When you look at these guidelines that are already in existence, if you were to look at the folks who qualify, folks in randolph county who make $117,000 per year would be able to access these funds.

Folks in forsyth county, where the gentleman from the 27th represents, will be able to get access to these dollars and they can make up to $459,000 per year.

So when folks say the minority party is opposed to school choice, , we are not opposed to choice.

We are opposed to just free money being thrown out to folks who do not need it.

Another debate in the senate over school choice and public schools, this time relating to a federal tax credit for donating to private school scholarships.

Good evening and welcome to lawmakers.

I'm donna lowery in Atlanta.

We can call this the 5050 day for the 2026 legislative session.

It's day 20, the midway point.

It means we are also eight legislative days from the all important crossover day when bills need to pass out of one chamber to have a chance of becoming law.

Tonight we'll talk with four lawmakers about their very different bills, all aimed at protecting georgians or enhancing their lives.

The issue of insurance affordability has hit everyone.

It's been a priority in the georgia house.

Tonight we'll get a breakdown on all the legislation on insurance from the chair of a blue ribbon study committee.

We learn of a couple of bills on mental health and suicide prevention issues.

Plus there's legislation to help virtual school athletes, blind persons, school children and older citizens.

All of that coming up after our capital correspondent Sarah Kallis gives us the rundown of the day under the gold dome.

Konichiwa.

It was japan day today at the capitol and lawmakers passed bills dealing with health, finances and education.

The bills in the senate today, all dealing with money sb 432 allows the state's university and technical school system systems to extend their multi billion dollar strategic reserves generated from tuition and fees and carried forward from year to year for an additional five years.

The bill gives schools the ability to self fund needed infrastructure improvements, new technology, or other major ticket items.

We don't want the university presidents or the technical college presidents to be under a use it or lose it mentality where they feel like they've got to expend all of their funds before the end of the fiscal year or they will lose them.

That does not promote kind of a business operation or business philosophy in operating these schools.

The bill passed unanimously.

Senate bill 446 will include georgia in a federal tax program that allows a tax credit up to $3,400 for donations made to scholarship granting organizations who would then distribute the money to a variety of students at different private schools.

Democrats balked at the bill saying that the donations could be made to unaccredited schools and it doesn't help public school students.

This bill is excluding 1.85 million students because right now the federal law actually allows public school students to have access to this $1,700.

So we are going further than the federal government and saying, you know what, we don't want our public school students to have access to this money, but yet we want to give students school choice.

So what we're saying is we only want school choice and options for 185,000 kids.

Let me correct that 150,000 kids that are in private schools right now.

Republicans were surprised by the bill's opposition since it doesn't impact state funding.

This doesn't cost any money.

It helps kids and families get choice.

Why is there debate well there's debate, mr president, because my friends on the other side of the aisle believe in the one size fits all education system.

And if we do anything in this chamber to allow parents to have choices and options.

We get resistance.

The bill passed along party lines 31 to 21, and finally senate bill 462, which will set the rate for an out of network ambulance ride with new guidelines.

As you all know, patients do not choose their ambulance in an emergency.

This bill will prevent the runaway billing that sometimes occurs, unfair billing that occurs when people call 911 dispatch arrives and they don't know what the bill is until after the fact.

It passed 51 to one in the house.

Members passed several bills about health and education.

House bill 970 would require cardiovascular screenings for high school athletes.

There's three parts of the screening.

It's basically a personal history questions, family history questions, and the physical exam itself.

By this, hopefully we can eliminate or really lessen the amount of tragedies we have in the fall when you see the practice happen and things like that when it comes out.

It passed unanimously.

Another house bill, 943, would create a pilot program to screen all foster children for autism.

A lot of these kids that go undiagnosed develop a lot of anger and defiance and because of that they have a lot of mental problems that come along with this.

So this would again stabilize the foster families and these kids would be mentally much more healthy.

That bill passed 165 to two and house bill 419 would require public colleges in georgia to have opioid antagonists like narcan on campus.

The medicine would be stored with emergency kits.

