Georgia will collect another $5 billion in surplus revenue after the just-concluded budget year, which could leave lawmakers and Gov. Brian Kemp with more than $10 billion in extra cash to spend, invest or give back to taxpayers. That’s about $1,000 for every Georgia resident.
Final numbers for the 2023 budget year that ended June 30 won’t be clear for weeks. But numbers announced Wednesday by the state Revenue Department show taxes collected by that department matched last year’s $33 billion, while the Republican Kemp had estimated a $5.4 billion decrease.
It’s the third year of huge surpluses, after $3.7 billion in 2021 and $6.4 billion in 2022, and critics say Republicans are purposefully holding down spending while cutting university budgets, refusing to fully expand Medicaid health insurance to poorer adults and watching state employees flee.
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Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the liberal-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, said leaders “are actively choosing to leave billions on the table to accrue increasingly large reserves for no clear purpose.”
The gusher of revenue, which started during the pandemic, continued in the 2023 budget year thanks to big boosts in corporate income tax collections and sales tax collections, even as personal income taxes fell.
Overall tax collections have cooled in recent months — they were down 0.4% in June compared to the same month in 2022. But the state would have to see a disastrous $5 billion drop in tax revenues in the 2024 budget year, which began July 1, to not meet needed projections for the current year. That means Georgia is likely to run a fourth year of surpluses, unless Kemp and lawmakers substantially increase spending or cut taxes.
“The governor looks forward to working closely with the General Assembly on priorities for how the state’s one-time funds will be used in a strategic, fiscally responsible way that…
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