REP. STEPHANIE STUCKEY BENFIELD'S
LEGISLATIVE REPORT
Week of February 26 - March 2, 2007
WEEKLY LEGISLATIVE REPORT - March 5, 2007
By Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield
This Week's Community Events
Georgia Rides to the Capitol! On Tuesday, March 6 th , join with other cyclists and ride to the state capitol to support better bicycling in Georgia. There are police-escorted rides leaving from Roswell, Marietta, and Decatur. Riders will converge on the Capitol at 11:40 a.m. to meet with state legislators. The rides will be led by Roswell Mayor Jere Wood, Marietta Mayor Bill Dunaway, and Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd. Event details can be found on the site www.GeorgiaRidesToTheCapitol.org .
Georgians for Democracy Monthly Meet-Up : Rep. Benfield will be the featured speaker at the regular monthly meeting for Georgians for Democracy at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 7 at Melton's App & Tap, located at 2500 N. Decatur Road in Decatur.
Parenthood Meeting: A community town hall meeting, "Fatherhood + Motherhood = Parenthood" will be held at the William C. Brown Library, located at 2861 Wesley Chapel Road in Decatur, on March 10 at 3 p.m. Speakers will include Rep. Benfield, Judge Mark Anthony Scott, Commissioner Larry Johnson, and a representative from the Georgia Child Support Office.
Strike Out Injustice! A bowling fundraiser for the Georgia Innocence Project, which helps exonerate persons wrongfully convicted through DNA testing, will be held this Sunday, March 11 from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. at Ten Pin Alley, located at 261 19 th Street in Atlantic Station. For more information, please visit www.georgiainnocenceproject.org .
Weekly Legislative Update
Arts education investment would pay off for state
To provide a critical structure for enabling the long-term growth and stability of the arts and arts education in our state, I have co-sponsored House Bill 291, which would create the Georgia Arts Alliance.
The Georgia Arts Alliance is based on a successful model - the Georgia Regional Alliance, which has strengthened our higher education institutions. With HB 291, our state can make a similar commitment and investment in improving our K-12 levels of education. Our state fares poorly in terms of arts education, even when numerous studies have shown that the arts improve student achievement, SAT scores and workforce readiness while lowering drop-out rates. In many counties across the state there are few, if any arts education opportunities because schools and other centers don't have the funds or teacher training or resources to provide them.
By dedicating support to place arts education specialists at the Department of Education and the Georgia Council for the Arts, and by authorizing the Georgia Arts Alliance to recommend a Cultural Policy for the state, HB 291 gives us the leadership and support base we must have to move forward. By strengthening the arts in education, we will help develop the minds of our future thinkers and leaders. By improving our schools, we improve our communities from the ground up.
Under legislation approved unanimously by House members, Georgians will be able to take advantage of two different sales tax holidays again this year.
If, as expected, House Bill 128 is approved by the Senate and signed into law, the first tax-free period will be Aug. 2-5, during back-to-school shopping. During that weekend, consumers would not have to pay local or state sales taxes on school supplies under $20, computer equipment $1,500 or less and clothing items under $100. With the state sales tax at 4 cents on a dollar and 1 to 3 cents locally, a shopper could see savings of $75 to $135 on a $1,500 computer.
Another holiday established in the bill applies to energy efficient products, with the government's energy efficient star sticker that cost $1,500 or less. They also have to be purchased for noncommercial home or personal use. This holiday period would be Oct. 4-7.
Georgia's sales tax holidays have become popular shopping periods, helping boost sales for retailers throughout the state.
Last week, I joined a bipartisan group of House members in co-sponsoring HB 620, the PeachCare for Kids Protection Act of 2007, as a means of addressing PeachCare's short-term funding shortfall as well as stabilizing the program's stability in the long term.
This proposal would allow Georgia to use federal Medicaid funds to provide health insurance for all currently covered children at a federal reimbursement rate of 62 percent during this critical time. This is accomplished by moving all PeachCare children into Medicaid temporarily. Once Congress provides State Children Health Insurance Program funds, which are reimbursed at 73 percent, Georgia could be reimbursed for the difference.
HB 620 would also provide that all children ages 1-18 with family incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level would remain in Medicaid. This approach also allows the children of state employees with family incomes below 150 percent of poverty to enroll in PeachCare.
I am also supporting the other positions of the Georgia Working Families Caucus regarding PeachCare, including opposition to the state's proposed enrollment freeze effective March 11, opposition to cuts in eligibility and services, opposition to restrictions on benefits and premium hikes and other efforts to limit access to quality affordable health care for children.
The General Assembly is now in recess for two weeks, an attempt by House and Senate leaders to give the federal government more time to fully fund the $131 million shortfall in the PeachCare for Kids Program, which will have a major impact on finalizing the annual state budget.
While the full legislature is in recess, lawmakers will be working on pending bills and resolutions at the committee level. Lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene on March 19 for the 28 th day of the 40-day session, which according to a newly adopted schedule will stretch into at least mid-April.
• Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) represents the 85 th District (DeKalb County) in the Georgia House of Representatives. Contact her at 512 Coverdell Office Building, Atlanta, GA 30334; by phone at 404-656-7859 or by e-mail at stuckey@mindspring.com. You may also contact her through her web site www.stuckey.org.
Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) represents the 85 th District (DeKalb County) in the Georgia House of Representatives. Contact her at 512 Coverdell Office Building, Atlanta, GA 30334; by phone at 404-656-7859 or by e-mail at stuckey@mindspring.com.
Friends & Neighbors of Stephanie Stuckey Benfield
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