This drug is very important.

It competes for the areas of the brain and helps block opioids so the patient can restore breathing.

This bill provides for immunity for the colleges, for the universities, for the technical schools, and for those who are administering this.

It too passed unanimously.

Also on the agenda was house bill 964, which would give volunteer fire departments the same tax breaks as traditional fire departments.

As some of y'all may be aware, local government fire departments are exempt from avalor taxes on their motor vehicles and also exempt from sales taxes on their fire department equipment.

Independently contracted fire departments,, which are mostly volunteer fire departments, are not.

And again, both are performing the same service for the public.

So the proposal before you today would make independently contracted fire departments exempt from those same taxes so that they would be treated equally as in house fire apartments.

The bill passed 164 to four after the chambers adjourned, speaker the house, john burns, unveiled his plan for insurance affordability.

Over the last five years, the cost of insurance has risen by nearly 60% across these united states, placing a real financial strain on georgia's small businesses and families.

The package of four bills would address homeowner auto and health insurance rates.

Bills range from limiting profits of auto insurance companies to increasing the fine for over 40 insurance violations, including surprise billing and mental health violations.

Also today, legislators rallied around survivors of intimate partner in domestic violence on stand with survivors day.

That's my capital report.

Back to you donna thanks sarah soon lawmakers will begin racing against time to get their bills through one of the chambers.

Tonight we'll talk about several bills.

Joining me is republican representative will wade of dawsonville.

He is one of the governor's floor leaders.

He is the vice chair of the subcommittees in appropriations and banks and banking.

Also here is democratic representative Imani Barnes of tucker.

She's on the higher education, public and community health and technology and infrastructure committees.

Welcome to lawmakers to both of you.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having us.

So leader way, we're going to start with you.

The 988 suicide crisis lifeline.. It became available statewide in georgia back in july of 2022.

You have a bill to help promote it and it's hr 713.

Where's the problem here?

So this is actually an attempt to get citizens to be more aware of 988 and what it does.

I know most of us families, you go to the doctor, you take your kids, you schedule an appointment, you contact a healthcare provider, and you'll receive oftentimes, you know, the prompts for press one for this department press two And while you're on hold, you'll hear if this is an emergency, please call 911.

What this is an urging resolution to get the healthcare community to potentially embrace for their providers.

You know, this is not a mandate, this is just an ask for them to join us in this effort to spread the news about 988.

It's importance.

First lady marty kim has been a stalwart with this effort.

Kevin tanner, my predecessor in the house, he is the director over dv hdd.

This is something he supported.

And I think it's important if you are waiting on hold and maybe you actually have a mental health crisis and you contact a phone number instead of dialing 911, you'll now be aware or a family member that sees you in crisis will have that as a reminder.

Call 988 instead of 911.

So that'll come in on the phone.

You'll hear that as an option.

I believe we will.

We've already had the hospital association, Many folks in public health like the idea again it's not a mandate.

I'm a believer in most of the time when you have a decent idea and you're trying to spread awareness like a public service announcement, this is a fantastic way to encourage that behavior okay thank you.

We'll keep up with that bill.

Thank you thanks representative barnes.

Let's continue with mental health bills.

You have hb 109, a five year pilot program for emergency psychiatric assessment.

What's behind that and what would it do?

So the empath act, emergency psychiatric health assessment centers they would direct you if you're having a mental health crisis, right back to mental health professionals instead of going to the emergency department where you have to get blood taken and it's a stressful environment.

So we're going to bypass the ed, take you right to mental health counselors specialist and it it reduces the time that you're in the hospital yeah so it would be kind of a mobile kind of situation where it's a mobile health unit.

So we would just create these in our emergency room.

I see yeah okay.

All right.

We'll keep up with that yes okay.

Leader wade as a floor leader for the governor, you're promoting his income tax bill remind everyone about that before we talk a little bit more sure so I'm carrying, it's a house bill 1001.

This is a continuation of a joint effort within the legislature and the governor's priorities to reduce income taxes across the state.

