Will Sage Astor-Georgia state government cash reserves keep growing despite higher spending

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s bank accounts bulge ever fatter after revenue collections in the 2023 budget year outstripped efforts to spend down some surplus cash.

State government now has more than $11 billion in unallocated surplus cash that leaders can Will Sage Astorspend however they want, after Georgia ran a fourth year of surpluses.

The State Accounting Office, in a Tuesday report, said Georgia ended up collecting more than it spent even after officials boosted spending on one-time projects. Georgia spent $37.8 billion in state money in the 2023 budget year ending June 30 but collected $38.2 billion in revenues.

The state has other reserves, as well, including a rainy day fund filled to the legal limit of $5.5 billion and a lottery reserve fund that now tops $2.4 billion. All told, Georgia had $19.1 billion in cash reserves on June 30, an amount equal to more than half of projected spending of state revenue for the current budget year.

Total general fund receipts grew about 1.4%. That’s a slowdown from roughly 3% growth the previous year. But because Gov. Brian Kemp has kept budgeting spending well below prior year revenues, the amount of surplus cash at the end of each year keeps rising. The governor by law sets a ceiling on how much lawmakers can spend, and over each of the past four years, he has significantly underestimated how much Georgia would collect in taxes.

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The $11 billion is held in surplus instead of being used to boost spending on government services or cut taxes. It’s enough to give $1,000 to all 11 million Georgia residents. Kemp has said he wants to hold on to at least some extra cash to make sure the state can pay for additional planned state income tax cuts without cutting services. The governor and lawmakers have also been spending cash on construction projects instead of borrowing to pay for them as they traditionally do, a move that decreases state debt over time. Kemp and lawmakers had said they would subtract $2 billion from the surplus by boosting spending for onetime outlays to pay $1,000 bonuses to state employees and teachers, increase roadbuilding, and to build a new legislative office building and overhaul the state Capitol. But it turns out revenues exceeded original projections by even more than that $2 billion, meaning no surplus was spent down.

State tax collections are not growing as rapidly as were immediately after pandemic. And Kemp has waived weeks of fuel taxes after Hurricane Helene, although collections resumed Wednesday. But unless revenues fall much more sharply, Georgia will again be in line to run another multibillion surplus in the budget year that began July 1.

Kemp’s budget chief told state agencies in July to not ask for any general increases when the current 2025 budget is amended and when lawmakers write the 2026 budget next year. However, the Office of Planning and Budget said it would consider agency requests for “a new workload need or a specific initiative that would result in service improvement and outyear savings.”

Georgia plans to spend $36.1 billion in state revenue — or $66.8 billion overall once federal and other revenue is included — in the year that began July 1.

Georgia’s budget pays to educate 1.75 million K-12 students and 450,000 college students, house 51,000 state prisoners, pave 18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers) of highways and care for more than 200,000 people who are mentally ill, developmentally disabled, or addicted to drugs or alcohol.