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.”

  • geogle@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Supercritical@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So that’s probably lessmore than one paycheck. (Edit: fixed a typo. I said that wrong)

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes. I know.

        Georgia public school teachers. It was a sarcastic comment about how little public schoolteachers get paid

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would hope so! Even if you’re paid twice a month, $24,000 a year is probably not going to attract too many teachers.

      • Scurouno@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’m waiting for them to send out exactly $1000 to all public employees (1000/1000s of employees). “We didn’t say $1000 each!”

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        er… I said that wrong. Doomscrolling after waking up in the middle of the night is not… a good idea… heh.

  • The Giant Korean@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As a GA employee, this is pretty frustrating. Just increase my pay already, please.

    My coworkers who are Kemp fans are all for it, though 🙄

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Kemp loves to brag about the budget surplus that GA has, but all that tells me is that they’re not using the money the tax payers are giving them. They’re just hoarding it.

      Please raise teacher salaries, improve roadways, give us public transportation, something