Georgia Today: Senate committee releases plan to eliminate income tax; Atlanta Falcons shake-up

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, a Republican-led Senate committee releases its plan for eliminating Georgia's income tax. The owner of the Atlanta Falcons shakes up the team's management, and four Chatham County nonprofits will share a grant created from the sale of a Savannah hospital. 

Joyce Roche: It is for the most vulnerable of our citizen population here in Chatham County. 

Peter Biello: Today is Wednesday, Jan. 7. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: A Republican-led committee in the state Senate today released its plan for eliminating Georgia's income tax. The panel, led by the chamber's chief budget writer, Vidalia state Sen. Blake Tillery, intends to advance the proposal in the General Assembly that begins next week. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports. 

Sarah Kallis: Tillery says during this legislative session, he will introduce a bill to make the first $50,000 of income for single filers and $100,000 for joint filers tax-exempt. Additional income would be taxed at just over 5%. He says the state will compensate for the loss in personal income tax revenue by reducing some tax breaks, like the one for data centers. 

Blake Tillery: What this plan says is let's take 10% of those credits and let's use those to reduce the state income tax further. 

Sarah Kallis: Tillery says the plan includes steps to eliminate the income tax entirely by 2032. Senate Democrats raise concerns that the loss in revenue could affect the ability for state agencies to change their budgets. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state capitol. 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Voters in a metro Atlanta state House district have chosen a former prosecutor, Republican Bill Fincher, to head to the General Assembly. Fincher defeated tech industry consultant Democrat Scott Sanders in a special runoff election after Canton Republican Mandy Ballinger died of cancer in October. The district leans heavily GOP, but Democrats were hopeful after a state election flipped a state House District in the Athens area from Republican to Democrat last month. The GOP-controlled state legislature will convene next week with several vacancies due to resignation and several newcomers recently elected because of death or resignation. 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Four Savannah area nonprofit health care groups will share nearly a million dollars from a trust created by the sale of Savannah's nonprofit Memorial Health University Medical Center. The 2017 sale to the nation's largest for-profit health care system, HCA, shocked many in the community. Chatham County Hospital Authority trust chair Joyce Roche says this is only the second time the trust has made awards, drawing on earnings from a $25 million initial investment. 

Joyce Roche: It is for the most vulnerable of our citizen population here in Chatham County. 

Peter Biello: She says the trust will issue more awards in partnership with United Way of the Coastal Empire when there's enough earnings to make them. The organizations receiving funds are Curtis V. Cooper Primary Healthcare, Hospice Savannah, J.C. Lewis Primary Healthcare and MedBank Foundation. All the funds are required to support indigent care. 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: A new study from University of Georgia suggests turkey hunters may be causing turkey mothers to have more daughters, GPB's Grant Blankenship explains. 

Grant Blankenship: Researchers looked at eggshells from four sites in three Southern states to learn about how many dads were represented in a clutch of turkey eggs. PhD candidate Erin Ollery says they expected the young, called polts, to have been about half male and half female. But at some nests there were more females. And so she tried to figure out what was going on. 

Erin Ollery: If there aren't a lot of food resources available during some years, if maybe it's colder out during the winter. 

Grant Blankenship: None of that panned out, but something else did. 

Erin Ollery: Was it unhunted or a hunted population? 

Grant Blankenship: Where hunters and hens competed for toms, there were more female young. The upside, more females means more eggs and better odds against hunting. The downside: turkey hens struggling to find partners. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon. 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: A Georgia resident is claiming the historic nearly $1 billion Nov. 14 Mega Millions jackpot. The Georgia lottery said today the winning ticket was bought in Newnan, south of Atlanta, and represents the largest ever lottery prize in Georgia. 

Story 6:

Peter Biello: Temperatures will be unusually warm throughout Georgia this week. Athens, Atlanta, and Columbus stand a good chance of breaking warm weather records on Friday with expected highs in those areas in the low to mid 70s. Those highs will be roughly 15 to 25 degrees above seasonal averages. This warming is likely gonna be followed by a disruption of the polar vortex, which by next week will bring Arctic air across North America. Temperatures in Georgia are expected to drop next week. The polar vortex is usually the keeper of cold, locking it into the polar regions when strong, but when disrupted, the cold air can escape, cooling the air across the mid-latitudes. This current disruption has the potential to lock in colder weather into early February. 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: The Atlanta Falcons have been disappointing fans with losing records for the past eight seasons. And after the Falcons wrapped up their recent season, owner Arthur Blank announced a significant shakeup. First, coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot were shown the door. And then Blank said he'd create a new president of football operations position that would report directly to him. How might these moves transform the Dirty Birds into the winning team fans expect? With me now for the answers to life's persistent football questions is Jon Nelson of GPB Sports. Jon, thank you very much for being here.

