October 12, 1999:

GEORGIA LEGISLATURE PREPARING FOR 2000 SESSION

The upcoming session of the Georgia General Assembly is scheduled to convene on Monday, January 10, 2000. This session is the second year of the two-year term. The anticipated schedule calls for the legislature to meet that first week, acting on bills held over from the previous session. Then, it will take a one week break for the joint House and Senate Appropriation Committees to conduct public hearings for the various state agencies to present their budgetary requests for the upcoming fiscal year starting July 1, 2000.

The General Assembly will reconvene after that one week break and continue until the legislature completes its 40 day term. Because 2000 is an election year, legislators try to finish their business earlier than usual in order to get back home and start their respective re-election campaigns. Look for the session to declare sine die (that is, no more days or the end) by mid-March.

Unlike the 1999 session which was dominated by health care issues, Governor Barnes has declared that his major initiatives will focus on education. His Education Reform Commission already has begun its work by holding a number of hearings across the state. It is expected that this Commission will make certain recommendations which will be incorporated by the Governor into his legislative package and introduced during the 2000 session.

Also, there will be attempts to revisit some of the Governor's successful legislative initiatives from the 1999 session. His health care reform package with a state version of a patient's bill of rights and his transportation and urban growth commissions may be subject to some fine tuning.