On this sunny Monday, January 12, the members of the Georgia General Assembly returned to Atlanta for the first day of their 2009 session.  There were smiles all around (The frowns will come later!) on this day of pomp and circumstance, as the major activities were the election of leaders and the approval of the rules under which the two chambers will operate.  After the senators and representatives were sworn in (The "swearing at" will occur in coming days!), the House of Representatives re-elected Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) to a third term as Speaker of the House and Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta) as Speaker Pro Tempore; Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons) remains majority leader, and Dubose Porter (D-Dublin) serves again as minority leader.  In the Senate, Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) was elected as President Pro Tempore, and Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) assumed Sen. Williams' former role as majority leader.

The most highly anticipated activity of this week will be the State of the State address by Governor Perdue, which he will deliver as part of a joint session of the House and Senate in the House chamber at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning.  Immediately following Governor Perdue's remarks, copies of the much-discussed and highly-anticipated budget will be released.  At that point, the speculation will be over, and the realities of the budget cuts will become real (and, controversial, to be sure).

Legislation has already been pre-filed by a number of the members, and GSSA has reviewed and summarized those that affect education along with many of the tax bills that have surfaced thus far.  In the world of taxation and tax limitations (Click on the bill numbers to read GSSA's summary and/or a complete copy of the bill.), HR 1 (seeks to cap the annual rate of growth of assessed value of property), HR 2 (another seeking to limit assessment growth), and HR 9 (You can own your property tax free for life, if you are willing to pay 20 times this year's tax to do so!) have already been dropped.  SR 1 is a reprise of a 2008 bill, one seeking to limit what can be done with "excess" state dollars (Haven't been too many of those "excess dollars" lately!).  SR 2 seeks to provide local governments the option of substituting a sales tax for local ad valorem taxes, but in the current climate of "no new taxes," it is not likely that a bill of this type will move very quickly.

Longtime readers of this site know that members of the General Assembly, even those who profess to be advocates of local control, cannot seem to refrain from offering pieces of legislation that seek to tell local systems how to govern themselves or how to run the schools which they are constitutionally mandated to "control and manage" themselves.  First in line, so to speak, this year are:

• HB 3 -- Rep. Jerry Keen's second attempt to mandate that all Georgia school systems close on Veteran's Day each year.  [Editor's note:  This legislation failed on the last night of the 2008 session.]
• HB 33 -- an almost word-for-word copy of a bill that passed the Texas legislature last year, one which seeks to mandate that schools provide a "limited public forum" for students to express (primarily religious) viewpoints.  It is entitled the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act."
• HB 37 --  another 2008 bill resurfaces, this one trying to mandate time away from the workplace for parents to attend conferences at their childrens' schools.
• SB 8 -- provides for possession and self-administration of auto-injectable epinephrine by students.
• SB 14 -- registered sex offenders would be ineligible to serve on a local board of education.

Finally, the pre-files just wouldn't be complete without a bill related to retirement, and HB 41 is one of the more interesting ones seeking to restrict where retirement system funds could be invested.  Perhaps that's a good place to end the Day 1 report and begin to eagerly anticipate what might come on Day 2 and beyond.