'Lawmakers' Day 11: Senate OKs property tax exemption; House OKs wild hog bill, magistrate court fees

Caption

Girl Scouts are pictured in the House gallery as they were honored for Girl Scouts Day at the Capitol on February 3, 2025.

Credit: Georgia House of Representatives

Tuesday was Girl Scout Day at the Capitol and hundreds of scouts filled the Gold Dome. Meanwhile in the chambers, lawmakers passed several bills, including another look at property tax exemption. 

In the House, representatives approved a bill that would create safe devices to place an infant in for parents who surrender custody of their newborns. 

"How this process works is a newborn can be surrendered at, say, a fire hall," Rep. Mike Cameron (R-Rossville) said. "When they open the front door of this device, they place the baby inside, it's almost like an incubator, they close the box, an alarm goes off silently inside the fire hall, then someone comes out of the back side of the device, and they take the newborn out. Then the process is to take the newborn to a medical facility to be checked out. Usually with EMS. When the child gets to the hospital, they notify human services. They check the baby out, and once the baby is deemed to be safe and okay, then within six hours, the Department of Human Services picks the baby up and places him in care. That way we get him in a safe place where they'll be there."

House Bill 350 passed unanimously. 

They also passed a bill aimed at addressing Georgia's invasive wild hog problem. 

"House Bill 946 would remove the following barriers, therefore helping to remove even more of these invasive animals," Rep. Rob Clifton (R-Evans) said. "Section one of the bill would allow residents and non-residents to trap and kill feral hogs without a hunting or trapping license."

Other provisions of the bill would allow hunters to hunt a hog while in a vehicle and use drones to track hogs. That bill passed 163 to 1.

Members gave approval to a House Bill 999, which would allow magistrate courts to charge a fee that they would use to fund technology.  It passed 160 to 4. 

In the Senate, two bills were brought to the floor. Senate Bill 420 would add a $10 fee for fishermen wanting to catch certain fish species off of Georgia's coast, such as red snapper. 

"Using funding generated by this license endorsement, the database of the endorsement holders, Georgia DNR can produce more accurate catch estimates for popular species like red snapper and king mackerel than they're currently produced by federal law," Sen. Drew Echols (R-Gainesville) said. "For the past several years, Georgia anglers have only been allowed to harvest red snappers for one, maybe two days a year when that species is way more abundant than has been documented by the feds."

It passed unanimously. But Senate Bill 382 was a bit more contentious. 

The bill would make the statewide homestead exemption measure mandatory, not allowing local municipalities and counties to opt out, which previous legislation passed in 2024 allowed. 

"We're here because the original bill got changed on the other side with an opt-out," Sen. Chuck Hufstetler (R-Rome) said. "And I know many House members over there didn't want that either, including the two that helped us in Bartow County, the senator from 37th and me and the two House members to put a local measure on. So shockingly — or not shockingly — 70% of the school districts opted out. About 20% of the cities did. And so here we are with the majority of Georgians is not having the protection that others have."

The bill would tie property tax increases to the inflation rate at the time of assessment. It also adds a 1-cent floating local option sales tax, or floss tax,  to help offset local government revenue losses. 

"Allow a penny to apply towards property taxes," Hufstetler said. "Thirty-nine counties put it on the ballot, 90% of them passed it this year. One of them said the money doesn't get to us quick enough, and they didn't like that part of it, so this is going to address that. And if this passes, it'll be available for all 159 counties and 535 cities."

Some Democrats supported the bill's attempt to help with affordability, but had concerns about the one-fit-for-all measure. 

"Our counties have widely variant economic conditions," Sen. Elena Parent (D-Atlanta) said. "So it really is not, in addition to not being particularly smart policy-wise to demand a blanket condition, it also isn't necessarily even practical or equitable. And it does tie our local officials' hands in terms of how they can deal with their own budgets and provide the fiscal accountability that they are tasked with providing for their constituents by virtue of their own duly elected positions."

Democrats were also concerned about the Republican bill reneging on the compromise made with Democrats on the original 2024 bill's opt-out option. 

"The reason why we're even here is because we actually did have a compromise between the two parties, between the two parties here late at night to actually be able to send this to the voters," said Minority Leader Sen. Harold Jones II (D-Augusta). "We actually brought Democrats and Republicans to the table, to where we actually had to work through these particular issues. And we actually have an opportunity to influence that legislation, and then we were able to take it to our voters and where, after hearings, our voters then made a determination. That was actually real working together. Now though, because we only need a majority vote, we now today have decided we're about to basically scuttle all of that and determine what local communities may have decided is wrong."

The bill was passed 31 to 19. 

The Senate also recognized Girl Scouts, as well as Aerospace and Defense Day at the Capitol. 

"There's more to our military installations than just the bases," Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (R-Marietta) said. "The surrounding communities and defense industries are key players in our economy."

Gov. Brian Kemp celebrated the event by taking a quick flight in an F-35. Well, sort of. 

An Air Force flight simulator was set up in the rotunda to highlight the $57 billion industry in the state and show off the country's latest high-tech fighter. 

"Today, as it was mentioned, aerospace is Georgia's No. 1 export, totaling $12.6 billion in the most recent data that we have," Kemp said. "In the industry itself, as was mentioned is now the second-largest in the state, producing an economic impact of over $57.5 billion annually. Those numbers are literally out of this world."

Habitat for Humanity volunteers framed a house in Liberty Plaza across the street from the Gold Dome for Capitol Build Day. The event took place to promote their cause of providing affordable housing throughout the state. 

And the Carter Center brought their annual mental health parity symposium to the Capitol to advocate for mental health care to be treated the same as physical health. 

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Jon Burns (R-Newington) unveils his Georgia Families First policy initiative. Lawmakers will also reconvene for Day 12.

GPB's Lawmakers returns for Day 12 on Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. on GPB TV.