Georgia’s government will put a little extra jingle in the pockets of state, university and public school employees, paying them a $1,000 year-end bonus, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday.
The Republican governor also said he would propose a permanent $104 million yearly allocation for school security going forward, enough to provide $45,000 to every Georgia public school, as he makes further plans to spend Georgia’s $11 billion in surplus funds.
Officials said the roughly 112,000 state and university employees would get the extra $1,000 by the end of the year, while school districts will determine when the roughly 196,000 teachers and support staff get the bonus. Elected officials and judges won’t get the cash.
“We have heard from our agency heads about the need to retain those with valuable skills and knowledge,” Kemp said during a news conference at the Georgia Capitol. “This one time end-of-year retention payment will help us do just that.”
Just to be clear, he’s been doing this type of thing (small lump payouts) for several years instead of actual percentage based cost of living increases. State employees are still mostly poorer now then when he came into office 5 years ago.
That explains it. No one does this out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s either a tax write off or avoiding CoL adjustments.