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Request a DemoWith HOPE fully funded, how can Georgia students maximize their state scholarship options?
With the HOPE Scholarship now funding college tuition at 100%, many people wonder how long that will last and what the distinctions are between HOPE and the Zell Miller Scholarship, which also fully funds tuition at state public colleges but has more demanding academic requirements. We’ve taken a look at both scholarships and have collected some insights and advice from students, parents, and college funding experts on how to earn, keep and maximize each award.
What’s Happening
Moises Guzman Jr. is a 17-year-old, freshly minted honors graduate from Coffee High School in Douglas, a town in south Georgia with a population just shy of 12,000. He plans to study engineering and business at South Georgia State College this fall, with tuition fully covered by the Zell Miller Scholarship.
“That scholarship really means a lot to me because I don’t know how much money I would be able to raise for college without it,” said Guzman, whose mother works at a nearby cargo trailer manufacturing plant. His father is recently retired from poultry processing. Both immigrated to Georgia decades ago from Mexico. Guzman works at Taco Bell and chips in to help with household expenses. He will be the first in his family to go to college.
The Zell Miller Scholarship, the most prestigious Georgia Lottery-funded college award, requires at least a 3.7 high school GPA and a minimum 1200 SAT, or 26 ACT, score. To keep the Zell Miller award, students must maintain a 3.3 GPA in college. Guzman earned a 4.0 GPA in high school, taking several Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors courses, and got a 26 on the ACT.
He’s among 22 students in Coffee County who earned the Zell Miller Scholarship this year.
Many more students qualified for the HOPE Scholarship, which has a lower academic bar — a 3.0 high school and college GPA. Over the past decade, the HOPE Scholarship has covered only 80% to 90% of tuition at most of Georgia’s public colleges and universities. This year the Legislature appropriated an extra $47 million to fully fund HOPE for fiscal year 2024. Both scholarships, awarded for attendance at schools within Georgia, will now cover 100% of public school tuition in the upcoming academic year.
Guzman said he didn’t know much about what it takes to get either scholarship until his junior year in high school. That’s when he learned that both HOPE and Zell require students to take at least four “rigor courses,” which include advanced math, advanced science, foreign language or AP, International Baccalaureate (IB) or Dual Enrollment (DE) classes at local colleges before they graduate.
Guzman talked to his high school counselor, who helped him develop a college plan, which included taking three dual enrollment classes at South Georgia State College — algebra, pre-calculus, and English— in his junior and senior years.
He also didn’t know about the difference between a regular high school GPA and the HOPE GPA, which is calculated using only grades from core courses including English, math, science, social studies and foreign languages. The HOPE GPA is what the Georgia Student Finance Commission uses to determine award eligibility. (So, art, PE, and driver’s ed classes don’t count).
Guzman also started working on the SAT his junior year, using free online resources such as Khan Academy and College Board, which offer test prep support and practice tests. He took the SAT twice and scored less than the 1200 needed to qualify for Zell. In his senior year, he took the ACT and scored a 26, the minimum score needed, on his first try. “I did struggle to get that test score,” he said.
Asked if he cares that HOPE Scholarship recipients now earn the same monetary award as Zell scholars, Guzman said, “Everyone here is really happy about it. This is a really small town and not everyone gets to go to college. If you do get one of those scholarships, it encourages you to go, and to be able to afford it. And for me, if I ever do lose Zell Miller, I’m glad I have a backup with HOPE that will still allow me to attend college.”
His sentiments are shared by many students and parents who’ve experienced or witnessed the struggle to maintain either the 3.0 or 3.3 college GPA needed to maintain the HOPE and Zell Miller Scholarships, respectively.
Daryl O’Hare of Roswell is a professional tutor with two daughters who earned Zell Miller scholarships. One just graduated from Georgia Tech, and the other is in her third year at Georgia State. She said the pressure that both of her daughters have experienced to maintain a 3.3 GPA to keep their Zell scholarships has been “intense and stressful.”
At Georgia Tech, the difference between 90% and 100% of a year’s tuition (at 15 credit hours per semester) is currently $1,026, or about $4,100 over four years. At Georgia State, the difference is $894 a year, or about $3,600 over four years. Room, board and fees can add an additional $10,000 to $20,000 per year, at both schools.
