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Published Tuesday, November 17, 2009 in Local

Sen. Seabaugh to talk budget with educators

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

Sen. Mitch Seabaugh will be talking to educators Thursday evening about the state budget, and what the future holds for education.

"The reason for the meeting is to communicate the state of our state and its finances, and what the economists are saying we are going to be looking at for the next two and a half years," said Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg.

The event will be held at the Coweta County School System's Werz Boulevard location at 6:30 p.m.

"I want to sit down with educators and kind of show them the information we have and what we are dealing with," Seabaugh said.

"So, number one, everybody can be well informed. And number two, maybe they can help with some input on how we can deal with the challenges that we've got before us," he said.

A big part of the meeting will be telling the educators what is really going on, and fighting misinformation.

"I think that, many times, the worst enemy that we have when we have challenging times is rumors," Seabaugh said.

"I'm going to try to explain that no decisions have been made on anything, and take an opportunity to dispel any rumors: because no decisions have been made."

When the Georgia General Assembly met this spring and prepared a budget for the July 1, 2009 to June 31, 2010 fiscal year, everyone knew that the economy was bad and that tax revenues would be down.

But, as it turns out, things were even worse than expected.

So, a few months ago, Gov. Sonny Perdue withheld approximately $900 million in funding to various state agencies. It was that decision that led to widespread furloughs in many state agencies, including teacher furloughs.

Though the legislature actually controls the state budget, "when revenues are coming in lower than appropriations, the governor has the authority to take steps to withhold funds," Seabaugh said. And revenues are definitely too low to cover all that was budgeted.

Reconciling the revenue predictions, and the actual revenues, is the point of the amended budget. Each year, the General Assembly first tackles that amended budget, sometimes called the "supplemental" budget.

"When that budget passes, which basically reduces the appropriations amount to equal the revenue amount," Seabaugh said, the governor "has to release the money to the appropriated amounts."

However, "with the numbers the way they are right now, there probably will be even more that we will have to cut," Seabaugh said. "That's what I'm going to talk about Thursday night."

He hopes to dispel some fears.

"The basic, fundamental part of what I am trying to communicate is that no decisions have been made," Seabaugh said.

Secondly, he wants to give educators "an opportunity to bring forth ideas about what we can do in education," he said.

He wants to hear about things the educational system does well that "we need to make sure we do not cut," and also get ideas of "some areas where maybe we can pick up efficiencies."

With so many challenges before us, "I'm hoping to get more people involved" in addressing them, Seabaugh said.