Tuesday, February 4, marked the start of the fourth week of the 2019 legislative session. Post Super Bowl, the pace of the session is picking up, and this week brought about notable progress. This week, the House passed several pieces of legislation on the House floor, including important measures like the Amended Fiscal Year 2019 budget and an adjournment resolution that sets the legislative calendar for the remainder of the session.
On Friday, House Appropriations Chairman Terry England presented House Bill 30, the Amended Fiscal Year 2019 budget (AFY 2019),on the House floor, where it passed by a vote of 166- 8. The FY 2019 budget, approved during the 2018 special session, set state spending at $26.4 billion for the current year. The state has collected $435.7 million in new revenue since we passed the full budget, which is a 1.6 percent increase over the current budget and brings the total appropriation for AFY 2019 to $26.9 billion. After crafting a budget that is seeks to deploy tax payer dollars wisely, the House version of the AFY 2019 budget prioritizes areas like our children's safety and well-being through new school security grants, improving mental health services for high school students and supporting our growing foster program, which accounts for $87.7 million, or 20 percent of the total new revenue. The House's amended budget also includes important funding for our K-12 education needs, health and human services and additional funding to support Georgia farmers impacted by Hurricane Michael.
A critical item in the HouseAFY 2019 budget includes an additional $10 million for emergency disaster relief to aid our farmers in southwest Georgia who were devastated by Hurricane Michael last October. Our House Appropriations subcommittees came together to include this funding in the AFY 2019 budget to bolster loans for our farmers. This additional funding builds upon the $55 million that was appropriated to the Georgia Development Authority (GDA) during the 2018 special session in November. Since then, the GDA has received 412 loan applications, totaling more than $100 million in assistance requests. Of those 412 applications, 124 have already been approved, and nearly all of the $55 million has been used to secure loans. Southwest Georgia landowners lost $1.6 billion in agriculture commodities, $763 million in forest products and $63 million in agricultural related equipment, and this additional funding will continue to bring much needed relief to hard-working farmers in southwest Georgia. I commend the GDA and the Department of Agriculture for their quick response and helping to secure these loans in less than eight weeks to help our southwest Georgia neighbors.
The House and Senate will reconvene on Monday, February 11 for Legislative Day 12. As always, I greatly appreciate any feedback I receive from my constituents, and I welcome you to contact my office for questions or concerns about the legislative session before we adjourn Sine Die. My Capitol office number is 404-656-5064, and my email address is chuck.martin@house.ga.gov. Please contact me anytime.