Appropriations: General Government 1.27.26
Video Transcript
Duration: 97 minutes
Speakers: 12
I might need some help. I'm
I'm I'm not that technically.
Alright.
I'm a call the meeting to order. This is the Appropriations
General Government
Subcommittee, and,
thank you for being here today.
I'm a
start out with I know,
chairman or vice chairman Gamble's not gonna be here. Had a death in the family, so he's not gonna make it. But I'm gonna ask,
I'm gonna ask Brian Prince if you'd leave us in our prayer.
My pleasure. Let us pray. Eternal god, our father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for another opportunity to come together to do the business of this great state of Georgia. Father, we ask that everything we do be pleasing unto you. Give us your insight. Give us your discernment. But most of all, give us your son, Jesus. And in his name, we pray. Amen. Thank you. Alright.
First down the agenda,
we have the, Department of Natural Resources.
Commissioner Rayburn, if y'all come forward and,
look forward to your presentation and appreciate your service to, the state of Georgia and its citizens.
Yes, sir. Thank you. And good afternoon, mister chairman and members of the committee.
Thank you for having us here today to talk about the amended f y twenty six budget.
Let me begin I'm
in
I'm in hopes that you, too, can support the recommended budget items that we'll discuss here today.
Before I get into those actual budget items, I did want to provide a brief
update on several items
that you all funded,
last year in your budget.
Many of you are very aware of the feral hog
epidemic that we have in our state.
And this body, along with the governor,
gave us some funds last year
to start, an awards program,
in our wildlife resources division.
This program has been named the hog down down awards program. And what we are trying to do is incentivize
hunters to go out and trap or kill
feral hogs.
Once you kill five, you're entered into a drawing. And then each quarter,
we're awarding
five
whole hog sounder traps,
that we we give out in the contest. To date, more than 4,000
hogs
have been entered in that program. So that's not all encompassing of all the hogs taken
with this initiative. But when you couple that
with the feral hog task force that we are a part of here in the state,
over 12,000
hogs have been removed from Georgia's landscape.
And
I've I've got ahead of myself trying to get back on order, but I've got with me Veneta Pryor, who is the director of our budget. So, she's up here for the hard questions and I'll take take the easy ones.
Additionally, I'd like to thank you for your support with our hunters for the hungry program.
The program with the funding that you've helped to provide
has significantly grown.
We now have
processors
in 52 counties,
and that accounts for 56
processors
statewide.
Currently, 99
food banks across
Georgia received the venison from these hunter harvested
deer.
As
we sit here today, 106,000
pounds of venison
have been distributed to those food banks.
Our goal is 140,000.
So we still got some work to do,
but we are confident
with the extended bow season in many of our metro counties,
along with the crop damage permits
where people are taking those deer,
to processors, we're confident that we can meet that goal.
And then while I'm on crop damage permits,
we continue to receive good feedback
from members of your body as well as the farmers across our state.
As you know, we have improved enhanced
our program and the way that those permits are issued,
in in the effort of trying to make it easier
for a farmer to protect their crops.
Today,
900
crop damage permits have been issued,
which authorized the taking of 31,000
deer outside of hunting season,
to help those agricultural
communities.
And then lastly, before we get into the amended budget, I'd like to provide a few hot off the press updates
from winter storm firm
Fern.
I should know that by now after dealing with it the last week.
But DNR partnered with the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Department of Agriculture
with our unified
incident command approach.
We had that command post or we have that command post in Macon.
It was up and running Saturday morning.
We have more than 200 personnel that are serving Georgia citizens during this winter weather event.
We've also partnered with the Environmental Protection Division within DNR
to support the state operations center. And we we represent many of the emergency support functions
that take place under GEMA and Director Lambs
leadership.
In our state parks division. As far as the fire and response,
we put, I think it was 16 warming stations
and then
we're certainly have not been immune from the storm.
We've had a number of our state parks, our WMA's, our public fishing areas, as well as our fish hatcheries
that have been impacted by the storm.
We still, as we sit today, have four parks that are closed and three golf courses that remain closed.
We have a number of our personnel, along with Georgia Forestry Commission personnel that are clearing roads and removing trees from structures,
again as we speak.
