This isn’t exclusive to JUST Hall County or Gainesville. Everything that takes place during The General Assembly session //otherwise known #GaPOL// ripples down to the local level. If you don’t like your taxes being so high, well that’s when you begin to engage with your reps. If you don’t like what’s going on inside your school district, yep. You engage with your local reps who represent YOU under the Gold Dome. I’ve been working with senators and house reps for five years now. In the state of Georgia you don’t have to register as a lobbyist to speak with the folks you elect. They were hired to represent US, and from my own personal years of experience, one thing remains true. If you don’t tell them what they don’t want you to know, nothing is ever going to change. Take for instance the way your Board of Education runs amuck and unchecked. Their fiscal mismanagement has a direct correlation to why y’all have such high taxes.
How did you get stuck paying off General Obligation BONDS out until 2030? Well in 2020 the county placed those GO BONDS on the ballot. It was a simple in favor of or against question. However no one went out of their way to make the public aware of what a GO BOND was, so everyone voted yes on a LOAN that you as tax payers must pay back. So instead of using SPLOST to build your schools, or make any other improvements to the district, you’re on the hook to pay off a loan you didn’t know you were co-signing on. But here’s the catch. When you take a peep at your tax bill, you’re going to see two line items that come from your BOC allowing constituents to vote on. You not only PAY for SPLOST, you also have a line item on there labeled BOND. But the bizarre thing about your taxes is that you’re paying off TWO of those BONDS. GO BONDS became popular thanks to Alvin Wilbanks in Gwinnett County. Your Board of Education and their employee are on record stating how much they appreciated the help that Wilbanks. One of those nuggets of wisdom was a work around to keep $100 million in SPLOST funds on you at all times while having taxpayers foot the bill for all the brand new schools popping up. They can use GO BONDS for anything related to what they took the bond out for. This is why your SPLOST piggy bank barely budges.
Newly sworn in rep Drew Echols has already mentioned on Martha Zoller’s podcast that he wants to be on the tourism committee because he wants to make sure things are on the up and up out there for MORE tourism income. When you bring more tourism income into your area, that means you, the taxpayers will foot the bill by way of your taxes shooting up to pay for something LOCAL legislators push for under the gold dome.
Chris Irwin, one of the folks who helped resurrect Carrol Daniel’s has been the Education Committee Chair for years now. Chris has his hands in a lot of areas, but his work on the Education Committee has led to one of the most significant bills for kids in the state of Georgia *HB538 Georgia’s Early Literacy legislation* being passed. Then it was funded appropriately because of his partner in crime during #GaPOL. Chris Irwin’s info and how to contact him for everything can be found by clicking this link
Then we have Matt Dubnick. This is Chris Irwin’s partner in crime at all times during the Georgia General Assembly process. Matt is also on the Education committee while serving as the chair of the Education Appropriations Committee. Thanks to Matt, we secured funding for two pieces of legislation I’d worked on that never stood a chance of seeing the light of day if we didn’t get an assist. So Matt did just that. He was a vital part of getting *HB538 Georgia’s Early Literacy Legislation* passed, then he made sure to secure the funding for a bill that passed back in 2019. That bill is SB48 which mandates you must screen every child from PK-rd grade for characteristics of Dyslexia. When we finally got that bill passed, no one bothered to FUND it so we were heading into the inaugural year with zero funding for the universal screeners. Matt pulled a Hail Mary at the end of the 23/24 #GaPOL session by making sure the appropriations committee not only funded SB48 but they also funded the Literacy Coaches which had been removed the year prior. So for a mom of a Dyslexic kid, the duo known as Chris and Matt was something we never thought we’d see. But they went all in to make sure every child in the state of Georgia were taught to read. You can contact Matt Dubnick by clicking this link.
There are several reps who I haven’t mentioned that represent this area, but I’ll put that information below. I’m also going to load up all the past sessions held in the house and the senate in the 23/24 session. Vimeo has them listed in an insane way, but I’ve found that if you search by section, then sort by date it’s much easier to find your way around. Last but not least, remember to check the calendar on a daily basis to see what committees are meeting, what room they’ll be in and what’s on the agenda. Word of warning the agendas change depending on whatever mood these folks are in so don’t ever think it’s going to be set in stone!
Word of warning…. Don’t bet on these being archived for viewing immediately upon ending. Download screen recording software so you can film them in real time. I know that sounds insane, but trust me they come in handy when you need to refresh someone’s memory. You can also follow them on YouTube which tends to be WAY more reliable because VIMEO likes to ACT OUT!
Here is the House of Representatives VIMEO channel Georgia House of Representatives VIMEO
Here is the Georgia General Assembly’s Senate VIMEO channel Georgia General Assembly Senate VIMEO
Georgia Senate YOUTUBE can be found here
And this is where you can find the Georgia House YouTube channel
