georgia’s inflation-adjusted per-pupil K-12 revenues grew by 6.2% — or $803 per student — between 2002 and 2020. During that same period, enrollment increased by 18%.
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Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow and tenured associate professor of English at Georgia State University, Rob Jenkins, joined The Lars Larson Show to discuss the Biden Administration’s proposed Title IX changes.
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Georgia ranks second in the country for its election integrity measures, an analysis found.
According to the Election Integrity Scorecard from the Heritage Foundation, the Peach State ranked behind only its neighbor to the north, Tennessee. Hawaii ranked last on the list, just behind Nevada and California.
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Georgia plans to spend about $20 million on a program to give teachers and school employees a $125 bonus, a state official confirmed on Friday.
Georgia announced the “Back-to-School Supply Supplement” program in July. Under the plan, the state will give a $125 supplement to teachers and school staff members “who work to provide instructional and supportive services directly to students on a daily basis.”
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Georgia officials plan to use federal COVID relief money to fund improvements to sidewalks, parks and “healthy food access.”
The state intends to use American Rescue Plan dollars to fund the $250 million “Improving Neighborhood Outcomes in Disproportionately Impacted Communities” grant program.
The state will award up to $2 million per qualified project. State officials say the program will lower levels of mortality and illness.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has again extended the suspension of state taxes on motor and locomotive fuel.
On Thursday, Kemp signed an executive order to suspend the taxes and extend a supply chain state of emergency. The orders are valid through Oct. 12.
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U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) has offered no concrete plan to deal with the border crisis as Acting Chief Patrol Agent Keith Hoops of the Swanton Sector recently revealed the escalating number of illegal crossings.
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Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker is leading Democrat incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock by two points, while the GOP Gov. Brian Kemp leads Democrat challenger Stacey Abrams by four points, according to a new poll.
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Georgia is giving more than $62.4 million in federal COVID relief money to groups fighting homelessness and housing insecurity worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state is allocating American Rescue Plan and State Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars to the 20 projects receiving money.
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As summer comes to an end, parents are once again questioning whether neighborhood schools can give their children what they need.
According to the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), low-income students are 2.8 years’ worth of learning behind their more affluent peers. Similarly, a Reveal analysis of hundreds of public schools across Georgia found that most special education courses are being taught by underqualified teachers. This is not the fault of the teachers, the majority are doing their best while dealing with overcrowded classrooms and unrealistic expectations from leadership-heavy school systems. However, this does not change the fact that it is a problem.
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A Gwinnett County woman who held an election integrity panel over the weekend to educate Georgians says men who she believes were impersonating police officers showed up at her home and detained her hours before the event began.
“The long and short of what occurred, is I had an encounter with the police right before I went to the event,” Surrea Ivey told The Georgia Star News. “Initially, I didn’t think anything about it. When somebody – I say somebody because I subsequently found out it was not the police – when these individuals knocked on my door, they were in police uniform and they said they had reason to believe I was in possession of government equipment.”
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Georgia Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock more than doubled his income after joining Congress, according to his financial disclosure records.
Most of Warnock’s income outside of his estimated $174,000 annual Senate salary comes from his book deal and the church in which has served as senior pastor for nearly two decades.
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A group of Georgians still fighting for election integrity after President Joe Biden was declared the winner by a tiny margin in the Peach State Monday filed a massive challenge to the Gwinnett County Board of Elections.
“A stunning total of 37,500 affidavits are delivered to the Gwinnett County Board of Elections office in challenge of the voter rolls and handling of the 2020 Election,” said a press release from what is described as a group “team of patriotic Georgia residents.” “These affidavits include 20,000 challenges to actual votes that were certified just after the 2020 election. The submitted affidavits only include Gwinnett County vote challenges. Still, the number far exceeds the Presidential spread for the entire state of Georgia and confirms the 2020 election should not have been certified!
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President Joe Biden and his administration recently passed legislation that prioritizes clean and renewable energy instead of fossil fuels and older forms of energy.