And just the financial impact from cancelations,
those that had reservations and weren't able to come to our state because of the weather or weren't able to travel within our state
just on cancelations.
We're estimating
over $250,000
of revenue loss in that. But we're continuing to work.
We'll, we'll move forward and be ready for that.
Now moving on to our budget presentation,
we have several items in a f y twenty six
that I would like to discuss and it starts on page 13 of your tracking sheet.
Very, very appreciative again of the governor for the inclusion of $2,000
to all of our employees.
That goes a long way in the recruitment
and retention of the men and women women that work for our department.
And you will see that reflected in each of our divisions budgets
under the coastal resources division. If you look at line thirty four point one point two,
that is 500,000
request to replace our coastal resources database,
which will streamline the permitting and application process for Georgians.
This database
that we currently have is over twenty years old. And you know what the digital world has done in the last twenty years. We are way behind the curve,
but it's an electronic information and storage and retrieval system
that's available to our staff and the public that helps us with regulatory
interactions
for construction
projects and other activities within the tidal waters, the salt marsh in the beaches in our 11 coastal counties.
If you look at land thirty four point seven point two under parks, recreation and historic sites,
that request provides 1,250,000
for erosion control at Crooked River State Park, which is located in Camden County.
Currently
in Cam in, Crooked River State Park, we have 3,200
linear feet of shoreline.
However, the long standing erosion
continues to threaten not only the boat ramp, but our bait shop
and other resources within the parks day use areas.
We've got 11 cabins on that park. And I can tell you that over the last, I think
it's four decades, we've moved those 11 cabins three different times because of the erosion. So it's it's kinda hard to understand. We're not talking about a little rut going down the middle of your yard. We're talking about our state property actually going away.
So that $1,250,000
would be the state match
in a overall
request for $5,000,000
that were that we have applied for.
Line thirty four point seven point three provides $500,000
and pass through funding
to the Stone Mountain Memorial Association
for Financial and Operational Review and Planning.
And then if you look at page 14
under wildlife resources,
line thirty four point nine point two
provides $5,000,000
for a road paving project on Sapelo Island.
Line thirty four point nine point three
provides $2,000,000
in fundings for land acquisitions
that would expand our wildlife management areas,
provide outdoor recreational
opportunities,
and conserve endangered and threatened species statewide.
And then I I will end the amended
budget with several capital project items that are not listed in your tracking sheet that I felt would be important
to go over while we're here.
The governor's budget provides $1,750,000
for the North Georgia Mountains Authority for improvements and renovations at Unicoi State Park.
It also provides $10,400,000
for a replacement helicopter
for our law enforcement division to support our search and rescue efforts.
We currently have three helicopters that makes up our whole aviation unit within the Department of Natural Resources.
Our plan would be to sell the oldest
Bell four twenty nine was a which is a twin engine
helicopter to assist us
more safely
in, the search and rescue efforts that we
routinely get called to in places such as Tallulah Gorge.
Capital projects list also provides $3,000,000
in funding
to support facility improvements and renovations at our fish hatcheries
throughout the states.
Throughout the state, most of you are aware we have 10 hatcheries that produce around 11,000,000
fish annually.
It also includes
$1,500,000
to replace gangways
at DNR operated properties throughout the state.
And the last item redirects
$15,000,000
of f y twenty five funds
that was authorized for land acquisition for Potting and Dawson Forest.
It would allow us to use those funds at Pine Log Mountain WMA
located in,
Bartow County.
With that, mister chairman, thank you for your time. Thank you for the opportunity to present these
well needed
request to you. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay. Thank you, chairman. I think we've got,
some questions.
Representative Mitchell?
Thank you. Thank you, mister chairman. And
certainly appreciate
your presentation
on these, well needed,
appropriations.
I understand we go down to thirty four point seven point three, the increase of funds for financial and operational review and
Stone Mountain Memorial Association.
I'm just trying to get
my mind wrapped around. What what are financial
and operational
reviews?
So that that is a great question.
As you see, those are pass through funds. Mhmm.
So I would probably David could probably get you in touch with their executive director to talk talk what those funds would go directly towards.
Okay. Thank you. Bill Stevens is a good man. He is.