We believe in wisdom, justice and moderation in this state.

And this governor has led a path with the legislature's help with speaker, former speaker ralston, and now speaker burns, as well as lieutenant governor burt jones in lowering income taxes for all georgians.

We are now in a position because of good budgeting, a great economy in georgia, we're the number 1 state in which to do business.

We're now going to be able to lower income tax to 4.993 years earlier than the bill originally called for when it was instituted in 2019.

So I applaud governor kemp.

I'm honored to carry that effort.

We are getting ready for that to hopefully be on the house floor soon.

We are at day 20.

So to the to the folks on rules committee the governor would appreciate your consideration very soon.

They're all watching, but they are I know you are.

So the other priority of course in the house for speaker burns is dealing with property taxes.

Will we see both happen?

I truly believe that the house and the governor's office and the senate are going to come up with meaningful property tax relief and reductions and meaningful income taxes.

We are a state that has a robust economy that can make what I think the speaker's mission is, which is mine, is every single georgian should have the opportunity to own their home and not have to rent it from the government.

And this is a path to get us there.

This isn't a partisan issue.

This is to help georgians and georgia families that deserve that opportunity to relive the American dream and pass it on to the next generation.. This is important for me and my family.

I've got two children.

I want them to have that realized so that they don't face the burden of taxation on their number 1 asset that keeps families thriving.

So you think fiscally we can make that happen?

Both of them.

All right, representative barnes, what is your senior stabilization bill?

Tell us about it.

Simple bill.

It puts a rent cap that.

You can't raise the rent up to 10% for two years for seniors 62 and over depending on government assistance.

What made you go for this?

Our seniors are being evicted.

Our seniors are becoming homeless, and we should not allow that in the state of georgia.

Their rent is raising about 50% and we have to.

At least control how much their rent is raising because of their fixed income okay we'll keep up with that bill.

Thank you.

You both care about education and you have a bill to improve digital literacy.

So talk that a little bit.

What is that?

So first I want to just say I appreciate the speaker and miss dale barnes and chris irwin, Bethany Ballard, a host of others that have worked on literacy in the state.

Obviously reading is extremely important by third grade, but also as a parent I am seeing children, this next generation that are going into a world that is so much embracing digital just environment.

We need to make sure that those kids are prepared to face the risks associated, whether it's clickbait that's trying to get them to provide their information, it's a way to prevent them from being attacked through human or sex trafficking or child trafficking.

There are risks associated with it.

And there's also this idea of the character that we have now.

I tell my kids, assume you're being watched on camera or you're being listened to.. How do you conduct yourself and how do you keep yourself safe but also use the tools of technology for good and for positive learning experiences.

So I appreciate it's house bill 12 69.

I hope that you'll support it.

Big brother is there and we've got to tell our kids about that.

That's right.

So you have a bill focused on children.

It's called the healthy start act and you want to make sure all public school children get breakfast and lunch.

Not just breakfast and lunch but healthy breakfast, breakfast and lunch from our georgia agriculture.

So I want us to provide free school meals to our georgia public school children using georgia's agriculture okay and I know you've been pushing this for a while.

Where are things going?

I'm still pushing it.

Appreciate it.

I would like a hearing just to be heard about how we can help improve literacy.

A healthy stomach leads to a healthy mind okay we'll keep up with that bill of course yours too.

Thank you.

Thank you both for being here.

Thanks for having us well coming up, if you have a complaint about insurance companies, you're not alone.

We'll talk about new legislation to help all georgians and we'll also focus on some education issues.

Two house members have lots to tell us.

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It's not a mountain thing or a coastal thing.

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Morning edition on georgia public broadcast that keeps georgians everywhere dialed into home.

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It's a georgia thing Welcome back to lawmakers.

I'm donna loury.

Let's dig into several bills with our guests, republican representative matt reeves of duluth.. He's vice chair of the house judiciary and on appropriations, insurance and secretary of reapportionment and redistricting.

We're also joined by democratic representative robert flournoy of hampton.