Liz Peek, an opinion contributor at TheHill.com, said the country’s record-setting natural gas prices can be traced to the Biden administration’s push for alternative energy and efficiency and what many conservatives call a “war on American energy.”
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A pro-economic freedom group targeting the Hispanic community is sounding the alarm on the harm of inflation.
According to a report from Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee, the cost of inflation in Georgia exceeds the national average, costing families 12.1% more to live. Households in Georgia are paying $598 more per month and $7,175 more per year.
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Amid record-high inflation sweeping the country, the expense of raising a child has reached new heights. What is commonly called “Bideninflation” costs families $26,000 more per child.
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The federal government pays millions of dollars annually to subsidize commercial air service at the Macon, Georgia, airport.
The Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon receives nearly $4.7 million annually — or more than $19.5 million over four years and two months — as part of the Alternate Essential Air Service program. AEAS is similar to the Essential Air Service program, which Congress created in 1978, except that the money may go to a community instead of directly to an air carrier.
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The United States, including Georgia, isn’t ready to fully adopt electric vehicles (EVs), and hybrids continue to be a better alternative for the near term, a high-ranking Toyota executive told the Wall Street Journal.
High EV prices and a small charging infrastructure are holding the market back, Jack Hollis, executive vice president of sales at Toyota Motor North America said during “a virtual event with journalists,” the Journal reported in its news story.
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New economic data shows Georgia is outperforming many other states across the country.
Georgia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate now stands at a record low of 2.8% in July. A new WalletHub analysis found that Georgia has the 15th best change in its unemployment rate
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Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and chief of staff Mark Meadows are now being called to testify in the investigation in Georgia on whether former President Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 elections in the state.
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Another day, another dollar dispersed.
Georgia’s governor is again turning to federal COVID-19 relief money to provide grants to another constituency. This time, he plans to give $100 million to law enforcement agencies statewide.
Gov. Brian Kemp is turning to the American Rescue Plan and the State Fiscal Recovery Fund to dole out grants of up to $1.5 million per award. Awardees can put the money toward a range of initiatives, from law enforcement staffing to investing in technology and equipment to respond to the uptick in gun violence.
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A former congressional candidate in Georgia will host a forum this weekend at St. Benedict’s Catholic Church in Duluth that will inform Georgia’s voters on how elections are conducted in the Peach State.
Surrea Ivey, who ran for Congress in Georgia’s 4th Congressional District, is hosting the event.
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President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some federal student loan debt received a lukewarm reaction from some Georgia groups who say the policy is unfair and won’t help ease inflation.
“We’re disappointed to see yet another policy out of Washington that creates more problems than it solves,” Eric Cochling, the chief program officer and general counsel for the Georgia Center for Opportunity, said. “In addition to contributing to already runaway inflation, this plan from the White House doesn’t actually forgive debt, it simply transfers the burden to taxpayers.”
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was “swatted” at her home in Rome, Georgia at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, after a pro-trans extremist made a false 911 call to the police. Five officers were reportedly dispatched to Greene’s house in response to an alarming false report. In an interview later Monday, Green said she had immediately grabbed her gun upon hearing a ruckus outside her front door, but she thankfully put it down before she answered.
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Georgia could soon implement a program that proponents say will lead to more coverage for Georgians who are otherwise ineligible for Medicaid.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision when it rescinded a Medicaid waiver for Georgia Pathways to Coverage program, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled last week.
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) took his opponent, Stacey Abrams(D), to task, when he called her out for her inability to stick to a stance on political issues in a statement released on Tuesday.
“Stacey Abrams opposed suspending the gas tax and returning $1 billion to taxpayers, but now she’s on my record. She can’t have it both ways. Abrams has embraced the policies of Joe Biden that have led to disaster at the border, high gas prices, and empty grocery shelves,” Governor Kemp said.
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Opponents of a state voting law say they plan to continue their fight after a federal judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction against Georgia’s “line relief” ban at polling places.