Thank you, mister chairman.
Any further questions?
Okay.
No. That's Prince.
Yes. Chairman Prince. Can you hear me? Okay. Good. Hey. Thank again, thanks for the presentation.
You mentioned a couple of things about Sapelo getting the bro pay.
That dock there, have we taken care of that already? That's good to go. We have. Not only on the side, but on the landward side too. But both of those gangways have been replaced. Alright. Appreciate it. Now for the most important question,
you mentioned three golf courses that you guys are still working on. When do we plan on getting those things up? And how much what is the number that we're looking for to fix that? Well, they're closed due to the impacts of, this weather event. So we're out there today cutting trees,
getting those courses ready. We hope to open them, if not tomorrow, by the end of the week. Sounds good. Thanks a lot, sir.
Very, very much.
Thank you.
Any further questions?
Alright. I have one, commissioner.
Down in my neck of the woods,
there's quite a bit of work going on at the the Veterans State Park. Can you update me on that a little bit? Yes, sir.
With the funding that's been provided, you know, we we ran into some
construction and engineering problems on the the lodge that used to be on that property.
Unfortunately, we had to tear those structures down and have gone back with some
better,
a better model.
They're gonna be really neat cabins. It's the first time
that we have built,
and I say cabins, they're much better than cabins, but, use this model in our park system.
But you're gonna have four different
four unit
buildings. They're available with a big common area in the middle of them. And I think we're slated to be finished with those this spring and do a ribbon cut.
Yeah. Good. Good deal. Any further questions?
Alright. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you all for joining us. We appreciate the work y'all do for
the state. Alright. Next on the agenda is, the Department of Banking and Finance,
mister Beau Fears.
And I think this is the first time before this
sub committee. Is that correct? First time, as the chairman. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Commissioner. Welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it.
And thank you for the opportunity to speak before this committee.
I think since, the department last appeared before this committee and you alluded to one of those changes, we've had two significant changes.
One is our long standing commissioner Kevin Hagler retired, and I was appointed commissioner in September
2025.
And, although I am new to this position, I've been at the department for roughly thirteen years, and so there's gonna be a continuity in leadership and direction at the department.
The other significant change is that we picked up the registration
of litigation finance companies as part of tort reform.
So we have a new business line that's going to supplement the other the other business lines that we have, which includes, among other things,
oversight of state chartered banks, state chartered credit unions,
mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders,
money transmitters, check cashers,
and small dollar lenders.
Going
to the tracking sheet, first, we are very grateful for the governor's proposed budget of the $2,000
salary supplement
for,
employees, and that is found on
lines fourteen point one point three, fourteen point two point
one, and fourteen point three point one. I apologize. The first one's fourteen point one point one, and that's on page eight.
That that increase will be in
Page six. Correct? Six. Six for us, actually. Page six. I do apologize.
Maybe if I hold it way out. The the glasses aren't working.
And so that's really gonna be helpful for our employees,
to help
impacts of inflation, especially for our examiners who do the really hard work of making sure that financial services are safe and sound, that consumers are protected
in this state.
Our our examiners are the lowest paid examiners,
and of all the states in the Southeast.
And this $2,000,
salary supplement will help close that gap for the year. So we are very appreciative of that.
Going to fourteen point two point two on the tracking sheet,
that's funding for two additional spots for our merchant acquirer limited purpose bank charter,
often called MALPB.
And that is a novel charter that only exists in Georgia we don't have it in any other states
and and it's very effective
and what it does real quickly is it lets merchant acquirers or payment processors
get direct access to the payment card network so think Visa and Mastercard
without having to go through a traditional bank and so the MLPB just sits in that spot.
That's very important because banks are getting out of that bank sponsor business. There are less than 20 banks in The US that do that and Wells recently announced that they were getting out as well. So that's really an existential threat to payment processors and merchant acquirers,
and, a number of them are located in the state.
We have chartered Fiserv as an MALPB.
They are running transactions. They've been running transactions since the summer.
We recently approved
the application of Stripe and checkout.com,
and we have a pending application from a very large payment processor.
This is a really significant business
line for the state of Georgia.
