Scott Maxwell, legislative liaison for GPHA, provides weekly reports on activity concerning public health throughout the state legislative session. Click here to read his report for the week ending Jan. 20, 2017.

The General Assembly was in recess last week, however, the Joint House and Senate Appropriations Committees held budget hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday.

From the report:

“The keynote speaker was Gov. Nathan Deal, but his remarks pretty much reflected what he had said in his State of the State address the week prior, or had been released by his office. He re-emphasized to committee members the importance he will be placing on criminal justice reform, including $656,000 in the budget for accountability courts which divert people from prison by giving them an alternative sentence for minor offenses. He also re-stated his goal of having $2.5 billion socked away in the state’s rainy-day fund by the time he leaves office in January 2019. While admitting that sounded like a lot, he said that during the two recessionary years prior to his taking office in 2011, the state drained $1.4 billion out of the fund.”