Senate Bill 202, the Election Integrity Act, which lawmakers passed in 2021, included several changes to Georgia’s election laws. Under one of the provisions, volunteers cannot engage in so-called “line relief,” which bans people from giving food and water to anyone waiting to vote.
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A year-and-a-half after a law requiring hospitals to post accurate prices online went into effect, roughly three-quarters of Georgia hospitals continue to hide the cost of care from consumers.
That’s according to a new report from PatientRightsAdvocate.org. The organization reviewed 2,000 of the 6,000 accredited hospitals nationwide and found that a mere 16% complied with a federal hospital price transparency rule that took effect on Jan. 1, 2021.
In Georgia, 78% of hospitals are non-compliant.
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Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King (R) publicly chastised the AllState insurance company for drastic insurance price hikes in a statement on Thursday.
“AllState raised rates by 14 percent earlier this year. Now, it’s trying to fleece working Georgians again with a 25% rate hike next month. AllState is exploiting a loophole in Georgia law to do this – and it’s the only major provider doing so. The first step is calling them out,” Commissioner King said.
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Afederal appeals court temporarily paused an order Sunday that required Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to testify in front of an Atlanta-area grand jury about attempts to illegally influence Georgia’s 2020 election results.
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals instructed the district court judge to consider whether the Fulton County grand jury subpoena of Graham should be modified to follow the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, CNN reported.
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Georgia’s two senators voted for the Democrats’ recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, even though it strips South Korean automaker Kia — one of the state’s largest employers — of eligibility for the law’s electric vehicle tax credits.
Kia, which employs thousands in Georgia, is planning to build another automobile factory in the state and hire 8,500 people, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Due to domestic assembly requirements in the new law, however, the automaker’s EV and plug-in fleet will lose their current eligibility for $7,500 tax credits on the purchase of new electric vehicles.
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Former Georgia House representative and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams admitted during an Aug. 7 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash that she was pro-life until she went to college.
Abrams credited her college experience with flipping her stance on abortion. According to the gubernatorial candidate, she began to reposition her beliefs after having conversations with a “friend” who used faith to ground her pro-abortion argument.
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Like power companies nationwide, Georgia Power is working to “decarbonize” its power generation and has committed to adding more green energy over the next decade.
Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company that traces its origins to 1902 as an operator of streetcars in Atlanta, has more than 2.6 million customers across The Peach State, including customers in 155 of Georgia’s 159 counties.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is again turning to the federal government to dole out more cash to Peach State residents.
The governor has funneled more than $1 billion in money from the American Rescue Plan’s State Fiscal Recovery Fund to the state’s Department of Human Services. The agency will give up to $350 in cash to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients in Georgia.
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A manufacturer of windows and doors plans to invest up to $125 million to expand its middle Georgia facility.
Atlanta-based YKK AP America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based YKK AP, will create 100 additional jobs at its expanded Bibb County manufacturing facility. As is typical for jobs classified as in progress, state officials declined to divulge whether the state offered any incentives to entice the expansion or what it might cost Georgia taxpayers.
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Governor Brian P. Kemp (R) announced on Monday he has tapped Mike Register to replace Vic Reynolds as the newest Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
“Mike [Register] has a strong track record of strengthening public safety and protecting Georgia’s communities,” Governor Kemp said.
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A Fulton County Superior Court judge declined a request to block Georgia’s fetal heartbeat law that bans most abortions after six weeks.
Georgia lawmakers passed House Bill 481, the Living Infants Fairness Equality Act, in 2019. However, a federal judge initially blocked the law, commonly called the “Heartbeat Bill,” because the U.S. Supreme Court had previously upheld the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
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Liberal “fact-checker” PolitiFact denounced a claim made in a Saturday statement by Stacey Abrams (D) that Governor Brian Kemp (R) and Georgia’s House Bill 481 stipulates a warrant for the arrest of women who suffer a miscarriage.
“Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has not said he wants women investigated or punished for pregnancies that end in miscarriage. A six-week abortion law he signed said miscarriages are legal,” PolitiFact said.