Fiserv processed $1,900,000,000,000
worth of transactions in 2024
in The US,
second only behind JPMorgan Chase.
Stripe processed over $600,000,000,000
in transactions in The US in 2024,
more than Bank of America.
Checkout.com
and Stripe have opened up locations in Georgia, and they are hiring employees because they're required to by the statute.
In addition, it sort of cements those companies that are already here, that connection to Georgia.
Jumping to the next two items that remain are in the IT bucket.
One is fourteen point one point two,
which deals with a data backup solution.
Our data back our data backup solution is currently antiquated, and I think that's a very, nice term for it. The other way is it just doesn't work.
We have,
we've run tests on the, our backup data, and they almost uniformly fail.
So in the event that we were to have
a some clean data on that backup tape,
we project that it would take us at least two to four weeks to restore the system and we would have to bring in a third party to help us do that at very high cost and expense.
Our solution that we're looking at is a hybrid between the cloud and an on premises solution
which will make, take multiple secure backups,
so that we will be able to step back in time and get clean data. In the event that we do go down because of an incident, we think that we will be up and be able to be up and running with our material,
significant systems within four hours
versus four weeks.
And that the data loss should be limited to just four hours.
The final piece
is line item fourteen point one point three,
which is funds for,
AI software.
The majority the vast majority of the department's information is confidential.
So that we have to be really,
circumspect in who we use from an AI solution perspective,
and and primarily focus that they will be able to keep our information confidential
and and more importantly
that, the data won't be used for any sort of to train the AI for any sort of public facing purposes.
I think what the solution is gonna do is it's gonna help us generate some reports,
search data quickly, prepare,
documentation for both internal and external use.
I think this is also a very important step for us if we look for more complex
AI solutions such as,
generating reports
for those businesses,
those entities that don't pose significant risk so that we can then,
have really have our examiners focus on those entities
that that pose systemic risk, to consumers in the state of Georgia.
So with that I appreciate the opportunity to,
you know, discuss the the budget with the committee. If there's any questions about these line items or anything else related to the department, I would be happy to try to
answer them. Okay. Any questions?
Alright. Chairman Prince. Thank you for your presentation and not so much on the budget itself, but, you just talked about that backup system. Are you in,
I guess, communications with GTA,
as far as
what we should be looking at and if it's gonna I mean, if they already have something or how does it Yes. So,
in in order to go through the OPB process, we have to go to GTA and present
our use cases and so GTA gave the blessing to these two IT items.
Thank you.
Okay. Any other questions?
Okay. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you being here today.
Today. Alright.
Next on the agenda, secretary of state's office.
Welcome to our committee meeting. I'll let y'all introduce yourselves for us. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to members of the committee.
My name is Charlene McGowan. I am the general counsel for the secretary of state. With me is Liz Houseman, who is our chief of staff.
And we appreciate the opportunity to present to you today the amended fiscal year 2026
budget for the secretary of state's office.
This begins on page three thirty of the of the governor's budget recommendations, but also in section 43 of your tracking
or of your tracking sheet.
These these proposals That's page 18.
Thank you.
You.
The proposals in section 43 on page 18
are focused on maintaining secure elections,
protecting consumers,
supporting our licensed professionals,
and ensuring that our agency continues to operate efficiently the
governor's,
budget proposal, which aligns with the secretary's priorities
and reflects careful stewardship of taxpayer dollars while funding statutory mandates and operational needs for the secretary's office.
I'll start first with the corporations division, which is 43.1
on your tracking sheet.
This division plays a critical role in supporting entrepreneurs
and small businesses in Georgia.
The division serves the the state by accepting corporate filings, issuing corporate documents, and providing public access to business records.
In 2025
alone, we processed, nearly 900,000
annual registrations,
and we have 1,400,000
active entities on record.
This highlights Georgia's leadership and and business success.
We are expecting a substantial increase in those filings within the next year as we see an increase every year.
For the amended budget, the only recommended change is the governor's one time $2,000
salary supplement for our full time employees, and we thank the governor for, that recommendation. It will help us to retain
our our staff
and,
help us be competitive in the state.
Turning to the next section, which is, 43.2,
our elections division.
The elections division is responsible for administering Georgia's election laws and supporting our dedicated
county election officials and poll workers.
