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Walter Jones Columnist

Published Monday, September 08, 2008

Legislators' new respect for Perdue

Reports about the pain of budget cuts affecting various government agencies have picked up, and the budget crisis is bringing a new air to relations between the governor and legislators.

Slumping tax collections due to a sluggish economy have prompted Gov. Sonny Perdue to order state agencies to find ways to reduce their spending by 6 percent, or just 5 percent for the Medicaid program and only 2 percent for the Department of Education.

Figures for the August tax collections haven't been released, but insiders say they'll be as bad as the 7 percent dip in July, the first month of the fiscal year. The previous fiscal year ended with a 9 percent drop in June.

The latest cuts to make the news have been furloughs in the offices of district attorneys, laid off security guards at public colleges, consolidation of technical colleges and the closure of some small prisons.

Agencies are making their reductions public on their own schedules, so the bad news will continue dribbling out. No doubt, someone is hurt by every reduction, even those working in ineffective programs. But the loudest complaints so far have come over Perdue's first decision, the one potentially impacting the widest group of Georgians, homeowners.

Perdue decided to withhold $428 million in state grants appropriated to local governments designed to offset a portion of homeowners' property taxes.

It drew loud and prolonged cries of protest from the members of city and county commissions and school boards.

Perdue could have asked House Speaker Glenn Richardson about stirring that hornets nest. Those local politicians had barely caught their breath from fighting Richardson's failed proposal to replace local property taxes completely with a state sales tax. Their associations' lobbyists sounded the alarm again, and soon hometown newspapers start filling with stories about the impact on local taxpayers.

The governor argues that the local governments could cut their own spending as the state is doing if officials there don't want to raise taxes. However, legislative leaders have bought the positions of the local officials that withholding the grants amounts to an automatic tax increase, and they have been negotiating with Perdue to find other ways to economize.

"It's been very upfront, open and honest and cooperative," said Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley.

Cooperative or not, it's put Perdue on one side and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Richardson on the other. While the three were all at the Republican National Convention, aides say their busy schedules prevented them from discussing it in St. Paul.

They are to meet again in the coming days with legislators optimistic that the local grants will be restored.

More outcry is coming, though, as other cuts surface. The most recent regards the 80 patients losing their beds to the closure of the Georgia War Veterans Home in Milledgeville.

This time, the protests are bipartisan. The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees decided to hold a public hearing at the nursing home to bring the matter to light. Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown of Macon issued a blistering condemnation of Perdue on Friday.

"It is shameful for Georgia to cast aside veterans, especially at a time the United States is at war," Brown said. "Many of the veterans living at the Georgia War Veterans Home sustained life-changing wounds and witnessed other warriors pay the ultimate sacrifice. Americans should be outraged that the Republican governor of this state places so little value on the lives of our most vulnerable veterans."

At times like this, legislative insiders say they're glad Perdue is making all of the decisions, and they're not interested in holding any special sessions to share his pain.

After all, Perdue is term limited and not running for re-election in two months the way lawmakers are or the governor's office in two years the way Cagle and Richardson are rumored to be. He wasn't named John McCain's running mate as some had speculated.

The state constitution doesn't address whether Georgia governors have the authority not to spend duly appropriated funds, although a statute gives some leeway. There hasn't been a court case challenging the constitutionality of that statute, and lawmakers aren't eager to bring a case now because if Perdue lost it would force a special session.

"He's got all the cards, but he's listening to us," said Bart Gobeil, Cagle's chief of staff.

By the time the General Assembly returns in January, everyone expects they'll still be plenty of political pressure about individual budget cuts to give lawmakers a taste of what Perdue's feeling now. They're just in no hurry.

In the meantime, he can take all the slings and arrows for them.

(Walter Jones is the bureau chief for the Morris News Service in Atlanta.)