With a joint marital income of around $95,000 a year, O’Hare said the savings provided by the Zell Miller Scholarship in previous years has mattered to her family. Her eldest daughter chose to attend Georgia Tech over Northeastern University in Boston, which would have cost $45,000 more per year, all expenses considered.
“My kids knew that we were hyper-focused on making sure that they keep their scholarships,” said O’Hare. “So, you know, at Georgia Tech, there could be one professor who’s just hard as nails. And if they gave you a C, you know, everything would be in jeopardy. So, I think that having the 3.0 for everybody at the 100% rate … I don’t think that my daughters would say, ‘Oh, man, I worked so hard for that. And that’s not fair.’ I think they would be like, ‘Wow, that would take some pressure off.’” (Both of her daughters later confirmed to State Affairs that they agreed).
Not everyone feels that way.
Joshua Keenum of Woodstock has a daughter who graduated from Georgia Tech with a public policy degree this year, maintaining her Zell Miller Scholarship all four years. His son is a rising high school senior who is dual-enrolled at Kennesaw State University with hopes of attending Georgia Tech or another top research university. A math and science standout, he has the stellar grades, test scores and a resume full of AP classes, including math and genetics, to earn a Zell Miller Scholarship.
Keenum, a manager at a chain of fitness clubs, would like to see his kids’ hard efforts rewarded with extra benefits.
“When you see the students who put in more effort and have higher GPAs, they should get greater compensation with these scholarships,” said Keenum. “Why do they need to work as hard if everything is going to be given to them at a lower GPA? Does that encourage more lackluster behavior? I don’t know, but I’m of that hustler mindset, where if I’m going to get a reward, I want to be good at what I do, and not just get by … A 3.0 just does not require the same effort.”
Leaders in the state House of Representatives argued along similar lines during the last legislative session, when they initially approved funding for HOPE at 95% of tuition cost instead of the full 100% that Gov. Brian Kemp had pushed for in his proposed budget. (After some haggling among House and Senate leaders in the closing days of the session, full funding for HOPE was restored, but only for fiscal year 2024).
Helese Sandler, director of college counseling at Savannah Educational Consultants, a private tutoring and academic coaching firm, said she has “a little bit of concern that some kids striving for a 3.7 might now think, ‘I don’t need it.’ But my experience of high achievers is that they’re going after not just in-state scholarships, but all kinds of scholarships and financial aid at public and private colleges across the country, some of which are very selective. I don’t think it’s going to demotivate them at all.”
The fact that the HOPE Scholarship is funding 100% of tuition in the upcoming academic year “means that now, with a 3.0, college is going to be more affordable,” she said. “Those extra few thousand dollars can make a huge difference to some families.”
That’s true for Jakera Lowman, 17, of Garden City, who’s heading off to Georgia Southern University in Statesboro this fall. Her mother, Leslie Lowman, who works as a custodian for Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, said both the HOPE Scholarship and the federal Pell Grant are “what’s going to make college possible for my daughter,” who plans to live on campus and study nursing. With HOPE fully funded, Jakera will have $500 less in tuition to cover next year and about $2,000 less in student loans when she graduates.
About three times more students win HOPE than Zell Miller scholarships each year. In the 2022-2023 academic year so far, the state has awarded 38,002 students Zell Miller scholarships and 111,329 students HOPE scholarships.
Zell Miller scholars tend to gain admission to, and attend, the larger and more expensive colleges and universities in the state and thus win more tuition money. The average HOPE award was $4,359 per student this academic year, while the average Zell award was $8,110.
Why It Matters
Funding for the HOPE Scholarship and all HOPE tuition assistance programs can change from year to year according to the will of the governor and the General Assembly, noted Lynne Riley, who is president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and a former state treasurer and state representative. There is no statutory guarantee that HOPE tuition will remain fully funded.
The HOPE Scholarship program was created in 1993 by then-Gov. Zell Miller, and the award covered 100% of tuition and the cost of books and fees to students who earned a B average in high school and maintained a 3.0 in college. The program proved very popular and helped drive increased enrollment at state colleges and universities.
The Zell Miller Scholarship was later created in response to an economic downturn. In 2011, in the wake of the ‘Great Recession,’ the Legislature reduced HOPE awards after lottery revenues failed to keep up with ever-increasing student demand. The Zell Miller Scholarship, with its more rigorous academic requirements, was introduced as a way to reward high-achieving students with full tuition while cutting the overall costs of the HOPE program.
