With only two months to go before the start of the 2018 legislative session, the Deal administration is finding that propping up Georgia’s teacher pension system is making its job difficult as it seeks to write a balanced budget.
The administration had been warning for months that there wouldn’t be a lot of extra money to spend next year.
But during a conference at Georgia State University, Teresa MacCartney, the governor’s budget director, made it clear the reason is a huge jump in payments to the teacher pension system.
“The (fiscal) 2019 budget is projecting revenue growth,” MacCartney said. “The reality is the largest single item you will see in the budget is pensions.”
She said Gov. Nathan Deal and lawmakers next year will need to add at least $351 million to the more than $1.5 billion the government already puts into the teacher pension system. And she said that figure might grow.