This legislation expands the statewide homestead exemption for 100% disabled veterans by including veterans that may be less than 100% disabled but are compensated by the Veterans Administration at the 100% level due to the individual's unemployability because of their disability.  This change will also apply to the exemption from vehicle ad valorem tax for a disabled veterans and the vehicle exemption is expanded to include an unmarried surviving spouse or minor child in the event of the death of the disabled veteran.  According to the tax commissioner's association, this bill should have little to no fiscal impact on the county governments.

This legislation requires law enforcement agencies to destroy all data captured by automatic license plate readers after one year. This bill also makes it clear that license plate reader data is not subject to open records disclosure.

This legislation is the Department of Driver Services (DDS) annual housekeeping bill. One provision of this legislation eliminates the requirement that DDS notify licensed drivers by certified mail of suspension for failure to appear for a hearing on a traffic offense. The bill was amended in the rules committee prior to going to the floor to include a requirement that the court send a notice certified return receipt mail to those who fail to appear for court and give an opportunity for an additional hearing before notifying DDS. The proposed requirement could be a significant cost for local courts.  The current version of the bill has stripped out the certified return receipt mail requirement for counties.

This legislation creates the Board of Community Supervision to oversee the newly created Department of Community Supervision (DCS) and the Governor's Office of Transition, Support, and Reentry. All offender supervision activities will transfer from the Board of Pardons and Parole and the Department of Corrections to the new DCS. This legislation also transfers the County and Municipal Probation Advisory Council, the agency tasked with registration and oversight of private misdemeanor probation providers and governmental misdemeanor probation providers to DCS. The bill also includes requirements for increased transparency and financial reporting by the misdemeanor probation providers to the counties of fine collections, which was an ACCG priority. A county commissioner or manager is included as a mandatory board member for the new department. The Board will adopt rules and regulations governing the management and treatment of probationers and parolees, and the operation of misdemeanor probation supervision.

Probation  and Parole Offices will combine, some counties currently provide space to these entities, and these offices collect fine revenue from probationers to be processed and sent back to local governments.  Misdemeanor probation providers (county and private) will be required to submit an annual report to the county commission that contains the amount of fines and fees collected and the nature of such fees, including probation supervision fees, rehabilitation programming fees, electronic monitoring fees, drug and alcohol detection device fees, substance abuse or mental health evaluation or treatment fees, and drug testing fees; the number of community service hours performed by probationer under supervision; and, a listing of any other service for which a probationer is required to pay to attend.

This legislation now authorizes the use of fireworks on any day of the year between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. (with the exceptions below). Local governments may adopt ordinances allowing or regulating their usage from 9:00 p.m. until midnight.  On July 3, July 4 and Dec. 31, fireworks may be used statewide from 10:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m., and on Jan. 1 fireworks may be used statewide from midnight to 1:00 a.m. and from 10:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. For a more detailed summary of the legislation, please click  here.

 This legislation includes "recruits"  (i.e., prospective firefighters who have not been certified or registered by the Firefighters Standards and Training Council) in the definition of "firefighter."  HB 970 also gives the Firefighters Standards and Training Council the authority to establish minimum standards for hiring and training contract firefighters, as well as other firefighting service professionals as they deem necessary.  

The language from this bill was added to HB 727 which passed both chambers. 

 This legislation restricts the use of Department of Public Safety vehicles by off duty officers.

This legislation requires law enforcement officers that respond to emerency calls or perform traffic stops to wear audio and video recording devices while they are on duty. Only the portions of recordings involving an encounter (i.e., a stop, detention or investigation of another person) are public records subject to disclosure.  Recordings must be maintained for 90 days except that recordings involving an arrest, detention, use of force or for which a complaint has been lodged must be maintained for three years.

Counties that fail to implement the recording devices by January 1, 2017, are subject to losing state funding and state administrated federal funding. The legislation provides for grant funding to help small and underfunded law enforcement agencies to comply with this law.