“I was in the General Assembly when we had to make that call,” said Riley. “That was rough, but it was something where we had to react to the circumstances at the time.”
The Georgia economy is currently strong, and the Georgia Lottery, which funds both pre-kindergarten and higher education programs, boasts a surplus of $1.9 billion, with $1.1 billion in unrestricted reserves. But Riley said because of variable economic conditions, the commission’s primary message to high school students is to “aim high academically.”
“Once you achieve Zell, you can rest assured you’ve earned a 100% award of a current year’s tuition,” she said. “So you protect yourself against tuition increases, and you protect yourself against any reductions in the HOPE award amount in future years.”
Riley noted that students who qualify for Zell Miller scholarships “are highly attractive to our state colleges and universities and are very likely to receive additional scholarships and financial aid” from both public and private institutions.
That’s the case for Moises Guzman, who was selected as a Live Màs Scholar by Taco Bell and won an additional $13,000 in scholarship funds. He said those funds will prove vital if he’s successful in transferring to Valdosta State or a bigger university further away from home in a couple of years. For now, he’s planning to save on room and board by living at home.
And for students who enroll in private colleges and universities in Georgia, there is still an immediate financial benefit to being a Zell Miller scholar. The award amount for HOPE scholarships at private schools is $2,496 per semester, while the award for Zell Miller scholarships is $2,985 per semester, almost $1,000 more per year.
The key to winning either of the HOPE program scholarships is to start early, in 9th grade, to develop a college plan, said Sandler. Students should make sure they’re taking the right mix of classes to qualify for admission to their target schools, as well as scholarships and financial aid.
Jakera Lowman did just that, taking several AP and honors courses while earning certifications in child care and cosmetology at Woodville Tompkins Technical and Career High School. “She set her expectations high and then exceeded them,” said her mother, Leslie.
Jakera said her plan was to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA throughout high school. By her junior year, with a solid B-plus average, she began gunning for Zell. She ended up just short, with a 3.7 HOPE GPA, and an 1150 on the SAT, earning her a HOPE Scholarship and offers from several in- and out-of-state colleges, public and private.
“She took on a lot, and there were nights when she would have anxiety attacks, worrying about her grades in her advanced classes, which seemed to get harder and harder,” said Leslie Lowman. “But I was her cheerleader and I always reminded her that she was trying her best, and that was good enough.”
“The amount of work in the advanced courses can be overwhelming, but college is expensive, and I’m really glad I got HOPE, and I won’t have to go too deep out of pocket to pay for it,” said Jakera.
Even if you shoot for Zell and miss out, maintaining a B or better grade average can also pay off in other ways, said Sandler.
Many colleges in Georgia and other states no longer require the SAT or ACT. But most colleges that offer score-optional admission do require a 3.2 or 3.3 high school GPA, she said.
So students who don’t test well should still keep their grades up in hopes of gaining admission to such schools as Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Kennesaw State and Oglethorpe universities. Many of these schools offer their own grants and scholarships that factor in both academic merit and financial need.
A 3.0 or higher college GPA at the University of Georgia can help students qualify for the Georgia Charter Scholarship, a $2,000 annual stipend. Georgia State offers several renewable scholarships worth $1,000 to $3,000 annually to students who maintain a 3.0.
The Georgia Futures website, where Georgia students apply for college and financial aid, has links to dozens of public- and privately-funded scholarships that high school and college students with a B average can earn.
What’s Next
When the General Assembly convenes in January, it will consider Kemp’s proposed amended fiscal year 2024 and 2025 budgets, which will likely include continued full funding of the HOPE Scholarship. Economists predict another healthy state budget surplus when the 2023 fiscal year ends on June 30, and the Georgia Lottery surplus remains robust. But a decline in state tax revenue collections over the past three months could have some legislators girding for another vigorous debate in the Statehouse over the level of HOPE funding for the next academic year.
Have thoughts on how lottery proceeds or other state education funds should be spent or managed? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on Twitter @JOURNALISTAJILL or at [email protected].
Twitter @STATEAFFAIRSGA
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Header image: Coffee High School graduate Moises Guzman Jr. and his parents Rocio Navarrete Gonzalez and Moises Guzman Sr., celebrate his $10,000 Live Màs scholarship at the Taco Bell restaurant in Douglas, Georgia, where he works. (Credit: Tacala Companies)
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Weekend Read: Mesha Mainor expected to face uphill battle to retain seat — even against little-known competitors
Three of the four candidates for Georgia House District 56 in southwest Atlanta are scheduled to appear at a forum in Fulton County next week, just a few days ahead of the May 21 primary election.