Jon Nelson: As always my friend, good to see you. We'll see if we can tackle this toughest of tough questions when it comes to you. 

Peter Biello: I love it. So Jon, what is going on with the Atlanta Falcons front office here? What can we glean from all these personnel changes? 

Jon Nelson: I think that it was just that point of no return. You have an owner in Arthur Blank who has an incredible amount of faith in the people that he brings in that they can do the job that he anticipates, that they could do it well, and you end up with the results. And you had faith in Raheem Morris. Raheem Morris comes back as head coach. He was an interim a couple of seasons back. But then you have Terry Fontenot as your general manager and the — the seasons that have happened: you would end up with a team, with the Falcons, that would claw their way back into close to being at .500. It would be a team that would have an awful start and then they would have this run when they're not in any manner, way, shape or form going to be close to a playoff berth and then you see all this hope. It's like they'd start out slowly then pick up momentum and then they finish just short. And you're trying to flip that script. It's like, OK, can we get the end of the season be the beginning of the seasons? Can we have folks be healthy? Can we figure things out? And it's been this way ever since 1966 at points. 

Peter Biello: Oof. OK, so it's not uncommon for the coach and the general manager to be fired after losing or several losing seasons but — this is a new president of football operations position. Arthur Blank says it's going to be someone outside the organization, possibly former Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan. How is this position going to differ from what it's essentially replacing, the so-called head of football operations? Does it differ? 

Jon Nelson: That's the thing. Is that what is it going to be? Is it — is it going to beat the on the field overseers? You have your — you have your athletic overseer, the grand exalted poobah of everything football where you're looking over everything that goes on in the administration and the front office and the front office then relays everything down to the team level. So it might be just someone who's been there before that you can kind of sit there and look at things both on the field and off the field and have that, you know, have that blending of ideas: where you know something about one part, you know something about the other part. And so that way "I'm going to be on top of everything and I'll look at what's going on athletically." And when it comes to picking up folks and free agents and cap and all these kinds of things, I would hope that that grand exalted poobah of football has a lot of folks in their Rolodex and in speed dial to sit there and reference things. Because if you're dealing with economics, you're dealing with playoffs, you're dealing with players, you're dealing with contracts, you are dealing with cap, you are dealing with health and welfare. All those different things. You've got to know a lot about it or you've got to have someone that you can reference quickly to come up with those answers if you don't. 

Peter Biello: On the Matt Ryan question, some news outlets are reporting that he's going to be interviewing for the role. So how exciting might that be for fans who remember his days as a player for the Falcons? 

Jon Nelson: I would think that it would be incredibly exciting because he knows what it's been like to get into the postseason. So he knows what it's like from a player perspective. He knows what it's like from a roster assembly idea that having the tools around you. But then what about the players that are there now? Obviously, there's a big question at the quarterback position with an injured Michael Penix; with a Kirk Cousins, who you've got to bring his salary down a little bit. Are you bringing in another draft pick? Are you going to be drafting that way, No. 1 in the '26 draft? Do you try and have a stopgap? Do you do it in '27? Are you looking at somebody like a Trinidad Chambliss? Are you're looking like a Mendoza out of Indiana? I think those are the immediate questions. 

Peter Biello: Other news worth mentioning: Greg Beadles is moving to a different role president chief executive of the Falcons. And he's gonna oversee business operations and Beadles replaces Rich McKay, who's moving on to a role where he's gonna oversee things like Mercedes-Benz Stadium's role in the World Cup. So overall, though, how do all these moves translate to a winning strategy? When you think that really, it's about having the smartest coach who can make the most of the talent he's got on the gridiron?

Jon Nelson: When you have an individual in the front office, they can give you the tools that you're looking for. I would look at the success and the increased levels of success that are wanted by Falcons fans. You focus on general manager, head coach, roster assembly over there. Then you have the administrative part that can help you in understanding, "OK, we can do this, we cant do this." It's chemistry, it's economics, it's health and welfare, all these things that we were talking about just a little bit ago. But having that extra voice that has that added part of experience — and a new voice sometimes. Having a Rich McKay in the Falcons administration is invaluable because, I mean, he's on the competition committee. When you have someone like that that can have that kind of influence in the National Football League, he is invaluable. But sometimes having a newer voice, a fresher voice, and fresher perspective may help you in that regard, to help you with economics and player acquisition and figuring out what you need to do to get that extra edge to get into the postseason. 

Peter Biello: Fresh perspective. Thank you for yours, Jon. Appreciate it. 

Jon Nelson: Anytime, my friend. 

Peter Biello: That's GPB's Jon Nelson. 

And that is a wrap on Georgia Today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you come on back tomorrow. Subscribe to this podcast so you remember and visit GPB.org/news for updates to the stories you heard today and for the latest headlines. If you have feedback for us, send it to us by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. 

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