Become A Georgia Budget Expert: How Is It Funded?

In the second installment of Become a Budget Expert, we discuss the three areas that make up state funding: taxes and fees, bonds, and the rainy day fund. Taxes and fees make up the yearly state budget in good economic times and are supported in bad times by reserve revenues, called the rainy day fund. While, bonds are generally used to pay for long term capital projects so that they may be paid for over their useful life.

We’ll be back Tuesday with the third installment showing how these revenues are spent, by category. Enjoy your holiday weekend.

About the Become A Georgia Budget Expert Series:

In the state of Georgia, every one of these issues comes back to the budget. We have to have a balanced budget every year. We have critical needs in Education, Health Care, and Transportation. And we have to accomplish all of our goals in these areas and more while having a tax burden that keeps Georgia an attractive place to live, work, and operate a business. Thus, Georgia’s budget is at the crux of virtually every major policy decision.

As such, our PolicyBEST Policy Analyst Zack Lindsey has prepared a series of six short videos that break down our budget process, as well as show where the funds come from and where they are spent. We’ll show the difference between revenue growth and surplus funds, how Georgia’s budget has changed over the last decade, and finally do a comparison of Georgia’s budget and tax burden to that of our neighboring states.

The goal of these videos is too provide raw numbers and facts, as a resource for you to expand your knowledge on Georgia’s budget.

You can see the first video of the series here: