ATLANTA (AP) – Gov. Brian Kemp is proposing almost $3 billion more in spending from state revenue in the 2023 budget year that begins July 1, led by more than $1 billion in pay and retirement increases for Georgia’s state, K-12 and university employees.
That includes $2,000 for teachers and $5,000 for university and state agency employees. Kemp wants to give those amounts as one-time payments this year, and then as permanent pay raises next year.
Kemp wants to spend $30.2 billion in state revenue in the 2023 budget, up from the $27.3 billion originally agreed on this year.
The one-time payments, including a one-time $1.6 billion state income tax rebate, would actually drive state spending higher in the current year, to nearly $31.5 billion.
The Republican governor is paying for the measures thanks to the gusher of tax revenue that poured into state coffers in the 2021 budget year, when the state ran a $3.7 billion surplus, filling its rainy day fund to the legal limit and leaving $2.3 billion in additional “undesignated” surplus.