As Gov. Sonny Perdue and his fellow Republican leaders in Georgia head off to Minneapolis to party, more Georgians back home are beginning to feel the squeeze of his ordered budget cuts and reductions. In one particularly tragic case, the Georgia War Veterans Home in Milledgeville has told residents that it will be shuttering its doors and that they'll need to find other places to live.
The assisted living facility houses veterans with special needs, many of whom were homesless prior to obtaining admission. Programs such as this can be the casualty of across the board budget cuts when department heads look to ax one entire entity quickly instead of causing trouble by messing with the budgets of numerous internal agencies under their control.
Because Perdue's revenue estimates were too optimistic, and unless he convenes an unlikely special session of the legislature where budget writers can explicitly make their preferences known, it will be up to bureacrats to make convenient reductions that may prove to be politically unpopular. In the case of the Veterans Home, it would probably survive a special session, but if it is shuttered that decision may be reinforced by the stark realities of this budget crisis when appropriators finally meet next January.
They'll be unwilling to come to the aid of unpopular decisions that have already sunk in if it means opening new cans of worm elsewhere. By the way, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California skipped the Minneapolis GOP Convention to tend to his own homegrown budget crisis.
Where is Thurbert?
10/6/08
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/mortgage_lawsuit.html
"SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Facing a lawsuit over deceptive mortgage practices, a Bank of America Corp. subsidiary has agreed to modify tens of thousands of loans to keep people in 11 states from losing their homes, the Illinois attorney general's office said Sunday."
Georgia Budget Crisis - Perdue what are you doing?
New gaps have opened up in the budgets of at least 15 states plus the District of Columbia just two months after they struggled to close the largest budget shortfalls seen since the recession of 2001. These 15 states include more than half of the 29 states that have already moved to cut spending, use reserves, or raise revenues in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current fiscal year — which started July 1 in most states. Now, their budgets have fallen out of balance again.
Current estimates are that these mid-year gaps total $5.9 billion — 3 percent of the budgets of the eleven states that have estimated the size of the gap — but they will almost certainly widen as the continuing economic turmoil causes revenues to come in below estimates in more states.
The 15 states facing additional shortfalls are Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. In addition, the District of Columbia faces a budget shortfall. These budget gaps are in addition to the shortfalls that these and other states faced as they adopted their budgets for the current fiscal year.[1] At that time, 29 states faced a total of more than $48 billion in combined shortfalls.[2]
In general, states closed these budget gaps through some combination of spending cuts, use of reserves, or revenue increases when they adopted a fiscal year 2009 budget.
Thurbet and Sonny BoonDogle - where are you
Read a recent article showing Georgia is in the top 15 states with a major budget crisis.
So Perdue baby, please readjust your 2010 budget for the $1.6 billion contract to AT&T
FNM & FRE Failures
A) Just another hot, muggy, Georgia day?
B) Largest financial failure in history of the world?
C) A good day to go fishing?
Sonnys budget
Someone should look into GAIT 2010 that is where his 1.6 billion dollar budget defecit is coming from. The program is to award this to ATT&T for a multi year contract.
Bill, can you post the information on Perdue GAIT2010 $1.6 Billi
sounds like Pork project to me! Impeach Perdue, lets get a Democrat in the Governors office before we have to be bailed out!
$1.6 billion to AT&T!!!! How Perdue, why did you kick our veterans out of their home in Milledgeville, and asking our University System of Georgia to cut their budgets by 8%?
What is wrong with you?
Bill Shipp, and our Democratic Party, please help us tax payers
Sonny's money pit
I Gooogled GAIT 2010 and got several hits, it appears to be a massive ousource project to eliminate many State workers. GTA seems to be the agency who is leading this effort, the CEO of GTA is a former member of the Perdue's staff. This plan smells like a catfish that has been laying on the pond dam for 2 or 3 days. Isn't it odd that the price tag of this is almost the same amount as the budget defecit? I read what I found on Google and it seems that GTA hired a consultant TPI to do a study of itself and it came back that they had ineffective and poor management. This article was in the AJC on Sunday http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2008/09/28/stateit.html
It seems that the State paid close to 4 million dollars for this little bit of info. This sounds very much like what is happening on the National level with the bailout of Wall Street, or is it just me? If you look at that link, Perdue seems to be at the same place he was when he took ofiice. How can it be fair if only one company is bidding, it that a bid or just a price? I do not think the taxpayers of Georgia can afford his plan for a legacy. Someone with the media needs to pick up on this story and do a real investigation folks like us deserve better from our elected officials
Sonny Perdue- Put our veterans back in the home in Milledgeville
Yo Perdue, do you think all of us Georgians are stupid, or that we do not read your Budget or newspapers.