Rep. Mesha Mainor won’t be among them. The incumbent, an Atlanta native running for her third term, said she won’t go because her alleged former stalker — one of her Democratic challengers — will be there.
But in any group of Democrats gathered in Atlanta lately, Mainor is the odd woman out. Since switching to the Republican Party last July, she has earned the enmity of many of her former Democratic colleagues, as well as the voters who elected her.
Mainor’s strong support for bills creating private school vouchers and disciplining prosecutors last year made her a pariah among some in her party. After Mainor cast the lone Democratic vote for Senate Bill 233, the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which narrowly failed, Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, said that “a Democrat who votes to defund public education should be primaried,” and posted online a photo of a $1,000 check awaiting Mainor’s primary challenger.
More condemnation and criticism from other Democrats followed, leading Mainor to announce last July that she was leaving the Democratic Party due to their “harassment” and intolerance. In doing so, she became the only Black member of the GOP among Georgia’s 236 lawmakers and the first Black Republican woman to ever serve in the Georgia General Assembly.
This year Mainor voted as a member of the Republican majority to pass the school voucher bill, as well as Senate Bill 332, which empowers the oversight commission aimed at disciplining “rogue” and errant prosecutors.
‘Dead woman walking’
Mainor’s Republican colleagues have praised her for taking a stand on the two bills, despite the political cost.
“She was a leader on that education reform bill from start to finish,” said Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, adding that “here in Georgia, I think that people want to see problem solving and effectiveness and delivering results. And that’s what she has done.”
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, told State Affairs that “[Mainor’s] support of school choice legislation played a vital role” in the bill’s passing. He added, “Representative Mainor’s dedication to common-sense policies that support Georgia’s children, families and communities has been evident since day one.”
Still, Mainor, who has no Republican primary opposition, faces long odds for reelection in November in her strongly Democratic district, where 90% of voters chose Joe Biden for president in 2020.
House District 56 is 47% Black, 32% White, 10% Asian and 6% Hispanic or Latino, and 26% of residents live below the poverty line, according to 2022 data from the Atlanta Regional Commission.
“She has incumbency in her favor, and she’ll do better than most Republicans in a heavily Democratic district where African Americans are a key constituency, but she will get nowhere close to 50% plus one vote,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
“She alienated everyone in the Democratic caucus and engendered animosity among her colleagues” through her unpopular votes, he said. And once Mainor switched parties, “she was a dead woman walking from that point on,” Bullock said. “I would imagine most Republican strategists have written that district off.”
“Party matters,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science associate professor at Emory University. Although “there is a diversity of thought within Black communities on issues related to school choice, this is likely not the top issue for voters in her district in this cycle,” Gillespie said. “And Democratic voters as a whole tend to penalize more conservative candidates. Party switching kind of goes beyond the pale. … While she may have some residual level of support as an incumbent, most people are not going to defect and go vote for her because they’ve known her before. Partisanship is going to hold that back.”
Mainor’s Democratic challengers
Mainor’s first Democratic challenger to emerge was Bryce Berry, a 22-year-old seventh-grade math teacher and president of the Young Democrats of Georgia.
Originally from St. Louis, Berry said he got involved in community organizing as a teen after the shooting death of Michael Brown by police in nearby Ferguson in 2014. At Morehouse College, Berry started a state-level student group to help elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 and then led college voter mobilization efforts for the Georgia Democratic Party in 2022.
Berry has since won the endorsement of dozens of Democratic state legislators, including most of the House leadership. He also has the backing of several Atlanta school board members, Fulton County commissioners and Democratic student organizations at Spelman and Morehouse colleges.
Berry, a teacher at Young Middle School, in southwest Atlanta has raised $36,350 in campaign contributions since last July, and his campaign war chest held $19,150 as of April 30. Mainor, meanwhile, reported raising $62,863 over the last three quarters and had $12,420 in her campaign account through April.
Berry’s platform includes measures around education reform, expanding Medicaid coverage, raising the minimum wage and working with local and federal governments to create more affordable, mixed-use housing developments in Georgia.