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A Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesman told The Georgia Star News that the RNC is “leading the way on ensuring that elections are free, fair, and transparent by building an unprecedented election integrity program” with a three-pronged approach.
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Republican nominee Mark Gonsalves (R-GA-07) called the proposition for IRS expansion made by the Biden administration “the definition of runaway democracy” and criticized his opponent, Lucy McBath, for her support of the incumbent president.
“Tuesday Trivia fact that’s real, believe it or not. Under Joe Biden, the IRS staff will be larger than the combined totals of the FBI, the Pentagon, the Border Patrol, and the State Department. That is the definition of runaway democracy,” Gonsalves said in reference the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is sending more than $300 million to help Georgia bolster health programs at the Grady and Augusta University health systems.
The money will support Georgia’s Advancing Innovation to Deliver Equity program. Under the initiative, the two health systems will see higher Medicaid payment rates on services provided through Georgia’s managed care program.
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Sen. Raphael Warnock has collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from political action committees (PAC) funded by corporations this election cycle, records show. At the same time, the senator has said he’s “never taken a dime of corporate PAC money” and pledged not to do so.
Warnock’s campaign took $29,600 during the first and second quarters of 2022 from Democratic leadership PACs that have in turn accepted $1.6 million from corporate-backed PACs since 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records (FEC) reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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A Georgia lawmaker will support additional funding for the Georgia Composite Medical Board to hire additional investigators if the agency asks for the money.
“I don’t think they have enough investigators and when they ask for appropriations for that I will support it,” state Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta, an orthopedic hand surgeon for more than 30 years, told The Center Square.
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Duluth Trading Company plans to invest $53 million to build a new distribution and fulfillment facility in Bartow County.
The Wisconsin-based company plans to create more than 300 new jobs at the Adairsville facility.
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The slight drop in the rise of consumer prices may only be a momentary bit of relief as federal policy could make matters worse, a Georgia nonprofit said.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers Increased 8.5% over the past 12 months. That is down from a 9.1% year-over-year increase in June.
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Governor Brian Kemp (R) will be the featured speaker at Cherokee County GOP’s August breakfast on Saturday, an event which will also include State Senator Kay Kirkpatrick (R-Marietta) and Georgia State School Superintendent Richard Woods.
“I am excited to join hardworking Georgians in Cherokee County this weekend! Every day, Georgians and Americans are witnessing the failure of the Biden Administration and Democrats in Washington, but make no mistake: their failed policies are Stacey Abrams’ agenda for Georgia,” Kemp told The Georgia Star News on Tuesday.
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Governor Brian P. Kemp (R) touted a record start to the fiscal year that the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) has seen, as it handled 530,800 container units in July for an increase of 18 percent.
“Again and again Georgia Ports break records while demonstrating why we’re the best place to do business. Congratulations on a great start to the fiscal year!” Governor Kemp said.
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While many pundits lauded Friday’s job numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a Georgia nonprofit is raising a red flag.
On Friday, the feds announced higher than expected job numbers, showing that total non-farm payroll employment increased by 528,000 in July.
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Republican Agricultural Commissioner Nominee Tyler Harper and GOP nominee Chris West (R-GA-02) hosted an agricultural roundtable in Dawson on Wednesday.
“Great time in Dawson today meeting with [agricultural] leaders supporting my friend Tyler Harper for Agriculture Commissioner. Southwest Georgia is ready to elect strong leaders who will fight for our state’s #1 industry!” West said on Wednesday.
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The Georgia Department of Community Health has awarded $9 million in Rural Hospital Stabilization Grants to 10 rural Georgia hospitals.
The hospitals will each receive $900,000 to support initiatives strengthening underserved communities’ access to care.
The Rural Hospital Stabilization Grant, established in 2014, ostensibly helps address the challenges rural hospitals across The Peach State face. DCH’s State Office of Rural Health, which facilitates the initiative, has awarded more than $39 million in grants since the program’s inception.
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