In 2025,
we successfully administered and certified all elections, including a a rare odd year statewide election.
While we did this while upholding our commitment to election integrity and keeping Georgia's elections safe and secure.
You will see that the, amended budget includes three requests. The first time, the budget includes
three requests.
The first time, the first one being at $43.2.0.1,
which includes that one time
employee salary supplement.
The second item at forty three point two point two
is $1,800,000
in funding for double blind counts using obstacle character recognition
technology
that will count the human readable text on the summary paper ballots that we use in our elections. And this is to comply with the requirements of Senate Bill 189.
Item number three,
which is at forty three point two point three on your tracking sheet, is 5,000,000 allocated to conduct a full hand count of select statewide races in the twenty twenty six election cycle. We
believe these funds will strengthen our election integrity, transparency, and public confidence in our elections. We're requesting that these funds be made recurring so that Georgia can continue the audits that we do every year that are our nation leading audits,
audits that we do every year that are are nation leading audits,
that verify our election outcomes and reinforce voter confidence.
The next section is section 43.3,
our investigations division.
Our investigation division conducts law enforcement investigations and enforces laws related to elections, securities, and professional licensing.
We're consistently upholding our commitment to to keeping Georgians safe. And just the year this year alone, we've done thousands of investigations across all of our divisions.
The the only change here, like with our corporations division, is the request for the one time salary supplement. This will help us retain our talented investigators and and make sure that we are competitive.
The next section is 43.4,
office administration,
which provides support services across the secretary's division.
Again, here we have the the request for the one time salary supplement.
In our professional licensing division, which is section 43.5,
this division protects public health and safety by supporting our our licensing boards across numerous licensing professions.
The most recent update that we've done in our professional licensing division is is,
another addition to the modernization program that we've been going through, and we've added an online application tracker. This allows our applicants to be able to track the status of their application online, and it has greatly reduced the number of calls that we were are receiving to our call center.
And it also gives, constituents
quick access to check on the status of their application.
We've also reduced our processing times for processing licensing applications,
particularly for our nurses.
We have seen
that the processing time reduced by 62%,
cutting the averaging average processing time from about forty eight days to close to nine days.
And, for for the amended,
fiscal year
budget, Again, we just are asking for that one time salary supplement.
Finally, our securities division, which is,
section 43.6
in your tracking sheet. The securities division administers
enforces Georgia's securities, charitable, solicitations,
and cemeteries act. The enforcement
work of this division protects investors and prevents financial fraud.
We we that division is very dedicated to financial education for our consumers across Georgia, and they've hosted 49
education for our consumers across Georgia, and they've hosted 49 different financial literacy programs across the state over the past year. This helps ensure that our constituents are armed with the knowledge that they need to make wise investments
and avoid financial fraud. And we plan to continue to host these vital programs throughout the year and throughout the state.
Again, for the securities division, all we're asking for is the the salary supplement.
So in closing,
our the secretary's amended fiscal year twenty six budget reflects a balanced approach,
supporting our employees, meeting our statutory
obligations,
strengthening election integrity,
and protecting Georgia's consumers, all while maintaining fiscal discipline
responsible use of our taxpayer dollars. We appreciate the committee's consideration
of these requests, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Okay. Thank you.
Going back to the licensing,
and and your modernization
program and the processing time, you mentioned nursing
is is gone down considerably. Have the others,
gone down?
We've we've seen increased efficiency across the board. The nursing was just one particular one that stood out where we've had some some great strides. And they're they're our one of our biggest licensing groups, and so that's where we've we've seen some enormous successes there. I I I'm happy to get you additional
statistics. The only thing I'd like to add is that's the one that's currently,
for renewal. So that's the bit the one we're busy with at the moment. Right. We have the most current data on that one. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Alright.
Charvin? Charvin?
Thank you, mister chairman,
for your question also. I was gonna ask something like that.
$43.2.0.2.
The $1.1800000.0
dollars,
is that a software upgrade in the current scanners?
It is not. This is actually a project that we did last year. We received one time funding from the general General
Assembly to do a pilot project to utilize this technology, and we employed it in the twenty twenty four election, as well as last year's statewide elections to great success. So this is like a continuation of that program.