“Fundamentally, Rep. Mainor has left our community behind,” Berry said. “It’s not just about her switching parties; it’s about her actions. …Voters in my district feel like they are not being heard by the state, their needs are not being met and they’re ready for a return back to a visionary, progressive Democrat who will work tirelessly to improve their lives.”
Emory’s Gillespie said Berry appears to be the front-runner in the District 56 Democratic primary.
The Democratic candidate with the next-best level of name recognition in House District 56 is likely Corwin “CP” Monson.
Monson, 50, an audio engineer, was a volunteer in Mainor’s unsuccessful campaign for Atlanta City Council in 2019 before she fired him for being disruptive, she said. Soon after, she accused him of stalking her. A Fulton judge granted a temporary protective order against Monson, who was later arrested for violating it.
In September 2021, in a plea deal offered by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Monson pleaded no contest to aggravated stalking charges and accepted a three-year sentence — one in prison and the rest on probation. Having already served 10-and a-half months in jail, he was released in November 2021.
Monson has denied stalking Mainor, who he said has “lied and committed character assassination” against him. He told State Affairs he took the plea deal to get out of jail after his lawyer told him a court backlog in Fulton County meant his case might not be heard for another two years.
Monson, who has been endorsed by former state representative for District 56 “Able” Mable Thomas, is campaigning on economic development and education reform, including making the school funding formula “more equitable” for low-performing and rural schools.
Monson also seeks to expand Medicaid and other affordable health care options, as well as pursue criminal justice reform.
He reported $1,005 in campaign donations as of January, but has not yet filed a campaign finance report for the first quarter of 2024, which was due on May 7.
Last week, Mainor announced she is suing Fulton County, Willis and Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington (who initially represented Monson) in civil court for their mishandling of the stalking case against Monson, which she said was not properly investigated, was sidetracked due to interference from Arrington and resulted in a too-lenient sentence.
Also challenging Mainor is Adalina “Ada” Merello, a 42-year-old waitress who has lived in Vine City in House District 56 for two years.
Originally from Eugene, Oregon, she has an extensive background in government and campaign-related work, including working for former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on neighborhood improvement and service-based initiatives and volunteering for the campaigns of former President Barack Obama in 2012, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in 2018 and U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams and U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in 2020 and 2021.
“I’m running because the neighborhood has been misrepresented for too long,” Merello told State Affairs. “Recently, we’ve had backstabbing with misrepresentation,” she said of Mainor’s party switch. “But I believe prior to that, we just don’t have a loud enough voice at the Gold Dome. So I’m newer in the neighborhood, but what I’ve seen is just people living their day-to-day lives, wanting life to be a little easier. And I don’t mean that in a handout way but a hand-up way, of people helping each other.”
Her campaign platform includes mental health reform, with a focus on further implementing some of the parity goals established in the major mental health legislation passed in 2022.
Merello, who has openly discussed her bipolar disorder diagnosis, said she “wants to normalize mental health issues and treatment to make life easier for people who’ve had lives like mine.”
She also wants to improve public schools, create more food security for low-income residents, enact more tenant protections and expand LGBTQ+ rights.
Merello reported $13,219 in campaign contributions as of April 30.
Running on her record
Shrugging off Democrats’ criticism , Mainor, 49, maintains she is “extremely proud” of her advocacy for “the school choice bill,” which she said will deliver sorely needed education options to families in her district, where only 2% or 3% of students at some schools meet reading and math proficiency levels, she said.
Mainor grew up in the Hunter Hills neighborhood of District 56, where she said property and violent crimes, prostitution and the drug trade were rampant and students like her were stuck attending low-performing, poorly equipped schools. She said her mother “worked the system” to enable her to attend Mays High School across town, a better public school that put her on a path to attend Howard University.
“Currently, my district has the most charter schools than any other district in the entire state,” she said. “And what does that mean? That means parents want options and choices. And I do believe school choice is going to create a competitive environment; it’s going to change the dynamics of the education system, which needs to happen. I mean, we really do need to look at how education is done. The school board essentially controls the curriculum, and it’s not serving all students well enough. … And so I think SB 233 will allow families to kind of pick what they want.”
