Macon lawmakers cap session with last-minute deals

For state Sen. Steven McNeel, the last day of the legislative session was a whir of information.

The new Republican senator for Middle Georgia jumped in during the middle of this year’s legislative session after being elected in February. He said the final hours of hashing out bills is a “monumental undertaking.”

“An orientation would’ve been a great start,” McNeel said.

Georgia’s General Assembly adjourned April 3 with a handful of bills headed to Gov. Brian Kemp for a final OK, including limits on school zone speeding cameras and new tax reductions.

Lawmakers also hammered out a budget for fiscal year 2027, which will allocate spending from July 1 through June 30, 2027. New proposals will have to wait until the next legislative session starts in January.

Legislators passed Senate Bill 33, which included language that would cap individual home assessments for the purpose of property taxes at the rate of inflation. That takes the decision on home assessments out of the hands of local governments and allows cities and counties to enact a 1% sales tax after a voter referendum for the sake of recouping property tax losses.

McNeel said home assessments getting capped at 3% was ultimately a compromise made as the clock was running out. Originally, House Bill 1116 introduced a host of tax reforms, including limits on local spending and new homestead exemptions.

He said some of those property tax reforms are necessary to ease the financial burden on property owners.

State Rep. Miriam Paris, D-Macon, said appraisers have told her they don’t know how cities will be able to make up property tax income lost from cuts made by lawmakers.

Raising the sales tax affects everyone across the board, she said.

“For me, I felt like we were really fixing a system that wasn’t broken,” she said.

Legislators also carved out money in the budget for literacy coaches in every school. 

Paris was also able to pass her proposal to introduce financial literacy courses into elementary schools, which was added to another education bill that got passed and sent to the governor’s desk.

“The question of money is at the core of everybody’s everyday living,” she said. “The better we understand money and the earlier we get that education of finances to our students, the better off they’ll be.”

Some of Paris’ bills to address housing costs, like a homestead exemption for public employees, never made it past the legislature’s so-called “crossover day,” she noted. That day is the final day for bills to move out of their originating chamber to the other house.

For state Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, school zone speeding cameras were at the top of his agenda this session. He said he was invested in conversations with legislative leadership who ultimately helped pass House Bill 651. If signed into law, the bill would require a voter referendum for entering into or renewing contracts for school zone speeding cameras.

The bill passed will also require speeding indicators and ban the cameras on four-lane roadways without a crosswalk.

Washburn has been vocal in speaking out against the speeding cameras and filed his own bill to ban them, House Bill 225, in January 2025.

“I am very pleased with what we are able to get done,” Washburn said. “It was not the bill I had originally introduced, but the important thing is that there is some progress in protecting people from what I believe are abuses from the school zone cameras.”

Bibb County is currently in contract with Altumint, a Maryland-based company that installed local cameras and uses software to capture and report citations to the county.

Tickets from the cameras start at $100 in Bibb County, with Altumint taking $25 revenue from  each ticket. Proponents of the cameras say they protect students from pedestrian accidents.

Washburn also laid out several property tax reforms, most of which didn’t make it past crossover.

Legislators did ultimately approve new special taxing districts, overlaid on county lines, that can implement a 1% sales tax to offset the loss in property taxes, but Washburn said he wants to introduce one statewide sales tax, which could even be used to roll back school taxes.

“The key to this is simple is better,” he said. “You propose a simple solution, and that is — add a penny sales tax and use it to roll back property tax.”

State Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, was not able to pass a bill to get sales tax revenue for the Macon Water Authority. He said he was happy his other goal, a grant to put a doctor into Hancock County, was added to the state’s budget.

Lucas also filed a bill to allow for mayors and commissioners to serve three terms, but that bill has not had any movement since entering committee.