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Sine Die: 2018 Legislative Session
Steve Gooch
Steve Gooch
Session is finally over, Sine Die, in Latin, “without day,” was March 29 and the General Assembly has wrapped up another year of making laws and setting the State’s spending priorities for FY 2019. Over the interim, I will continue to publish this column for several weeks in an attempt to highlight some of the more important bills that were passed. During the 2018 Legislative Session, the Senate along with our colleagues in the House, passed the first individual income tax cut since 1937 and the first corporate income tax cut since 1969. By passing House Bill 918, which puts Georgia’s “Internal Revenue Code” in compliance with changes made on the federal level, we have ensured that taxpayer dollars are utilized in a fiscally conservative manner while putting money back where it belongs – in the pockets of the taxpayers of Georgia. Additionally, for the first time in recent history, with the final passage of the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) Budget, House Bill 684, the Georgia General Assembly has fully funded the Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding formula and eliminated austerity cuts. The FY19 budget fully funds the QBE formula by allocating more than $167 million to the Department of Education for additional funding in K-12 public schools bringing the total funding for education to $9.6 billion. This allocation will ensure that our local school systems receive 100 percent financial support by the state.