Besides improving educational opportunities for children, Mainor said she’ll continue to focus on public safety and criminal justice reform. She pointed to a bill she sponsored last session, House Bill 1165, that will bring in $7.5 million in federal funds for gun violence prevention programs in Georgia, which Kemp signed in April. She also worked this year with Rep. Reeves on House Bill 926, also known as the Second Chance Workforce Act, which allows people to keep their driver’s licenses and “to still be able to get to work” while they’re awaiting court appearances. Kemp signed it last week.
In 2023, as a Democrat she authored House Bill 142, the Unified Campus Public Safety Act, which allows police on the multiple Atlanta University Center campuses in southwest Atlanta to cross boundaries and collaborate, which she said was in response to campus shootings and bomb scares.
Mainor pointed to other accomplishments during her two terms, including her bill in 2021 to create the Fulton Technology & Energy Authority, an agency that fosters the development of energy-saving technologies that she said will lower the energy burden and create good-paying, green jobs for her constituents.
If reelected, her “key priorities are going to be continuing in the education space,” she said. “But in addition to schoolwide things, I really want to focus on the criminal justice system. I want to see what kind of resources you have while you’re in jail that are getting you ready for when you go out of jail and then when you’re on probation, because we really need to be more comprehensive with the resources we’re giving ‘second chance’ citizens once they come out.”
Reeves, who serves on two House judiciary committees, said Mainor “has a passion for workforce issues and upward mobility of young people. … I think her mindset is rather than having people unnecessarily go to jail or go to prison, to figure out a way to not have their work and education disrupted. And that invariably touches on legal and criminal and public safety issues, so we’ve had multiple chances to work together. And what I’ve seen is she’s very educated, intelligent, a deep thinker in terms of legislative matters. She gets the big picture and the philosophical issues, but she’s always working on the practical part of it to help out her constituents.”
Mainor said she has enjoyed accomplishing more as a legislator in the Republican majority.
“Mentally, I’m in a better place because I don’t have the hostility on one side, because of my vote on school choice or whatever vote I did. And so I feel like I’m in a space where I am encouraged,” she said. “And I got a lot more done this year than I did last year.”
She said she is relying on voters in her district to “look at my record and reflect on what I’ve been able to deliver and see how that compares to what you’ve gotten from Democratic representation in recent years. I tell people, ‘Now you have someone at the other side of the table, sharing what your needs are, because right now [the Republicans] don’t know. I’m able to go and say this type of community needs this. Right now they have no idea.’”
Mainor said, “People in the community have told me, ‘You have helped us and we don’t care what letter is next to your name,’ and sent texts saying, ‘I guess I’m gonna vote across the ballot.’ Many people are coming to me secretly. You know, being Black and a Republican is taboo. You’re not allowed to be a Republican if you’re Black. You’re bound to face bullying and ridicule. Nobody, no one feels like they can just come out and say it, and that’s fine. I just need them to vote for me at the ballot box.”
Gillespie of Emory said Mainor might be expecting too much from voters.
“As a third-term incumbent, you have an incumbency advantage, but you haven’t built up a long-term reservoir of goodwill yet, compared to someone who’s held on to the seat for, say, 20 years,” she said. “It’s a risky thing to get ahead of your constituents on policy, when your constituents aren’t animated by the same issues that you are. And now we’re going to see what the impact of that is.”
Early voting is underway through May 17, and primary election day is May 21. Primary runoff elections, if needed, will be held June 18. The general election will happen Nov. 5.
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Have questions, comments or tips? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected].
Kemp signs a bevy of bills on elections, public safety and workforce development
The Gist
Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday ended a six-week whirlwind statewide bill-signing tour that enacted hundreds of new laws governing agriculture, families, elections, public safety and workforce development.
He also vetoed a dozen bills — including those dealing with homestead exemptions and easing eligibility for the HOPE Scholarship for former foster youths — during that time.
What’s Happening
All told, Kemp signed 709 bills into law in the 40 days since the 2024 legislative session ended in the early hours of March 29. The most crucial piece of legislation, by far, was the $36.1 billion fiscal year 2025 state budget, which included 12 disregards. A disregard is when a state agency is directed not to spend the money allocated for a specific item.
“He didn’t have any real disregards. The majority of these are clarifications,” Kemp spokesman Garrison Douglas said of the governor. “Agencies were given more specific instructions on how to spend the money.”
Bills impacting education, health care, military members, human trafficking and Georgia’s coastal communities were among those Kemp signed in the month following the session’s end. Other notable legislation:
- Police and property owners now have more tools to remove squatters, people who have illegally taken over a private home or property.