He's on energy, utilities and telecommunications, state planning and community affairs, and state property committees.

Welcome to lawmakers.

Thank you.

Sometimes all those committees, they're long names, but they're to do good work.

So we appreciate you being here.

We got to start with you, chairman reeves.

You've spent months chairing this blue ribbon committee on insurance rates.

How you listen to a lot of people.

What would you say was the most the thing the number 1 thing they talked about with you about insurance affordability affordability donna the georgia house has been working all around the state and across the aisle to make insurance more affordable for hard working georgians.

The speaker of the house, john burns, appointed the blue ribbon study committee on insurance rates after the tort reform vote last year to make sure that customers, insurance customers, get the benefit of decreasing premiums and rates and also get their claims handled fairly.

So we went to macon, we went to savannah, we went to the state capital, we went to gwinnett county, we heard from dozens of experts from uga, georgia state, university of south carolina, insurance commissioner john king, and also citizens who had had trees fall on their house, who were hurt by hurricane helene, who had problems that needed solving.

And so we listen to them and we have house bill 13 44 in addition to three bills requested by the insurance commissioner, 12 74, 12 62, and 12 63.

And these bills are designed to improve some momentum that we've gotten in the last three months where ten companies have already cut their rates and two companies have entered the market.. We want to keep that going okay so there are a lot of bills, but they're all focused on the same thing.

You say it's the strongest insurance legislation the country at this point.

That's right.

A lot of other states still have companies leaving their states, still have companies raising their rates.

But here in georgia due to being the number 1 state to do business for 12 straight years and some things we did last year, we've started a turnaround that we want to keep up through this bill.

What this bill does, it increases insurance fines for violations when companies mistreat their customers.

It cracks down on uninsured motorists.

We have 9.1 million drivers.

I heard yesterday from the dds director.

We have about 20% who are insured motors.

That's around 2 million people.

That is way too many.

We're paying for that indirectly by people being uninsured.

So we're going to enforce our uninsured motorist laws and also insurance fraud and many things.

We have some provisions in there about storm claims and when you have problems with claims, they need to be handled more quickly and more fairly for insured.

So it's a good bill aimed at insurance rates and claims processing okay so that's 13 44.

We'll talk about the others in a second.

I want to get too, representative florina, you have a couple of bipartisan bills that would give students in virtual schools the ability to participate in extracurricular activities.

Tell us about it and what led to it yes well, house bill 12 18 allows for virtual school, public school students to participate in interscholastic activities as well as extracurricular activities.

The premise for this bill, I actually had a constituent in my district whose son was not able to participate.

He was a tennis student, 4.2 gpa, very smart.

Individual and he was not able to take advantage of actually being able to play tennis.

And so, once I actually started doing more research and in the bill got legislation proposed, I found out that there were a lot more individuals, a lot more young people who were not able to take advantage of this listen there's over 16,000 virtual students in our state, which is larger than some of our school systems.

Our virtual schools, they are in 158 of the 159 counties in our state.

So we're talking about a lot of individuals, a lot of young people that could be positively impacted by the passing of this legislation.

So I believe that it's common sense.

It comes out of the dexter mosley act, which allows for homeschool students.

And so this is expanding that yeah I was going to ask you about that.

The dexter mosley act did not include kids who are virtual students or in a cyber academy or anything like that.

It did not.

The dexter mos act was passed in 2021 and it did not include virtual students.

And we know after the pandemic there's been an increase in individuals and parents wanting to have their children learn virtually and so this is an opportunity for them to be able to take advantage of that and be able to allow them to have activities in school and participate in sports okay we'll keep up with that.

So chairman reeves, let's get back to it.

Some people might like the name of the next bill, the auto insurance ex excess profits act, because I think a lot of people think that they should get money back if they get a lot of profits and that's what this bill would do.

That's right.

House bill 12 74 adopts a successful model from florida.

At the study committees, we had citizens and insured coming in saying, I wish that the profits insurance companies would make would get passed on to the customers.

And insurance commissioner john king found a successful law in florida that passed on $1 billion of savings just from one company to car insurance customers in florida, there are several other states who have this model.