This legislation was amended to include language from H.B 534 which defines relationships between relatives that constitute incest and H.B. 578 changes making harrassing telephone calls to a crime to make harassing, threatening or harassing telephone calls or electronic communications. The crime may be prosecuted either in the county where the communication is sent or received.  This legislation will have no direct fiscal impact on counties.

Last year's omnibus gun legislation, HB 60, prohibits law enforcement from detaining individuals for the purpose of determining whether they are legally authorized to carry their weapon.   This legislation allows law enforcement to do so.  

This legislation requires law enforcement agencies to include the fine revenue received from speeding tickets over 20 miles per hour above the speed limit when calculating total speeding fine revenue for the department. Currently the total revenue from speeding fines under 17 miles per hour cannot be more than 40 percent of the overall budget, this legislation changes that ratio to 35 percent. This bill requires counties and municipalities to include in a separate section all speeding fine revenue in the annual report submitted to the Department of Community Affairs

This legislation allows commissioners to adopt policies allowing their sworn peace officers to retain their weapons and badge upon retirement.

This legislation attempts to address the backlog of sexual assault evidence that can be used to identify rapists, commonly referred to as "rape kits."   The current version of SB 304 requires medical professionals, who collected evidence for rape kits prior to July 1, 2016, to notify law enforcement by July 15, 2016.  Law enforcement must collect the rape kits by July 31, 2016.  The evidence must be submitted tot he GBI by August 31, 2016. 

Law enforcement must also create a list of evidence from these forensic medical examination in their possession on August 1, 2016 and submit it to the GBI by August 15, 2016.  

To prevent a future or continuing backlog, SB 304 requires medical professionals to notify law enforcement when they have conducted a medical examination that produced evidence for a rape kit.  Law enforcement has 96 hours to obtain the rape kit from the medical professional.  Within 30 days of collecting the rape kit, law enforcement must submit it to the GBI Division of Forensic Sciences.  

The current House substitute to this bill, LC 34 4943S, is a MAJOR revision of the MARTA tax and TSPLOST. The bill no longer contains any provisions regarding fireworks, although the summary for that version appears at the end of this new summary. 

The new transportation funding version of this bill does many things, including:

1) The City of Atlanta ONLY is allowed to levy an ADDITIONAL MARTA tax up to .50%, that will run concurrently with the existing 1% MARTA tax, if approved in a referendum.

2) The current single county TSPLOST is now available ONLY to counties which are not "metropolitan county special districts". In other words, this TSPLOST is available to all counties EXCEPT Fulton. This TSPLOST continues to not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

3) 159 special districts are created and a new TSPLOST at the rate of up to .75% is allowed for each special district that constitutes a "metropolitan county special district" defined as a county in which the 1% MARTA tax is currently levied AND in which 80% or more of the geographic area is made up of qualified municipalities (meaning a qualified municipality for SPLOST purposes). So the reality is this TSPLOST is for Fulton County ONLY. This new TSPLOST will not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

4) 159 special districts are created and yet another new TSPLOST at the rate of up to .75% is allowed for each special district that constitutes a "metropolitan municipality special district" defined as a city in which the 1% MARTA tax is currently levied AND in which 15% or more of the geographic area is made up of a metropolitan county special district. The second condition is meaningless since the City of Atlanta is the ONLY city allowed to levy the MARTA tax under the MARTA local constitutional amendment. So the reality is this TSPLOST is for Atlanta ONLY. This new TSPLOST will not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

THE FOLLOWING NO LONGER PERTAINS TO THE BILL: 

Prior to the House substitute, this legislation did not allow local governments to determine the hours of fireworks usage, which ACCG continues to advocate.  However, the bill makes several significant and beneficial changes to Georgia's fireworks law, including limiting the usage of fireworks from between 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., extended to 11:59 p.m. on January 1, July 3, July 4 and December 31, and until 1 a.m. on New Year's Day.  Local governments may extend these hours at their discretion.  Areas prohibited from usage are extended, and local governments determine whether to permit usage on their public property. There are various changes to the licensing of fireworks vendors, and local governments are clearly authorized to enforce state fireworks laws.