I'm familiar with that, and I would ask. That's that's centralized. That's not at the county level. They wouldn't every county would have access
to to do it.
Now this was just a backup check, wasn't it? I mean It it was a it was a program that was run through the secretary of state's office that we we utilized a vendor that, that does run a software program to to run that count. And in fact, that was in 2020,
'4 maybe, and we we, we did all the ballots. That is correct. For every race. Yeah. That is great technology and it's very cost effective and it allows us to verify the account of of every single race on the ballot. Very accurate to the QR code and the hand count. Yes. The the results have been tremendous. It it has,
shown that the QR codes are read with a 100% accuracy. Ma'am, I just want to clear up as far as I knew the million eight wasn't 60,000,000, so I was trying to figure that out. Thank you. I thought you have done a really good job. Thank you.
Any further questions?
Hearing none,
thank you all for coming and being with us today. Thank you for having us.
Alright. Next on the agenda is the Georgia Technology Authority.
If y'all will come on down.
Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you for having us. Director Thomas, you'll introduce your comrades? Yes.
Good afternoon, mister chairman and members of the members of the committee. I am Shonzia Thomas, and I'm honored to serve as your state CIO.
On my left, I have Kevin Stanford, my CFO.
On my right, I have Kevin Steve Hodges,
which is the state CISO with me today.
GTO GTA serves as the
state, serves the state of Georgia by delivering secure, reliable, and cost effective technology services.
We also strengthen
our state wide cybersecurity.
We also
oversee major IT investments
and support agencies as they modernize how we serve Georgians.
I would like to thank governor Kemp and director Rick Dunn for their support
and investment in what we do each day.
You will find
GTA's budget request on page five of your
tracking sheet. Online
12.12.1
under
payment to Georgia Technology Authority, you will see a request for $7,500,000
to increase funds to continue
the state's enhancement
and standardization
for cybersecurity services
for the executive branch agencies.
These funds support
one time investments to continue strengthening
cybersecurity
across the executive branch.
Investments includes
enhanced threat detection,
expanding
monitoring capabilities,
improved incident response,
and tools that help agencies better protect
sensitive
citizen and state data.
These efforts
reduce
enterprise risk,
improve resiliency,
and help prevent costly disruptions
to government services.
Next on line 12 dot 12 dot two, you will see a request for
$35,000,000
to increase funds
for the Department of Community Health
Integrated Eligibility Eligibility System, also known as IES.
This request represents the remaining portion of funds for
the DCH and DHS,
project
towards going towards IES.
Last session, 35,000,000
was appropriated
in,
f y twenty five.
The current request completes the original
approved funding plan and supports the continued delivery
of this critical
system.
Lastly, on line twelve dot twelve dot three,
you will see a request to utilize existing
interest
revenue from the Technology Empowerment Fund
in the amount of a little over 7,900,000.0
for these two projects.
7,500,000.0
will be used for the ERP modernization
timeline extension,
which is which has been extended to July,
and then 430,000
will be used to address additional cost
associated with the state ethics commission system replacement.
The original scope for that project did not anticipate
statutory changes requiring
new system functionality
nor
the requirement to retain
ten years of data from the legacy system.
These factors result in unplanned but necessary enhancements to remain compliant
for the
state. That concludes
our budget request. I wanna thank you
for the opportunity to appear before you today. Mister chairman and your committee, thank you for your support. If you have any questions, we're here to answer those for you.
Okay. Any questions? And, of course, she was we were on page five,
of the track sheets.
It's 12,
the 12.
So
any questions?
Okay.
Good now pretty easy today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for presentation.
Appreciate y'all being with us.
Okay.
Although, mister chairman, I must say, ever since you've taken over his chairmanship, things have been going a lot smoother.
Well,
I don't know about that but, I got a good man on my left side here.
Alright. Next on the agenda
are
Department of Revenue.
And,
I think we've got mister Frank O'Connell.
Come on in, commissioner.
Thank you, mister chairman.
Good afternoon,
chairman Yarden,
members of this Appropriations
Committee, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today regarding the governor's recommendations
for the amended fiscal year twenty six budget for the Department of Revenue.