- Homeowners associations are now required to notify homeowners in writing of a covenant breach and give them time to fix it before the HOAs take legal action.
- Families of students in low-performing school districts may now receive scholarships, commonly referred to as vouchers, of $6,500 per child to be used for private school tuition or homeschooling expenses.
Additional legislation the governor signed over the last two weeks includes:
Agriculture
- Kemp signed a package of bills meant to provide further protection for the state’s No. 1 industry. The new laws are intended to ban “adversarial” countries from owning Georgia farmland, ease high input costs for farmers, protect children from misleading and dangerous marketing, and hike penalties for livestock theft.
Children & Families
- Senate Bill 376 improves timely permanent placement of a child removed from his or her home by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services.
- Senate Bill 387 provides free state identification cards for children between the ages of 14 and 17 who are in the custody of the Division of Family and Children Services.
Elections
Any Georgia resident can now challenge another resident’s voter eligibility under a new law the governor signed in April, setting up probable cause to have voters removed from the rolls, critics say. Senate Bill 189 also allows a presidential candidate from any political party to be on the ballot as long as that person qualifies in at least 20 other states. It’s one in a package of election-related bills that critics say could impact the outcome of the 2024 and other future elections.
- House Bill 974 gives the public online access to photos of ballots cast in elections on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website, requires watermarks on ballots and uses technology to verify the text on ballots cast. The bill also requires a percentage of ballots in select statewide elections to be audited.
- House Bill 1207 gives election supervisors the flexibility to change the number of voting booths in precincts.
Public Safety
- House Bill 1105, the Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act, creates a new immigration law that requires law enforcement to determine the nationality and immigration status of people they detain and requires the Department of Corrections and sheriffs to notify federal authorities when they have undocumented immigrants in their custody. Failure to enforce the law could cause local governments to lose state and federal funds, and law enforcement officers and government officials could face misdemeanor charges.
- Senate Bill 63 adds 30 more criminal charges to those requiring cash bail for release, including 18 misdemeanors, such as criminal trespass, forgery and failure to appear. The bill also limits what charitable organizations can do to provide bail to people in jail and establishes that individuals and organizations cannot post more than three cash bonds per year to secure a person’s release. Legal defense organizations say it unfairly limits their work and violates the rights of those accused, and they plan to sue the state to overturn the law.
- Senate Bill 465 creates a new type of offense — felony aggravated involuntary manslaughter — for selling fentanyl to someone who dies from taking the potent drug. Dealers could be prosecuted under the new law whether or not they knew the drug they sold contained fentanyl. Penalties range from a minimum of 10 years to 30 years or life imprisonment.
Workforce Development
Several bills were enacted to help students take advantage of dual enrollment and technical education programs, especially those in high-demand career fields.
- House Bill 982 directs the State Workforce Development Board to create the High-Demand Career List. Colleges, technical schools and high schools currently use conflicting lists, so this unified list will eliminate confusion among students, parents, educators and agencies about what careers are considered high-demand.
- Senate Bill 440 creates the Accelerated Career Diploma Program and simplifies the pathway for students to receive dual enrollment funding for more than 30 hours.
- Senate Bill 497 expands the apprenticeship programs in high-demand career fields and creates a pilot program for public service career apprenticeships.
The Legislature considered more than a dozen bills related to occupational licensing. Among those that passed:
- Senate Bill 354 removes the licensure requirement for beauticians who blow-dry hair, wash hair or apply makeup. The bill doesn’t include other services, such as cutting hair, applying dyes, bleaching or using chemicals, which will still require a cosmetology or esthetician license.
- Senate Bill 373, requires the Board of Marriage and Family Therapists to issue an expedited license to any individual moving from another state who has a current valid license to practice in that state and is in good standing with that state.
- Senate Bill 195 makes Georgia the third state to join the Social Work Licensure Compact. Once seven states have joined, the compact will become functional and allow social workers with valid licenses in good standing to practice in member states.
View Kemp’s 2024 signed legislation here.
Here are some of the bills Kemp vetoed:
House Bill 1231 would have expanded the Georgia Tuition Equalization Grant (TEG) Program, HOPE Scholarship and Dual Enrollment Program eligibility for certainprivate, nonprofit institutions; allowed HOPE Scholarship recipients to use unusedcredit hours to get a first professional degree; and removed the initial and first-year achievement standards of the HOPE Scholarship for former foster youths. Kemp said he vetoed the bill because none of the three proposals were accompanied by additional funding or fiscal analysis.