I expect an your republican boys in a hearing to denounce this frivialous $1.6 billion AT&T Contract thru your GAIT Agency NOW!
GAIT 2010
Just had to add my comments. I am one of the employees being outsourced by GAIT 2010. I have been with DHR-OIT for 10 plus years. I have witnessed first hand the money wasting horribly managed GTA and DHR. Either outsourcing or total overhaul of both of these agencies are needed for Information Technology. I do not think the state with its current management philosophies and bloated contracts can provide proper support to the end users for 1.6 b. This is a huge infrastructure that is outdated and hampered by major restrictions. Outsourcing will be the better option, BUT, 1.6 b will more than likely not be the final price. Currently AT&T and IBM are the two vendors. Texas has recently undergone a similar venture with IBM and they are not happy. It has been a money loser for IBM and they have cut back on their providing services. See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/... .
Anyway...after not seeing a performance increase in 7 years and watching people be promoted to get them out of your department.. (God forbid you fire someone, they might try to sue) I am happy to be leaving and going to work for IBM or whoever they decide to outsource me to. Gov Perdue has it right on this one, but I don't think he realizes how big it is... and he also needs to clean house in his upper mgt of these agencies. Currently he is keeping them to manage these contracts. In my opinion they are the ones who have caused this mess in the first place.
Palin's lies
I read your comment in your recent Times-Herald column:
"One of the positive tales about Palin is that she sold the state plane on eBay."
Palin LISTED the state plane on ebay. There was one (1) bidder, but the ebay sale fell through. The plane was later sold off line - no ebay.
Palin gave a nice speech. She talked about how "special needs parents" will have one of their own in the White House. She left out the fact that as Alaskan governor, she cut funding for special needs parents from $8 million to $3 million.
Both McCain and Palin are touting Palin as a fiscal conservative. The truth is that Palin as mayor of Wasilla hired a paid lobbyist to get $27 million worth of earmarks for Wasilla - including earmarks objectionable enough that McCain THREE TIMES cited Palin's earmarks publicly as gross examples of pork
When she became mayor of Wasilla, the town had zero debt. She left the town of 8,000 with $22 million in debt. She'll fit it right away with the Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan that have run our national debt from less than 1 trillion up to 10 trillion.
And of course, she was for the "bridge to nowhere" before she was against it, her support for the bridge was a plank of her campaign for governor. After the bridge was shot down, she kept the $200 million plus and used it for a "road to nowhere."
I could go on and on, but life is too short. The woman's only qualifications are shooting a moose, and failing to either:
1) Teach her daughter "family values" or
2) Birth control
How long ago was it that Bill O'Reilly and the right were castigating the parents of Jamie Lee Spears for being responsible for her pregnancy?
Catch the right in their hypocrisy at:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086
Fortunately, there still plenty of time before the elections, and Palin is galvanizing the Democrats as much as she is galvanizing the Republicans. $10 million was contributed to the Obama campaign in the 24 hours following her speech. I look forward to many commercials that politely show Palin for who she really is.
I don't know how Sonny can sleep at night!
Kicking 80 sick and elderly veterans out of their last hope of any semblance of a residence is simply unforgiveable. Let's all ask Sonny to hold a prayer vigil on the steps of the State Capitol for these men.
This is UNACCEPTABLE - throwing out Veterans out on the Street
COME ON PERDUE AND ALL OF THE REPUBLICANS!
Perdue, Handel, Richardson, and others all partying in MN.
Perdue, you have a hugh staff in the Office of Budgeting and Planning and you now realize we are in a budget crunch!
DO NOT TOUCH OUR EDUCATION AND MENTAL HEALTH AGENCY BUDGETS!