Deal Makes Area Stop To Lay Out Grim State Forecast

Gov. Nathan Deal and his wife recently saw the opera “Porgy and Bess” at the nearby Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

He told an audience of 600 plus Cobb business and community leaders Monday morning at that he was very impressed with the facility.

“It’s that cultural environment that draws people to Cobb County,” he said at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce's First Monday breakfast at the Cobb Galleria where he was the guest speaker.

It was an upbeat beginning for a mixed bag of news in the governor’s remarks on the “issues important to our state.”

"I thought it was a decent update,'' said Smyrna Economic Development Coordinator Jered Sigmon. "He spoke mostly about what is important to the people with transportation, SPLOST and HOPE scholarships. I would have liked to have heard him talk more about economic development news concerning the port in Savannah.''

But what the governor did communicate to those attending Monday’s breakfast is that there are some tough times ahead due to the state’s budget crisis.

The state is facing an $800 million gap in the fiscal year 2012, which begins in July. Deal said he has asked for a 4 percent reduction, on top of a 3 percent reduction this year, in state spending.

The cuts, he said, however, won’t be equally dispersed. Education is always a priority, he said.

Georgia was awarded $400 million last year to invest in education reforms at the state level and in five metro districts and 21 others, as part of President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top competition.

But other areas of education will face cuts, Deal said. The coveted HOPE scholarship is one of them.

Potentially 180,000 of Georgia's 200,000 HOPE scholars will receive only 90 percent of current tuition levels.

Deal said that if the move hadn’t been made, the program, fueled by the lottery, would have run out of money by 2013. Revenues have simply plummeted.

Another area that had been targeted because of reduced revenues is the Pre-K program, another lottery-funded institution. Deal had proposed shortening the hours from 6.5 to four. But he said Monday there was considerable opposition to that, and he is now proposing to keep the full-time program, albeit by cutting back the number of days from 180 to 160. 

Deal also spoke of the continuing battle over water. On Wednesday, the state will ask the federal appeals court in Atlanta to overturn a judge’s ruling that found it illegal for the Army Corps of Engineers to draw water from Lake Lanier to meet most of the metro area’s needs.

If Georgia, Alabama and Florida can’t arrive at a water-sharing agreement that is approved by Congress by July 17, 2012, metro Atlanta will only be allowed to take the amount of water it received in the mid-1970s.

Deal said the state is looking at various options and will spend $300 million over the next few years trying to find a solution.

He has launched a water development program that will bring people together from across the state to look at the issues, “so we won’t be so dependant on federal reservoirs” in the future.

 He said there are plenty of wonderful natural resources in the state that need to be captured so they can be used when needed.

Deal said that an important economic development issue is brewing in Savannah. State officials say they need $105 million in federal help this year to deepen the harbor so it can compete with other Atlantic ports when bigger ships begin passing through the Panama Canal in 2015.

“We have been working hard to make sure we get them (ships) there,” he said.

Deal admitted that transportation is still a problem for the Atlanta area and encouraged members of the Chamber to help pass the regional tax vote next year.

In conclusion Deal said people are always asking him if he is having fun.

The new governor grinned, and said yes.

- Hunt Archbold contributed to this report