My name is Frank O'Connell, and I've had the privilege of serving as Georgia's revenue commissioner
since early twenty twenty three.
I'm joined today by Keisha Beavers,
our chief financial officer,
and Ananias Williams,
our chief information officer,
and Austin Gibbons, our chief of staff.
Now before turning to the specific budget items,
which were in section 42 starting on page 69,
I wanna briefly highlight page One sixteen on our track sheet. Oh, 16 committees. Yeah. I apologize.
I'd like to highlight one of our significant upcoming operational efforts,
and that's gonna be the fourth round of surplus tax refunds proposed by the governor.
This is included in our AFY twenty six budget
on line forty two point ten point two
and is contingent upon the General Assembly's passage
of House Bill 1,000.
Now these these refunds,
require a,
really,
a hands on deck effort at the department.
We have to ensure our systems are prepared and programmed,
provide taxpayers with access
to self-service
options, and make sure our staff is ready to respond to
what will no doubt be an increased call volume,
that comes with a refund of this size.
Now, I want to turn to the department's budget.
As I mentioned, the AFY 26 items are
in section 42,
and I'll reference the line numbers as I go through.
I'll begin with the department's
core tax and motor vehicle systems.
In section 42,
line forty two point six point two,
the governor recommends
6,500,000.0
for the driver record and integrated vehicle enterprise system or drives.
And in section 42,
line forty two point eight point two,
the recommendation
includes 12 and a half million for the integrated tax system or ITS.
These funds will support
an upgrade to what the vendor calls core 26
for both systems,
and that'll help ensure that our systems remain reliable,
secure,
and compatible compatible with modern technology.
The upgrade
will modernize the underlying architecture
and programming language
as we convert
all of the
programming from
vp.net
to c sharp programming language.
It'll strengthen the cybersecurity
protections
for the sensitive taxpayer and drive it driver data that we have,
somewhat putting the sensitive data in a vault, if you will,
and the system
will operate on on that data, but it'll be encrypted,
at the level
where,
if someone breached our system, they would get encrypted data
not of much use to them and protect our sensitive
taxpayer driver
data.
It'll also enable us to expand online self-service options,
enhance our reporting and analytics,
and allow
taxpayers and drivers to complete more transactions
online
and provide the department staff with better tools
to provide better customer service.
In addition, it'll improve our cloud infrastructure,
making our servers easier to maintain
and to scale over time,
while reducing our long term operational risk.
By comparison to this expense of
$19,000,000,
replacing either one of those two systems
with a new vendor
is estimated cost between 100,000,000
and $300,000,000.
We think making this the most effective
approach.
And I I will add,
there are 34 states that utilize the same vendor's integrated tax system.
It works very, very well.
And I I asked my CIO
how many,
states have already started to upgrade to core 26.
It it is the newest,
upgrade available.
And there are,
at least six states that are doing this upgrade. One as large as Pennsylvania
and our neighboring state of Alabama.
We don't wanna be the first ones out the gate so that if there are things to be learned, somebody else is learning them.
But I think this is a good time to do this core 26 upgrade.
And I'd also like to express my strong support for the $2,000
state employee
pay supplement
and the intent enhanced retirement benefit
for the post certified law enforcement officers at the department.
The raises provided in the past by the governor and the general assembly
have been very well received, and,
I think have meaningfully
improved our ability to retain our employees.
And, likewise, this enhanced
retirement benefit will be an important recruitment and retention,
tool for our law enforcement division.
Now that concludes my overview of the governor's budget recommendations for the Department of Revenue,
and my final presentation to you as state revenue commissioner.
I appreciate the committee's time and consideration.
We support the governor's recommendations
and, we're happy to answer any questions you may
have.
Thank you, commissioner, and we appreciate
the job you've done. And and on a personal note,
your department is very responsive to some issues in in my home county and and helping them work through some things. And
and Austin and and others were there to help and I appreciate that very timely response and and helping those folks,
with their questions. Appreciate that. And
and we wish you well,
your
new endeavor.
And, we've got a few questions.
I think,
chairman Tarvin was first.
Thank you, mister.