Senate Bill 368 would have prohibited foreign nationals from making political contributions, which is already banned by federal law. Kemp vetoed the bill at the request of the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville.
House Bill 1019, as originally introduced, would have doubled the statewide homestead tax exemption to $4,000 from $2,000 if voters approved it in a referendum. But on the last day of the legislative session, the Senate adopted a floor amendment to return the bill to its original form. That amendment did not change the language of the constitutionally required voter referendum, which references a $10,000 exemption. Voters would therefore be approving a different exemption, which the Legislature did not pass. Conflict between the statutory and the referendum language led Kemp to veto the bill.
See the governor’s statements on all the bills he vetoed here.
What’s Next?
Most of the new laws took effect upon signing or will take effect July 1 unless otherwise noted.
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Have questions or comments? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected] and Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
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Rural communities hopeful Kemp change to state soil amendment law will curb stink
After seven years and millions of dollars in restoration, Heritage GA opened its door last month to those seeking solitude and a chance to commune with nature. But the constant presence of trucks hauling a noxious concoction of waste byproducts from poultry processing plants threatens to ruin those plans.
The historic Catholic retreat sitting on 200 acres near Sharon is meant to be an economic boon and tourist attraction for Taliaferro (pronounced “Tolliver”) County, a poor, mostly Black county of 1,600, situated 90 miles east of Atlanta.
“It’s a very historic, sacred site. Our business is being threatened by this soil amendment. It’s [the retreat] been a major financial investment in the county and in the state and it’s really helping,” Betsy Orr, chief executive officer of Purification Properties LLC, which restored the retreat — a tribute to the first Catholic settlers who arrived in Georgia in 1790.
The sludge, known as soil amendment, is being transported to a hog farm about 1.5 miles from Heritage. The former hog farm was cited by the state Environmental Protection Division after residents complained that the waste being spread on the farm had polluted a nearby creek. The property owner resolved the consent order requiring him to pay $5,000, mark the buffer area on the farm and ensure no soil amendment is applied to that area, according to EPD spokesperson Sara Lips.
The Heritage property includes a commercial building, barn, cottages, prayer spaces, walking trails and the oldest Catholic Cemetery in Georgia. Orr predicts that if the smell from the former hog farm reaches Heritage, “it’s going to wreck our business.”
On Monday, Orr breathed an inward sigh of relief when she learned that Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill into law that could prove fortuitous for landowners and other businesses battling problems created by soil amendment.
The new law adds a provision to the state Soil Amendment Act of 1976 that stops companies from hauling or receiving soil amendment if they’ve been notified by EPD to resolve an outstanding dispute or complaint. The notification is known as a consent order. The new law is effective July 1.
“It’s good because the state and the Agriculture Department have really prevented that kind of bill from being enacted because they say that it’s to the farmer’s benefit to be able to use the soil amendments,” Orr said.
Orr’s comments are a common refrain from business owners and families with properties in rural Georgia who sit near soil amendment sites and who complain of vultures, hordes of flies and unbearable smells floating across their properties.
“The problem is a lot of the soil amendments are causing pollution. They are stinky, nasty wastewater and other products,” Orr said. “Sometimes it is not even what they are allowed to dump. Finally, they have passed this amendment, and I hope they enforce it. Some of the things that these people are dumping are … ruining the landowners around them and the state has got to start caring about that.”
Doug Abramson, a retired corporate lawyer who lives in Wilkes County where a soil amendment runoff killed 1,700 fish in the Little River July 2022, called the new law “a step in the right direction.”
“Many counties throughout the state are encountering problems with sludge, improper dumping, and [other] soil amendment issues,” said Abramson, who along with his wife Susan have been working to address the problem for about a decade. “This [new law] is at least a recognition that there are problems out there. I do think the state could do better. The Department of Agriculture could do better but it is a step in the right direction.”
Have questions? Contact Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
Watch live: Kemp signs $36.1B budget bill
Today is the deadline for Gov. Brian Kemp to either sign or reject bills passed by the Georgia General Assembly during this past legislative session. Arguably, the biggest of those bills is the annual budget. Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp will be joined by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, House Speaker Jon Burns, and members …