Happy New Year! This past year has been nothing short of exciting! During the 2015 legislative session, we passed several bills that have made an impact on citizens throughout Georgia, including Ava’s Law, Haleigh’s Hope Act and the Transportation Funding Act, just to name a few.
Since session ended in April, legislators have been at the capitol discussing hot button issues that will likely arise during the 2016 legislative session. These topics include developing a clear process for creating cities, studying the availability of women’s healthcare throughout Georgia and looking at different ways we can preserve the HOPE Scholarship for future generations.
On January 11, 2016, senators and representatives will return to the Gold Dome, get sworn in for the second half of the biennial term, and the 2016 legislative session will commence. One of the first orders of business will be vetting and voting on the Fiscal Year 2016 Supplemental Budget and the Fiscal Year 2017 General Budget. To do this, the Senate Appropriations Committee and its respective subcommittees meet and hear testimony from vested parties, including various state agencies. I’m honored to be a member of the Appropriations
Committee, as well as the Chair of the Public Safety Subcommittee and will do my best to ensure proper funding is allocated so our citizens remain safe. Half way through each fiscal year, Georgia legislators must look at the state of our current budget and spending to determine the areas where we have allocated too much money, and redistribute it to the areas where we need additional funding. Once we finalize and pass the amended FY 2016 Budget, we will look into the recommendations for FY 2017 General Budget.
Recommendations for the budget come from the Senate, the House of Representatives and Governor Deal. These recommendations are created after hearing testimony and examining the current spending and predicting what funding each department will require over the next fiscal year to operate sufficiently.
For the past few months, I have been working on improving legislation I introduced during the 2015 legislative session and drafting a few pieces of new legislation that I plan on introducing during the upcoming session. Last year, I introduced SB 77, which calls for DNA sampling and analysis of felons. Over the past few months, the National Labor Relations Board has overreached and changed franchiser employment rules, which has led me to create legislation to protect our franchisors called the “Protect Georgia Small Business Act.” I will also be introducing the “Georgia Personal Data Security Act” to protect and provide proper notifications of sensitive information.
I look forward to representing you this legislative session. If I can be of any assistance or answer any questions, please reach out to me. As your Senator, I am deeply humbled and honored by your confidence and look forward to being another conservative voice during the upcoming legislative session.
to your business!