State agencies in Georgia are being asked to cut up to $3.8 billion from their budgets to absorb the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The deep cuts to Georgia’s roughly $27.5 billion original 2020 fiscal year budget lawmakers passed last year come as tax revenues are expected to plummet after weeks of statewide business closures and stay-at-home orders prompted by the virus.
[…] Danny Kanso, a policy analyst for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, called on lawmakers to look at raising the state tax on tobacco as an alternative option to hacking away agency budgets.
“State leaders should do everything in their power to avoid making devastating cuts that would be likely to disproportionately hurt public schools and higher education — and possibly further weaken Georgia’s already-stretched-thin health care system,” Kanso said Friday.
