Georgia Legislative Watch

As revenues continue to drop, there is more talk of a special session:

The length and depth of the current recession have prompted round after round of cutbacks in state spending, and now legislators are talking about the need for a special session to address it.

Tax collections were down in May, putting the decline at 10 percent for the 11 months of the fiscal year to date.
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“I think the will of the General Assembly right now is that it’s something we ought to do,” said Rep. Ben Harbin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

“Everyone should be involved, not just the governor and the department heads,” said Harbin, R-Evans.

Perdue’s approach so far has been to give department heads a percentage to cut and let them decide what should go. Harbin and other lawmakers want to have a say in where the ax falls.

As Harbin notes, the governor only can trim budgets, but legislators can kill programs outright. No list of programs ready for the knife has been compiled, according to Harbin, but one could be assembled before a special session, keeping the actual time in session to the one-week minimum.