A lot of car insurance companies are mutual companies, so they're supposed to be doing this anyway.

This makes it the law in georgia that if they have a 5% increase in their expected profit in their insurance rate filing that they must decrease their rates for the benefit of our auto insurance customers, which we were supposed to have 9.1 million in georgia and we're trying to get all 9.1 million insured through this through costs going down so it wouldn't be necessarily a refund, but your rate might go down a little bit based on that.

That's right.

The companies will get in trouble if they are retaining profits and they're going to be required to file a rate decrease and also have fines.

And in a lot of these cases, the fines are being increased five fold.

So we are holding the companies accountable.

It's not a cost of doing business anymore.

It's gonna be a fine and a penalty if they break the law okay let's go back to you, representative lorino.

You have a bill that promotes braille literacy.

We don't hear a lot about this, but what led you to author this bill?

So I I was interested and surprised to hear this as well.

The georgia vision alliance, along with other organizations came to me about sponsoring this piece of legislation.

Basically what it calls for it.

Asked for three different aspects for the bill.

Number 1, it asked for if there's a young person that needs assistance visually, that testing is done.. If that testing finds out that there's something needed as far as iep, then the iep is mandated so that that young person, individual education program correct could be taken care of.

And then secondly, textbooks are then required to have the proper braille information so that then those individuals that are visually impaired can use those textbooks.

And thirdly, that the instructors, whether they are currently instructors or go going through school, have the proper certifications so that then they can teach braille.

This would be in all schools, not just the school for the blind correct is that what you're talking about?

This would be in all schools.

All right.

All right.

And you have some support on this too.

I I I I do have some support looking for more support, but I do have support.

I'm excited.

There's also some additional legislation that's going to be coming soon for those who are visually impaired okay we'll have you come back to talk about that.

All right, chairman reeves, you've signed on to representative eddie msd's bill hb 12 62, that would increase penalties on insurance that if they don't offer mental health parity.

And we've certainly heard a lot about this a few years ago when the big mental health bill passed.

And there are some insurance companies that maybe are not doing it, allowing people to use their insurance for mental health needs.

This bill will be part of the solution on that because following covid you've got a lot of mental health needs.

The law in georgia is mental health is health care.

And this bill will make sure that's the case.

Right now.

The fines allowed commissioner king to fine companies $25 million.

This would increase it five fold so he could fine them $125 million.

That'll get their attention.

As bill 13 44 allows the insurance commissioner to examine fines wrongdoing violations when reviewing rates.

So he it takes the blindfold off.

It lets him consider the full picture.

When a company comes in and says, I want to raise my rates, they need to have a clean record in treating insured fairly on mental health, surprise medal billing, and many other areas.

And that's coming down pretty hard on them.

But because of the tort reform that took place last year, you've seen some good things happening where insurance companies are actually coming back into georgia absolutely American integrity insurance entered the market and then donegal insurance and athens had left the market.

They are coming back.

And then ten companies, state farm, liberty mutual safeco southern general progressive hanover, go auto, all state county country mutual.

I'm going to give them credit every chance I get.

It was nine yesterday.

It's ten today.

It was about half that a month or two ago.

Hopefully we'll have a longer, longer list due to this good bill okay so let's talk about the final bill and that is hb 12 63.

It appears to allow people to make a claim for a refund or a fee.

There is a tax which is embedded in insurance policies called a premium tax.

About half the money goes to the state of georgia, the other half goes to our cities and counties.

I'm proud to represent swany duluth and sugar hill.

And so it funds their police department and things like that.

Companies right now one company tried to get $150 million back seven years later from their premium tax because of an alleged accounting err.

This bill says no way, you can't come in seven years later and try to get money back.

It limits that to three years.

And certainly they're going to get scrutinized if they come back at any time and try to get money back.

We're going to keep up with all of these bills, but we're going to have to go right now.

Thank you for coming on.

That does it for lawmakers.

We return tomorrow for day 21.

Have a good evening Wars