Gov. Brian Kemp Monday announced his legislative package “enhancing K-12 education and securing Georgia classrooms.”
Split between appropriations in the FY’25 and FY’26 budgets and proposed legislation, this package “fully funds K-12 formula earnings, provides funding for additional school safety grants, enhances mental health support and crisis counseling, and boosts technical education and transportation funding,” according to the governor’s office. The package also aims to improve benefits for teachers and faculty and provides funding for capital projects to modernize facilities and equipment, “ensuring safer and more effective learning environments” across Georgia.
“We are spending more today on K-12 education than we ever have in our state’s history,” Kemp said at a news conference. “I made a promise to hardworking Georgians that we would make all of our children a priority in this state, and we are doing that once again today. In working with our legislative partners, we have fully funded our schools, raised teacher pay by nearly $10,000, delivered millions of dollars in school safety grants, consistently directed funding to address mental health in our schools, and so much more. I am proud today to stand with our legislative partners and announce these additional actions that support our educators, help secure our classrooms, and ensure our students have the resources they need for a safe and quality education.”
The governor is proposing:
- Allocate $120.8 million in amended fiscal year 2025 and $402.2 million in fiscal year 2026 to fully fund K-12 education.
- Provide an additional $10.3 million in pupil transportation – sustaining the higher rate of state-funded grants for buses and operational costs.
- Fund equipment grants of $1.25 million to support new or expanded technical education labs in high schools that train for high demand careers as defined by the State Workforce Development Board.
- Legislation to increase the indemnification benefit amount in the case of death for the Public School Indemnification Fund to match the benefit for the Public Officers Indemnification Fund. Specifically, the payment would be raised from $75,000 to $150,000 and a person may elect a payment of $2,500, rather than $1,250, paid in equal monthly installments for five years.
- Increase Public school employers contribution to the Teachers’ State Health Benefit Plan (SHBP) to improve the funded ratio of the health insurance plan. These increases from $1,760 PMPM to $1,885 PMPM for certified school personnel and $1,580 to $1,885 for classified school personnel will go into effect at the beginning of fiscal year 2026.
- Allocate $50 million in the amended fiscal year 2025 budget for one-time additions to school safety grants. This is an additional $21,635 per school in one-time funds on top of the $47,125 base amount received each year. This year, in total, $158.9 million will be made available in school safety grants for a total of $68,760 per school.
- Sustain $3,015,000 for expanded K-12 bandwidth as started with Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Funds.
- Fund crisis counseling training with the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). With this allocation, 20 counselors from local districts and postsecondary institutions will be able to receive intensive training in a nationally recognized program designed to provide counseling support in an educational environment.
- Include over $872,000 in the Quality Basic Education program to improve the student to school psychologist ratio.
The governor is also proposing a total capital package of $212.4 million that includes $178.5 million for regular facility earnings, $20 million for the purchase of school buses, $7.3 million for vocational and agricultural lab equipment in fiscal year 2026, and $6.6 million in the amended fiscal year 2025 budget.