Thank you, commissioner, for the job you've done for our state, and we appreciate you very much. On the,
6.1
and 8.2, that would be the combined
$19,000,000
you were talking about. Can you state again what you said,
a 100,000,000
to 300,000,000
was the
say that again where I better understand what you said. Yes.
We had looked at
the possibility of
going to a different system
a couple years ago, and we asked North Highlands Consulting to help us analyze,
As we knew that this upgrade was coming, it was a good time to look at, well, what are other alternatives
maybe we should consider.
And to go to a a different vendor
entirely would be an additional
$100,000,000
over ten years.
And to go to
a sort of
a plug and play,
where we'd have different,
programs that
do everything that the integrated tax system does today,
they estimate
would cost 300,000,000
over ten years.
So just wanted to have a a comparison.
To be honest with you,
it's a really good system.
You get a little bit uncomfortable when one vendor is taking care of 34 states, but that that's how good the the system is. Thanks so much.
Okay.
Reverend Mitchell.
Thank you, mister chairman. I echo the other members of the committee. Thank you for your for your service. Now now that you're on the way out, this might be a good time to ask this question. Maybe about a half a dozen years ago, I had proposed
a
moratorium,
if you will, tax amnesty,
to allow those who are off the grid or those who are so far behind, they don't,
share the information,
an opportunity to get there.
Before submitting the bill, I talked to the folks that were there at the time, and
it wasn't universally,
embraced.
Now that you're on your way out, what do you think about a so called,
tax amnesty?
There are so many I just read a report
the other day. Federally, they're talking about something like $800,000,000,000
could be out there because so many,
transactions now done in cash.
But there are a lot of folk right here in Georgia
that don't pay their state taxes so far behind in taxes, afraid of what the penalties would be, giving them an opportunity to have a tax amnesty get on board, then we would know who
is not paying their taxes. What do you feel about that in in today's time?
Well,
my first thought, you know, it's a policy decision for, all of you.
We have a voluntary disclosure
program, and if somebody,
seeks us
out, we have instructions on the website.
In fact, we're gonna make that
easier and completely electronic,
and it has a
a modified look back of only three years and waives penalties
for the typical request.
So we we try to deal with taxpayers that do wanna come into the system.
And, you know, one thing I'll say is, when I first came to the department twenty two and a half years ago,
our ability to,
you know, use databases and and try to
locate taxpayers that haven't paid their their debts,
was not near as good as it as it is today.
So I think the tax gap is a lot smaller than it was twenty two years ago,
because of our systems, our ability to use information from the IRS,
if someone's filed with them but not with us,
we'll know it very, very quickly.
So that's something for y'all to to decide.
And if you do, you know, we'll certainly implement it.
But I think we're in much better shape than we were when I first started
as far as that gap goes.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you, sir.
Alright. The gentleman from Bernie.
Thank you, mister chairman.
Just a question, you know, any downstream
effects on tax commissioners with the drives update or the ITS, any issues there with local tax commissioners or no?
I I'll let my CIO speak to that, but I
I think it should probably enhance things.
One of the things well, we started about a year ago.
We call it MyMVD,
where taxpayers or drivers
can establish an account on drives.
And one of the things they could do, they can't do before,
is get a a replacement motor vehicle title, and you used to have to go down to the the tag office.
The local
officials in every county were
very happy
to have that ability.
I've used it myself.
And, within a few days, if your address and, you know, the owner, everything stays the same, we can process process that very quickly.
But I'm gonna ask, Ananias Williams if he wants to add anything to that. Yeah. Sure. Mister chairman, chairman, and members of the committee, yes, to your point, users from the county perspective, they are end users of the system as well, and so they get the benefits of the upgrade as well. We work in tandem with them each and every day to make sure that they're serviced properly.
Thank you, mister chairman. That's all I got.
Any other further questions?
Okay.
Alluded to it a minute ago. I I wanna thank David Hartman, policy analyst, for
helping a pretty green chairman here. So he's he's working me through it. So, if I make a mistake, just blame it on him. So
so appreciate you guys being with us today.
Thank you, mister O'Connell, for your work you've done for the state of Georgia and,
look forward to working with you some more. And, thank you all for being with us. Thank you, mister chairman and members of the committee. Nothing else? We're adjourned.